Today is Ash Wednesday. I mention that because my March posts will be about Lent. But as it is still February, still Black History Month, we have my next favorite candidate.

When I was in middle school, I had two favorite nonfiction books that I checked out, often, from our church library.

The first was about the Ice Age. The second was a biography of George Washington Carver. I think, by googling quite a bit, that it must have been the one by Anne Terry White. The 1962 cover looks right.

If you know anything about me, including anything about me as a preteen, getting me to read anything nonfiction was a struggle. That always seemed too much like schoolwork. If I was going to read for pleasure, it was fiction. The more fantastical the better.

Maybe that was why the biography of George Washington Carver resonated with me. His life, in a way, was fantastical. It was so designed by God that it seemed nearly impossible.

Born just before the end of slavery and the end of the Civil War, baby George seemed to have landed into a good house. The Carvers reluctantly owned slaves because they couldn’t do all the work on their own, nor could they afford paid help. A good Christian family, they tried to treat the slaves as an extended part of that family.

Then the raiders came.

They kidnapped young George along with his mother and sister. (His father had died before he was born and somehow his brother escaped notice.)

Panicked, the Carvers immediately took action and sent friends to find the dearly loved little family. The kidnapped victims were traced to Kentucky where they had been sold, but only George was found.

Heartbroken, the Carvers redeemed George by selling one of their best horses. They vowed to do right by the motherless boy.

In this way, George and his brother were raised right alongside the Carvers children. They were taught to read and write. They were given every opportunity possible for the time.

George’s brother liked farmwork, but George himself was not physically strong. It could have been that the time away from the Carvers malnourished him at a critical time in development. Or it could just have been the way he was from birth. No one knows for sure. But since he couldn’t do physical labor, he exercised his mind instead.

Mrs. Carver taught him all she could. George worked with her in the garden, learned his herbs and how to grow things in a plot. And in that time, George fell in love with growing things. In fact, he was so intuitive as to what made plants healthy, that the community called him the “plant doctor” at the ripe age of 10.

At 11, he went away to school. This began a cycle that continued until he made it to Iowa. A Christian family would host him and he learned more from the family than from the school. So he would seek out a new school. A new Christian family would host him and the cycle would continue. At the time, it just wasn’t expected that a black boy would want to learn so much or be so smart.

Still, God paved the way for him. Each change taught him something new and put him in contact with someone else he would need along the way. George, like I said, learned almost as much from the families who hosted him (and from experiments with their gardens) as he learned from the schools he attended.

Finally, he was admitted into college where he wowed the professors so much that he was asked to stay on to graduate school.

There, he made history as the first black man to earn both an advanced degree and the admiration of his peers.

I urge you to find a biography and read more about the man. I will close this post with two of his quotes.

“The secret of my success? It is simple. It is found in the Bible.”

“When I was young, I said to God, 'God, tell me the mystery of the universe.' But God answered, 'That knowledge is for me alone.' So I said, 'God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.' Then God said, 'Well George, that's more nearly your size.' And he told me.”

Today’s post mostly consists of an excerpt from a book of monologs I wrote a while ago. (I think it is some of my best work, but it has never been published.) In that light, it is fiction. But the woman was not. I studied the transcripts of her speeches before I wrote this, so while it is not her actual words, it is said the way she would have said it and hopefully with the power she would have said it with. May you come away amazed that an illiterate former slave could speak with such power and eloquence that she led many to faith!

Background: Sojourner Truth lived three lives. First, she was a slave to a Dutch household. Then she was sold to an English-speaking household where she was whipped each and every time she did not understand the instructions. Here, she met her husband and had her children—many of whom were sold away from her. Finally, the laws changed in New York and she became a free woman. During this time, she experienced a vision which convinced her that Christ and the Bible were true. Having memorized much of the Bible by having children read it to her, she became an itinerant preacher for the next 40 years. She was a powerful speaker and was listened to seriously, even by audiences that ridiculed her as she began. Sojourner Truth was a tall (6 ft), dark woman with a strong and deep voice. Thanks to her popularity, many of her speeches were transcribed. The monolog below tries to adhere to her style as closely as possible. She met and was admired by many people including Presidents Lincoln and Grant. She was over 100 when she died.

Props: Book of Life (autograph book)

Setting: None

Costume: Frugal dress, turban

Sojourner Truth: (Uses arms expressively throughout) Chile, you say today is Christmas. Glory! What a day! And ole Sojourner, says you, will be one of the speakers about women at Christmas. Whar dat! Aren’t I a woman? Aren’t Christmas all about women?

            (Arms outspread) How, says you? How be it true? For truth is all Sojourner try to speak or want to say. Christ war the Son of God and Son of Man. How be He all about women? (Points to own head) Lor, chile, tink! Christ warnt no woman, true, but he come from one sure enuff. Who war Mary? Tell ole Sojourner the truth—I can take nothin’ else. Mary war a woman, sure nuff. And who war Christ’s father? Not a man, no. Christ war the Son of God. God and a woman. Christ’s birth had nigh on nothin’ to do with men.

Now, chile, I can’t read. I ain’t never read the Bible, but I have heerd of it as much as I can, do my best to listen and pray. As I hear tell, the fust promise of the Christ came to our mother, Eve, not Adam. And ifn by one sin, a woman can turn the world upside down, God will in the marvelon way he works use one woman to turn it right agin.

            Aren’t I a woman? Haven’t I raised children and raised crops? Haven’t my strong arm and my strong mind kept me goin’ for longer than the time God give most? Haven’t I helped most anyone who asked of me? Haven’t I traveled all about this country? Traveled further and longer than most any man? (Holds up book) Met most anybody who’s counted anybody? Haven’t I talked with most anyone who’d listen to what ole Sojourner had to say? Depended on our Jesus for my ev’ry need? And hasn’t the Lord taught this woman ‘bout himself? And I a woman!

            Christmas, seem to me, is for the woman. Through the woman, Christ war born. Through the woman, Joseph got to raise the Son of God. He who otherways hadn’t no part in it. Through the woman, them poor shepherds got some hope and them rich kings got some truth.

Now don’t get me goin’. No portion of time never been more holy than another. Next Tuesday can be jess as holy as Christmas. But Christmas can be holy if we’un keep our memory fast on truth. It can bless this po’ woman if Sojourner always remember that Jesus may have been the God man, but he was born of a woman, of a promise come through a woman. And while he lived, he counted women among his followers same as men. Christmas is forn us women.

Bliged to yo for hearin' on me, and now ole Sojourner ha'n't got nothing more to say. Nothing more ‘cept Merry Christmas!

Note: picture is not Sojurner Truth, but a representation.

For a while, I decided I would honor Black History Month this year with my blog posts. But as a person who is decidedly lacking in melanin, I do feel like people might think I’m being presumptuous or even worse, phony. So before I start honoring the heroes I admire that fit in with the theme of the month, I thought I should introduce it a bit.

For the last couple of months, a couple of the students I tutor have been doing lessons about the Civil Rights Movement. Helping them with these have reinforced not only things I learned in school, but my own experiences in the 70s, not so long after the Civil Rights legislation was passed, and my stint working in a Civil Rights office as an adult.

So much has changed, yet so much has stayed the same.

I think about my friend Aaron. His family moved into our neighborhood in 1973. He quickly became part of our group. We were a bunch of fifth and sixth graders that hung around together, road bikes, played basketball and the like.

Then one day he told us that he had to move. Had to. It wasn’t that his family wanted to. But they were being forced out because of the color of their skin. I was shocked and horrified that I was losing a good friend for something like that. They’d been in the neighborhood less than 2 years.

Later, as a teen, I thought things had changed a lot more. When I was 17, working a part-time job, I became friends with the janitor who was only a year older. Friends. Nothing romantic or anything like that. But when my boss saw me going to lunch with him, he took steps to firing me. Why? Because I, a white girl, was socializing with a black young man. I saw us as two human beings with things to talk about. My boss saw a cultural divide that he would not allow. In the fifteen years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, things still hadn’t changed enough.

Last weekend, I watched the TED talk called the Golden Circle. It’s been around awhile, so you might have seen it. Basically, if I were to sum up a 30-minute talk in a few words, it’s about getting to the ‘why’ of doing things. This includes the ‘why’ of living, marketing, or addressing change. In short, if you know your purpose and explain your passion for it, people will get on board.

The crowning example of the guy’s talk was Dr. King. In a day before internet, he got so many people thrilled with his idea of change, that a quarter of a million people showed up to stand with him in Washington, D.C. in 1963. Then they stayed and stood to listen to him in spite of the summer heat. They did this because they bought into his why. They could see the passion on his face and thrilled to the idea. There was a dream that they could get behind.

His birthday may have been last month, but I am honoring him this week. If you look at the title, I think that honor is the key fact about the man. It’s been nearly sixty years since the “I Have a Dream” speech and its essence remains as true as when he spoke it. Even more possibly. But now I think the history books have remained kind to Dr. King because of one key fact.

He was honorable.

He lived according to the code of the Bible as close as a human can. He was not divine, but he lived out the call of the divine. His message, his call to apply love to the unlovely and solve hate with love, are just as needed now as they were when he lived.

Maybe more so.

While in some aspects our nation has made advances since the 1960s, too many people forget one thing: we’re all people. And until Jesus comes again or revival happens so that people recognize that any human being, no matter what they look like or where they come from, is a person and a neighbor on this world of ours, we will still need to revisit Dr. King’s speech, his ideals and pray for a more unified tomorrow.