Black Family Reunion Pledge
BECAUSE we have forgotten our ancestors, our children no longer give us honor.
BECAUSE we have lost the path our ancestors cleared , kneeling in perilous undergrowth, our children cannot find there way.
BECAUSE we have banished the God of our ancestors, our children cannot pray.
BECAUSE the old walls of our ancestors have faded beyond our hearing, our children cannot hear us crying.
BECAUSE we have abandoned our wisdom of mothering and fathering, our befuddled children give birth to children they niether want or understand.
BECAUSE we have forgotten how to love, the adversary is within our gates, and holds up to the mirror of the world shouting , "Regard the loveless".
THEREFORE we pledge:
TO bind ourselves again to one another.
TO embrace our lowliest,
TO keep company with our loneliest,
TO educate our Illiterate,
TO feed the starving,
To clothe our ragged,
TO do all good things knowing that we are more than keepers
of our brothers and sisters. We are our brothers and sisters.
In honor of those who toiled and implored God with golden tongues, and in gratitude to the same god who brought us out of hopeless land.
We make this pledge.
(Author: Dr. Maya Angelou)