Are you an irrelevant Negro?

Are you an irrelevant Negro?

"The hardest task for a Black minister today is to give a eulogy for an irrelevant Negro."

Such was the profound statement of Reverend Al Sharpton during a recent segment of the Tom Joyner Show. Sharpton’s statement wasn’t meant to disparage Black Americans, nor was it an indictment against engaged activists. Instead, as I interpreted it, Reverend Sharpton’s assessment was a reflective truism that has lingered in my mind since he uttered the words more than a month ago.

In fact, it provided me with another in a series of teachable moments for my youngest son, and with a former MCJ employee who has suffered from mild depression while forced into early retirement due to a heart condition.

During one of her frequent pity parties, I flipped the script, explaining that while she is limited in her physical activities, she wasn’t prohibited from using her convalescence as an opportunity to contribute to our community. She could tutor a student, or make calls for a political or civic organization.

Form a tenants organization or block club. Or maybe write letters to the editor of the local newspapers, influence the status quo and disprove the stereotype that Black people don’t read, or write.

She could pen an article about the positive aspects of Black culture, stressing time tested values and mores. She could speak to the importance of education, civic involvement in the war on crime, or maybe how the cancer of drugs has impacted our community.

Maybe she could add her voice to the growing cry to end the war in Iraq, call for systemic changes in the biased criminal justice system, or advocate for universal health care.

Who knows, someone will be drawn to action by her comments. Maybe people will join her in reshaping America or be motivated to walk a more progressive path.

Even though, she is confined to her apartment that doesn’t mean she is isolated from the world outside her door. She can make many contributions, sharing knowledge, wisdom and insight with someone in need of guidance.

In the final analysis, if she were to die tomorrow, I asked, how would she be remembered; what contributions will people attribute to her? What would her obituary say beyond her birthday and time of death?

"Do you want to be remembered as an irrelevant Negro? Or will they say you made an indention in the sand that changed the course of the mighty ocean? All those little things can add up, and change the world around you. Do something today to insure your relevancy."

I told her that over 2,500 people showed up for my son, Malik’s funeral. Though only 27, he had made a significant impact on our community. He was a teacher, mentor and surrogate father to hundreds of children. He was a member of BAEO and awarded the title of "emerging Black leader." He was politically active and a volunteer youth coach. Dozens of people lined up to espouse his virtues and the impact he made on their lives. He definitely wasn’t an irrelevant Negro.

What about you?

Given that this is Black History Month, it seems an appropriate opportunity to reflect upon your life within the context of our universal quest for civil and human rights? Black History Month is essentially about paying tribute to relevant Negroes. But it should also be used to assess what we have done with the tools and opportunities they provided us with. Black History Month stares back from the pages to ask us if we are relevant Negroes; have we used our abilities and energies to continue the fight. Or have we become part of the problem through our apathy, myopia and ignorance.

From their graves, King, Douglass, Turner, and others are asking the question: Are you a relevant Negro? How would you be remembered if you joined them tomorrow? Could the minister who eulogizes you (if you know one) be able to say that you were active in community work, achieved something significant professionally or socially?

Will he say you were an engaged member of a church, that you served as a role model, or that you demonstrated your care for our community. Did you take the baton; continue the race to move Black America closer to the Promised Land?

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that we all may not be great, but we can all serve, we can all contribute. And through those contributions, we are significant, important in the overall scheme of things. It is those contributions that add relevancy to our lives.

Maybe I’m wasting valuable space in this week’s newspaper. Maybe relevancy isn’t important to you. Maybe just saying you were a brother, sister or unassuming neighbor is enough for you.

Those close to you may remember you as a kind-hearted person, as a good brother or sister, a son or daughter or parent. You worked a non-descript job, enjoyed sports and cut your grass every week.

That’s fine.

But I think God gave each of us a talent and a task. Each of us is supposed to leave this world a better place. Not to strive to improve your life, the lives of your children, and of your community is to waste your life; it means you just exist.

I’ve written hundreds of obituaries over the years. I sometimes will get information from a surviving family member and will try, frequently in vain, to stretch it out. There must be more to the story than that a person was born, lived unassumingly, and then died. A two-sentence obituary is better than nothing is, I guess. But it says something about a person’s relevancy if you can’t go beyond two sentences.

I remember asking a sister a few years ago about her father, and she couldn’t provide me with an immediate answer. She felt guilty, and her discomfort touched me deeply. So I probed, and questioned. Eventually, I found out that her father was an active member of his church. He never missed an opportunity to vote, and frequently took elderly people to the polls.

Although he didn’t have a high school diploma, he worked hard his entire life, his family never went without food or the basic necessities, and he used a firm hand in their upbringing. He also didn’t hesitate to intercede if he witnessed a neighborhood child doing something mischievous.

Even the thugs respected him and called him "Mister." He turned one of them around and helped the potential gangsta’ return to school and eventually graduate from high school.

This seemingly irrelevant brother gave to an international charity for children, and proudly declared to the world that each of his five children graduated from college. He fulfilled what I consider the basic and most important tenet of fatherhood: to take his children "further." In a nutshell, he was a good man, who contributed to his community, to his church and his family.

In many respects, he was a hero, a role model.

He wasn’t an irrelevant Negro.

His daughter ended up using my obituary for his eulogy. They spoke of an honest man, a God fearing man, a community leader. And a good father who provided our community with good people who in turn will contribute to our community.

That, unfortunately, was an exception to the rule. There have been many cases where I’ve tried to put together an obit that takes up a paragraph, and most of that is about his survivors (you know the part at the end of the obit that lists who the person is survived by.) I was even asked once to write an obit for a young thug who was killed while trying to rob somebody. He was a drop out who sold drugs, fathered babies that he would never raise and was feared by elderly neighbors. Had I been truthful, I would have written that he lived a wasted life; his Neckbone mother was a poor parent and didn’t instill in him the values and mores that define our culture. Instead, I let the minister earn his honorarium. Maybe he could create a eulogy for that irrelevant Negro.

I’ve reached the age where I’m thinking more and more about my legacy, how my children will remember me. I don’t plan to leave them a pot of gold, but I hope to leave them something more lasting.

They will be able to say that I worked hard for my community, tried to empower Black people. That I served my church, my family and my community. They will hopefully read and know that I always tried to carry myself as a role model.

I’m sure there are some people who don’t like my Black nationalistic philosophy, but most of them respect me, which is important, because they recognize that we may be on different trains, but the same track.

My children will know that I was a soldier in the civil rights army, and I never wavered from my obligation to the community, our African centered culture and our special relationship to God.

I admit I stumbled more than a few times in my life, but I never fell. I’ve always felt that stumbling was essentially "falling forward faster." Thus, I grew from my mistakes.

They will be able to say that I left the world a little better than before my arrival. That I worked hard to make myself relevant.

What about you? Are you an irrelevant Negro?

Hotep.