A year ago I  heard people say statues need to be brought down, because they are a symbol of oppression,  and these are racists who got their own statues put up.  You know how our people like church, there is a particular song that we like singing, The song is Amazing Grace,  Most people don’t question the history of that song and who wrote it. The song was written by John Newton. John Newton was deep into slavery, in fact, that is all he did in his younger years, invest, transported, hunted, in fact, he made it his mission to be heavily invested in that institution.  He claimed it all changed when he began to “Know” God, he claimed he was caught in a storm and God spared his life, which pushed him to turn his life around, Most people don’t know that after he turned his life around, he still continued in that dreadful institution. It was during his conversion that he wrote the song Amazing Grace, hence the line “ I once was lost but now I’m found”

The funny thing is no one actually has a problem with this song, it is a good song if you asked me, but we do have to talk about its origin and the writer of the song, if we are talking about sins of the past, let us not leave some people out, otherwise, we would have to change the names of HBCU’s, I’m not advocating for changing HBCU’s or anything like that, I’m saying it almost as if we pretend that this history doesn’t exist.

Howard University

Named after Oliver Otis Howard

General in US Army

Spellman College

Named after Laura Spellman Rockefeller

Wife of John D Rockefeller

Morehouse University

Founded by William Jeff White

This one might get a pass he was bi-racial father was white, mother was black 

Lincoln University

Founded by John Miller Dickey and his wife Sarah Emlen Cresson

Hampton University

Founded by Samuel  Chapman Armstrong

This is just to name a few, these are stories that need to be told at least, not just to pretend they don’t exist.