The Power of Heritage

His name was Jeremiah and he was working hard to let me know he was cool and uninterested. He could not have been beyond the fifth grade. I remember thinking that I hoped he did not know how handsome he was. It might have ruined him.

He was black and with a deep, rich tone of skin that reminded me of Africa. He had big, intelligent eyes with a slight droop that I knew would drive girls crazy in years to come. He was also tall with a natural air of command he was trying to disguise as complete disregard for all things in the world.

I saw him in a school I had been asked to address in Chicago. I usually don’t speak to elementary age students. I’m not good at it. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I had agreed to speak to this one, though, and on the subject of black heritage. I was eager to do a decent job but, frankly, I was more eager for the whole thing to be over. I loved the topic, but the far more familiar adult world awaited.

I began with the Bible because I knew it would provide some common ground. I told them it was an African who helped Jesus carry his cross, and that a black man was a leader in the first Christian church to send out missionaries—the church of Antioch. I told them that there was a sophisticated Christian civilization in Africa long before Christianity reached other parts of the world. In fact, the greatest library that ever existed was once in Africa, in a city called Alexandria.

Jeremiah was still picking at his shoes at this point, but he was listening. I knew it even if he didn’t want me to.

I switched to the story of black Americans. I recounted how the first blacks who came to America were not slaves but indentured servants. I described in elementary school terms how many of these blacks became baptized members of the Church of England and how they often became wealthy. One of them, Anthony Johnson, had both black and white servants who ran his 250-acre farm along the banks of the Pungoteague River.

I told them that the first man to die in the upheavals before the American Revolution was a black man named Crispus Attucks. They needed to remember, I said, that black minutemen fought at Concorde and Lexington, black soldiers crossed the Delaware with General Washington, and they were with him at Valley Forge. They also needed to save their money and go to Cambridge, Massachusetts, one day. There they would see the memorial to Salem Poor, whose commander had written, “behaved like an experienced officer, as well as an excellent soldier.” Salem Poor was not alone, I told them. A German officer had written during the War “no regiment is to be seen in which there are not Negroes in abundance, and among them there are able bodied, strong, and brave fellows.”

And these were the words of the enemy!

Now I had Jeremiah. He didn’t care that much about biblical stuff, but he liked wars. Wars led to soldiers, which led to valiant black men giving birth to a nation. He was with me.

I took off. I won’t describe all I said but trust me that the next twenty minutes was filled with more inventors, airmen, generals, scholars, heroes, and artists than anyone could have absorbed. I didn’t care. Jeremiah was with me.

When the gathering was over, he had morphed. I know this change wasn’t permanent, but it was definite, and I was grateful. Jeremiah didn’t approach me. Yet before he left the room he looked straight at me with as much sheer determination and—well, it was satisfaction—as I’ve ever seen in one set of eyes.

I knew what this was. I had seen it before. It was the power of heritage. It was what comes to our lives when we connect to what has come before us and allow it to impart to us all that a legacy has to offer. We are made to be an extension of the nobility our people’s past. We are made to be propelled by it into our future, summoned by it to character, and steeled by it with courage.

The Fourth of July is next week. This is a good time to take hold of the heritage of your nation, your race, and your family and hand it inspiringly to your children—along with a hot dog and some cake!

It need not be boring and it need not distract from summer fun, but telling stories that delight and inspire, from the lives of our ancestors, should be part of the weeks ahead. Let heritage do its work. Let legacy live vibrantly. Tell some stories. Light up some hearts. Do it by the grill or the pool. There has seldom been a time when a generation of Americans needed it so desperately.

Have a good weekend. And God bless Jeremiah wherever he is.

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