Today’s Thought “A Better Heritage” G. Ward

“You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,” Exodus 20:3-5

 

Having arrived in Georgia 35 years ago from Michigan was troubling; particularly as a young Black man venturing to the South less than 16 years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a Civil Rights Act. My contemplations were not the paranoia some political pundits maintain existent with some Blacks that demands, “Get Over It Already!” I was arriving for college in a state where Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter in 1961 were refused entrance at the University of Georgia based on color (Black of course). Almost 20 years later my arrival here was astonished in seeing an overwhelming Confederate emblem on the state flag. Here’s what it says to Black folks, remember, “We’re in control and when you fail to abide within that parameter, recall what we did to those kind!” Here’s the irony, Georgia had a flag that more promoted continuity prior to 1956 (cf. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a landmark Supreme Court Decision that demanded separate educational facilities are inherently unequal). Was this clear retribution unto Blacks? Shamefully, many schools weren’t desegregated in Georgia until 1971 and that shameful emblem (which is our entire heritage – good and bad) wasn’t removed until 2001.

More pause is given when the Star Spangled Banner is sung and the Pledge of Allegiance is recited than reverence to Holy God’s Word. This misappropriation determines who lords over our Great King of Equality.

Happy Thursday!