Sail across the waters
Tell your sons and daughters what the struggle brings
Black butterfly
Set the skies on fire
Rise up even higher so the age less winds of time can catch your wings ( Williams,
I can remember riding in the car on my home from school as a little girl and listening to the lyrics of the song titled Black Butterfly by Deniece Williams and wondering to myself “ Is she talking about me?!” Much of my ethno-cultural heritage is tied up in the fact that I was born in the south as a l black girl and am part of a family that had an active pioneer in the civil rights movement in our mist. I have been raised to always believe that I was just as smart as, just as pretty as, and just as capable as any white child I might be in class with and it was my duty to the world to show that fact.
Along with seeing the pictures of my uncle with Dr. King and other famous pioneers of the civil rights movement and the pictures of my grandmother dressed to the nines on her way out for a night on the town with Mrs. Coretta Scott King, I always had the opportunity to learn about my African-American heritage in school lessons.
Joseph E. Holloway (1990) has been quoted as saying “Africans, and their descendants, contributed to the richness and fullness of American culture from its beginnings. Their contributions in early America, for which they have received little or no credit, include the development of the American dairy industry, open grazing of cattle, artificial insemination of cows, the development of vaccines (including vaccination for smallpox), and cures for snake bites.” All through out my years of attending primary school I was able to be immersed in learning about Africa and Africans and their contributions to the world we live in today. The goal was to cultivate a sense of pride in who I am and who I am a descendant of. My ethno-cultural learning didn’t stop when I graduated from primary school because I also attended a HBCU (Historically