A jury down in Texas just handed a teenager 35 years. Karmelo Anthony was seventeen when he reached for a blade at a school track meet and drove it into the chest of another child, Austin Metcalf, seventeen himself. Before that rainy morning was finished, one mama had lost her baby for good, and another mother stood before jurors asking them to show mercy to what was left of hers. Two households broken in the space of a few breaths. Both of them, in their own fashion, condemned to carry the weight of it the rest of their living days.

Now, I already know how the wider world wants to slice this thing up. People have turned it into a shouting contest about color, about who put hands on who first, about which corner you are supposed to go stand in. I have no use for that racket. My business here is with the youngblood reading this with his whole road still stretched out in front of him. Hear me the way you would hear your granddaddy if he set you down on the porch steps and cupped your face in both his rough hands.

Listen close. The whole thing started over a tent. Rain was falling, somebody told somebody else to get up and move, the words went hot fast, a push came, and a seventeen year old is now resting in the cold ground. That is the entire tale. No grand cause sat underneath it. Glory never lived inside it either. Just a little quarrel that two children swelled up into something neither one could ever pull back.

I need you to feel the size of that. Not the headline, not the verdict, the actual heft of it. A boy who will never come home for supper. Another who will spend the best years a man is given inside a cell, counting other folks’ holidays through a small window. He goes in a teenager and, if mercy comes early, comes out near fifty, with the strength gone out of his back and the spring gone out of his step, a stranger to the world he left behind.

Here is the part I beg you to tattoo on the inside of your skull. The thing that turned an ugly minute into a funeral and a courtroom was the object in that bag. Take the blade out of the picture and what are you left holding. A shove. Some cuss words. Maybe a busted lip, maybe a bruise to the ego, maybe a coach yanking two hot heads apart. By suppertime it would have been a story they told with a laugh years down the line. Tempers cool. Vanity heals. A wound to the body can mend. But steel does not forgive, and it surely does not care who was right.

That is exactly why I want this verdict to put a chill in you. Because the one who lost everything was not some monster the rest of us could never resemble. He was a regular kid having a regular bad moment, the same kind every single one of us has lived through. Wet and irritated, somebody got in his face, and that hot knot in his chest flared up like a struck match. The only difference between him and a thousand other angry teenagers that same day is that he reached into a bag instead of walking off mad. One reach. That is the whole gap between a free man and a number on a state list.

Let me tell you something the young rarely believe. The strong one is almost never the fellow swinging. He is the man who turns and goes while the crowd is hollering for blood. It takes nothing to throw a punch. A coward can throw a punch. Any scared child can pull out a weapon and feel ten feet tall for half a second. What takes a real spine is letting somebody think they won, swallowing that bitter lump in your throat, and choosing your mama’s peace over your bruised name. Anybody can prove he is dangerous. Precious few can prove they are wise.

The biggest lie that has buried more of our sons than any sickness whispers you must answer every disrespect, that you can never let a thing slide, that a fellow who walks off is somehow less of a man. I am here, with all my gray, to tell you that whisper is a snake. It does not love you. Won’t visit you in lockup, neither. Never once does it sit beside your mother on a hard plastic chair while she runs clean out of things to say. Nor will it write you when the appeals dry up. That snake used you and slithered right along to fill the next young ear.

Consider the arithmetic a second. The state said 35 years, with parole somewhere near the halfway mark. Picture it. Children you have not fathered yet. A wedding you will never throw. That phone call when your grandmother passes and you cannot get to her service. Fresh morning air you cannot taste whenever the notion strikes you. All of it forfeited, not for some cause worth dying over, but for a tent and a temper and a single bad reach on a rainy day. There is no version of that story you could ever tell where the trade makes a lick of sense.

And do not breeze past the other house in all this. A twin brother who shared a face with the child in the ground now wakes up alone in a quiet that will never lift. His father stood in that courtroom trembling with a sorrow so heavy it came out sounding like fury, because some grief runs too deep for gentle words. Two mothers will travel toward two different kinds of graves, one made of earth and one made of steel doors, and neither will ever stop aching. When that blade comes out, it is never only two boys it cuts. It tears clean through everybody who ever loved either one of them, and it keeps tearing for generations down the line.

I have to say a hard word about that weapon some of you keep telling yourselves you carry for protection. It does not protect you. Hear me. The very thing you slip into your pocket to feel safe is the same thing that stands up in a courtroom and convicts you. You think you are arming yourself against the world, and all the while you are quietly building the case that locks you away from it.

Let me lay this race business to rest, just between us. Grief has no color. A prison bunk has no color. Both of those mamas cried the same salt water, and both of those caskets, the wooden one and the one made of years, will swallow a mother’s joy with the same cold indifference. The world wants you fighting over the flag while it picks your pocket. Do not let anybody hand you a blade and call it honor.

So what is it I want from you, son. I want you to settle it right now, while your blood is calm and your head is clear, what kind of man you mean to be when somebody finally tests you. And somebody will. Some fool will run his mouth. Another will bump you and refuse to apologize. A third will try you in front of a crowd just to see what you are made of. The deciding has to happen long before that moment lands, because in the heat itself there is no room to think. You will simply do whatever you already trained your body to do.

So train it to walk. Teach those hands to carry nothing but your good sense. Bend that hard knot in your chest a little so your whole life does not have to snap in two. Learn the old sayings that kept your people breathing through worse than a track meet. He is not worth it. Let it go. My freedom costs more than this moment is worth. Speak those lines to yourself now, out loud if you have to, until they live in you the way a song you came up on lives in you.

I am not writing any of this to dance on a grave or pile shame on a boy already buried under the heaviest load a young life can hold. My reason is simpler. Having stood at too many caskets and pressed my palm against too much glass, I will not add your name to that list without first saying my piece. Somebody loved Karmelo. Austin was somebody’s whole world too. Both of those women held a newborn once and whispered soft dreams over him. Look how it ended. See how fast.

You are not too tough to learn from another man’s ruin. The wisest among us read somebody else’s sentence as a warning written in their own name. So read this one. Tape it to your heart. The next time that fire climbs up in your chest and the whole world dares you to prove yourself, I pray you hear an old man’s voice underneath the noise, telling you the bravest thing your hands will ever do is stay empty, stay open, and stay down at your sides.

Walk home, youngster. Just walk on home.

Staff Writer; L.L. McKenna

Politics explained through the lens of justice and equity. Offering perspective that informs, challenges, and empowers.

One can contact this brother at; LLMcKenna@ThyBlackMan.com.

In the House, it narrowly passed 218-214.

Not one Democrat voted for it in either chamber.

President Donald Trump signed it into law on July 4, 2025.

One provision in this narrowly passed law had the potential to help school children all across the country. It was the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program. This program, now set to begin in 2027, will give Americans a nonrefundable tax credit of up to $1,700 per year for making donations to support school-choice scholarships set up in the states.

“Under the program,” explains the Congressional Research Service, “taxpayers will be eligible to receive a tax credit of up to $1,700 for the value of cash contributions to certain scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). These organizations, in turn, will be required to use these contributions to grant scholarships to students at private and public elementary and secondary schools located within their states.”

Recipients of these scholarships would be subject to a family income limit. “Eligibility for scholarships,” said the CRS, “will be limited to students whose family income is below 300% of their area median income.”

Recipients will be able to use the money from these scholarships to cover basic educational costs, including tuition and books, at elementary and secondary schools, whether they are “public, private or religious.”

Whether or not to participate in this school-choice scholarship program was left to the states themselves. “States (and the District of Columbia) may choose whether to recognize eligible SGOs within their jurisdictions,” explained the CRS report. “To qualify for the credit, a contribution must be made to a state-sponsored SGO (which need not be located in the same state as the taxpayer), and the organization must only provide scholarships to students located within the state that recognized it. This effectively allows states to decide whether to make students who live within their borders eligible for the program.”

Why would the political leadership of a state prevent students in their state from receiving scholarship money voluntarily contributed by individual Americans? Because they want to prevent families, who would otherwise lack the necessary resources, from choosing to send their children to private or religious schools rather than to government-run schools.

By contrast, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska wasted little time in signing his state up for these scholarships. On Sept. 29, 2025, he went to St. Teresa Catholic School, not far from the Nebraska capital, and signed an executive order backing his state’s participation in the program. “This program is a game-changer for Nebraska students and their families, generating funds that will help send students to the school of their choice,” he said.

South Dakota soon followed Nebraska. Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden announced on Nov. 14, 2025, that his state also would be joining the school-choice scholarship program. “Parents should have the freedom to choose the learning environment that sets their kids up for success,” he said. “I am grateful that President Trump has the same conviction and is helping us create more opportunities for our students.”

Yet it was not just Republican governors who had their states join the program. The Colorado Sun reported on Dec. 5, 2025, that Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis “said it was a no-brainer for the state to take advantage of the federal tax credit scholarship program, describing it as ‘a real boom of investment in kids.'”

“I mean, it would be crazy not to,” he said.

When the Kentucky state legislature passed a bill in March that opted their state into the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear took a different approach. He vetoed the bill. “Kentuckians have been firm that public dollars should only be used for public education,” Beshear said.

“Kentuckians love our public schools,” he said.

The Kentucky legislature overwhelmingly disagreed — with the state senate voting 31-5 and the state house voting 77-14 to override Beshear’s veto.

What did California, the nation’s most populous state, do about the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program? Republican Rep. Vince Fong of California sent Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom a letter in January urging him to bring their state into the program. “By electing to participate, you would ensure this new federal education benefit will flow to California students, regardless of whether they attend a public or private school, and at no cost to the State,” Fong wrote to Newsom.

The IRS published a list indicating that, as of June 22, there were 28 states that had signed up to participate in the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit Program. Newsom’s California was not one of them.

Newsom, as this column has noted before, attended Notre Dame des Victoires, a Catholic grammar school in the heart of San Francisco.

When that school marked its 100th anniversary in 2024, Newsom recalled the remarkable opportunity it had provided him.

“Attending Ecole Notre Dame des Victoires was a transformative experience,” he said. “It was here that I learned not only how to conjugate verbs in French, but also about the rich tapestry of French Catholic history. This foundation has stayed with me throughout my life, and I am grateful for the lifelong connections and values instilled in me during my time at NDV.”

So, why is he not supporting a program that would provide funding to help children in San Francisco today embrace a similar experience?

The 2025 National Assessment of Educational Progress “long-term trend” tests showed a continuing pattern in American education: Catholic school students outscored public school students in reading and math. Among 13-year-olds, the average reading score among public school students was 255 out of 500. Among Catholic school students, it was 276 out of 500. The average mathematics score among 13-year-olds in public schools was 269 out of 500. Among Catholic school students, it was 291 out of 500.

Embracing unlimited school choice, where every student gets a voucher equal to the full per-pupil expenditures in the local public schools, would be good for students and for our country.

Written by Terence P. Jeffrey

Official website; http://twitter.com/terryjeffrey

Let me say it like this. The man is one of the most important figures the genre has produced this century, and that truth has nothing to do with whether he is real hip hop. People keep tangling those two ideas together. Importance and authenticity live on different blocks.

Go back to where it started for most of us. So Far Gone landed in 2009 and the whole temperature of rap shifted overnight. A light skinned brother from Toronto, used to act on a teenage show, singing and rapping in the same breath, talking about his feelings the way most rappers were too proud to. Half the streets laughed. Other half had it on repeat. By the time the laughing stopped, he had already rewired what a hit was supposed to sound like.

That part nobody can take from him. Melody was already in hip hop’s bloodstream, but Drake helped make it unavoidable in mainstream rap. Flip on the radio any given year after 2010 and you hear his fingerprints all over it. Young dudes singing their pain, crooning over trap drums, switching from bars to harmony mid verse. He did not invent every piece of that, but he stacked them, polished them, and sold the whole package to the planet. Influence like that is rare. You can count the rappers who changed the actual sound on one hand, and his name belongs there whether you love the man or not.

So why the asterisk? Why do grown men who lived through his entire run still hesitate before they call him real?

Comes down to the old code. This thing was built on certain pillars. Lived struggle. Your own pen. Bars that made you rewind the tape. Respect earned in the trenches, not handed over because the numbers said so. Purists hold those values like scripture, and by that scripture Drake keeps tripping the alarm.

The pen is the loudest accusation. When Philly Rapper Meek Mill stood up in 2015 and pointed at ghostwriting, he said out loud what plenty had whispered for years. Reference tracks surfaced. Names got attached to verses. Defenders fired back that legends used cowriters too, that the song matters more than the credits, and there is real weight to that in pop. Hip hop, though, is not just pop. The entire religion rests on the idea that the rhyme is yours, that you bled for those words personally. Hand part of that off and the purist hears a crack in the foundation, no matter how clean the record sounds in the speakers.

Then comes the culture vulture talk, and this one runs deeper than music. Brother moves through styles like seasons. Caribbean patois one summer, UK slang the next, Atlanta cadence after that, Memphis bounce, whatever city happens to be hot at the moment. Some hear a student of the game paying homage. Others hear a tourist who borrows the accent, grabs the bag, and flies home before the check even clears. Both readings come with evidence. That is exactly what makes it stick to him.

His 2024 battle with Kendrick forced all of it into daylight at once. After the smoke cleared, the lasting damage was not really about who had the cleverest line. What mattered was that Kendrick managed to fit every one of these old questions onto a record and make the whole world chant them back. Authenticity. The pen. Who you really are once the cameras cut off. He weaponized the doubt already hanging in the air, and Not Like Us became more than a diss. Turned into a referendum. The streets were not just voting on a song. They were voting on a reputation.

Here is where I have to play fair, because fair is the only way to write this honest.

Gatekeeping gets tired too. Half the purists waving the real hip hop flag also worship eras that broke their own rules. Sampling was theft until it became genius. Singing and melody in rap were often dismissed by purists, even though groups like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony proved how powerful that blend could become. Crossing over to pop was selling out until that same crowd started quoting the crossover records as classics. Wherever the line sits for what counts, it tends to move the moment the banned thing becomes undeniable. Some of the Drake hate is sharp critique. Plenty of it is just men mad the sound left them behind.

And the brother can actually rap. Folks forget that in all the noise. When he locks in, the wordplay is tight, the pocket is clean, the storytelling lands where he aims it. Drizzy is not some singer cosplaying as an emcee. Skill is there. The question was never whether he can do it. What stays open is what he chooses to do with it, and how much of it is truly coming from him.

So where does that leave us?

You can hold two things at once without your head splitting open. Drake is one of the most successful and influential artists this genre has ever produced. He is also a complicated case study in what we mean when we say real, and the culture has every right to keep interrogating him on it. Both statements stand at the same time. Anybody telling you it is simple is selling you something.

This was never only about the trophy case anyway. Real hip hop meant truth. Meant a voice that sounds like one specific life lived in one specific place. The strongest knock on Drake is not that he sings, not that he charts, not even that he had help in the booth. What lingers is the feeling that the truth shifts depending on the room, that the realest thing about him might be how well he reads what you want and hands it right back to you.

But that critique cuts both ways, because reading the room and feeding it exactly what it craves could be the most honest reflection of this entire era. A culture living on streams and metrics and going viral produced an artist who mastered streams and metrics and going viral. Maybe he is not a betrayal of where the music went. Could be he is the mirror, and we just do not love the reflection staring back.

My final word runs like this. Quit asking whether Drake is real hip hop as though a clean yes or no waits at the finish line. Ask the better question. Dig into what he revealed about us, about what we reward, about how easily importance and authenticity blur together when the numbers get loud enough. He changed the sound. Dodged the deepest questions for years too, until somebody finally cornered him with them on wax. Those two truths sit side by side now, and that tension is far more interesting than any verdict ever could be.

This genre has always been an argument with itself about what it really is. Drake did not break that argument. He simply became the loudest version of it we have heard in a long, long time. And that, whether the purists nod along or not, is its own kind of real.

Staff Writer; Jamar Jackson

This brother has a passion for poetry and music. One may contact him at; JJackson@ThyBlackMan.com.

The Chinese leader’s assessment of the United States may have been self-serving, but it is a true. The United States as a world superpower is on the decline. Our respect on the world stage is diminished, and we are humiliated over the events and negotiations surrounding the Iran war. Any person can be quick to defend the United States against criticism or against things said that would place the nation in a negative light.

Some will go as far as to reframe the truth to avoid having America’s weaknesses and moral failures exposed. In other words, they will outright lie without reservation.  In a follow-up post to Truth Social, Trump said, “When President Xi very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation, he was referring to the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of Sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden Administration, and on that score, he was 100% correct.”

There was no indication that Xi was referring to Biden in his comments.  When the President of the United States habitually lies to the American people without hesitation, it not only shows the disrespect he personally has for the office he holds, but it becomes evidence to show how we are a nation in moral decline. Unfortunately, the president is not the only high-ranking official within the administration who produces reckless lies.

Vice President JD Vance falsely denied that Black history is being erased from public spaces under the Trump-Vance administration during a televised interview on the “The View”. While being pressed by hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin, Vance was challenged on the administration’s polices to censor or remove Black history exhibits across the country, and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs for Black Americans as a result of President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs. He was challenged on cuts to the federal workforce, where Blacks have been overrepresented for decades. When pressed further, Vance denied that the White House made efforts to eliminate Black history, telling “The View” hosts, “Black history is not erased from public spaces.”

Black prosperity is part of what makes America great. It is Black resilience that makes America great. The fact the enslaved Blacks built the U.S. Capitol, and their descendants would later occupy it as elected lawmakers is part of the Black experience that makes America great. These are the true stories about the Black experience that JD Vance and others are attempting to whitewash.

One of the reasons United States has become a nation in decline domestically comes from the decision to erase Black history and hold back Black progress. It may not be the political decline referred to by the leader of China, but it becomes a moral decline resulting from implementing white supremacy goals and objectives. “JD Vance can play confused on television all he wants, but we’ve seen this administration spend 18 months erasing Black history from our military, museums, and monuments,” said Brandon Weathersby, a spokesperson for American Bridge 21^st Century, a Democratic research think tank.

We just celebrated the Juneteenth holiday. But does the true meaning hit home with us or is it just another day? The history behind Juneteenth is complex, and is another truth about the Black experience many people would like to see forgotten. Many of us are familiar with the story of how the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, yet in Texas slavery continued in practice for more than two additional years.

It wasn’t until federal troops arrived in Galveston on June 19, 1865 that an estimated 250,000 enslaved Black people learned of a freedom that had already been declared over two years earlier. The delay was structured by power and greed, not by accident: those who benefit from slavery used the delay as a tool to keep extracting labor and wealth from Black bodies. Juneteenth exposes an entrenched unwillingness to grant Black people full justice and freedom, even after laws legally changed.

There are immediate and long-term consequences resulting from the overall anti-Black agenda that we are witnessing today. Every Black high school student and young adult should take a hard look at the fact that Black history is being erased, but also consider how the type of denial by the vice president plays a major part in the moral decline of our nation. They need to fully understand the policy shift by seeing how the Trump administration moved aggressively to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across federal agencies, contractors, and schools receiving federal dollars. They need to reflect how these policy shifts will impact their future career goals, dreams and aspirations as a person of color. Teenagers and young adults need to stay informed. The same agenda to withhold justice and freedom to enslaved Blacks still exists today, but under a different covering.

Written by David W. Marshall

Official website; https://davidwmarshallauthor.com/

One may purchase his book, which is titled; God Bless Our Divided America: Unity, Politics and History from a Biblical Perspective.

This is what the 2026 FIFA World Cup looks like on the ground across America, and it has been something to watch. Not just the matches, though those have delivered plenty, but the way ordinary Americans in city after city have met the world at the door and genuinely meant it. Nobody planned any of this. There was no campaign, no committee, no branded hashtag telling people to be kind to visitors. It just happened, because that is what a lot of Americans do when someone shows up needing help or a meal or a ride or just a reason to feel like they landed somewhere good.

In Chattanooga, Tennessee, locals and fans have waited for hours around Spain’s team hotel and public team events just to wave at Spain’s national team. In Greensboro, North Carolina, Norwegian fans rolled into town and found the local scene ready to welcome them, with Americans who had never given soccer much thought suddenly showing up in Viking colors ready to cheer. In Spokane, Washington, young fans got to see Mohamed Salah this month, one of the most famous footballers on the planet, simply because Egypt picked the city as its training base and people went down to see what was happening. In Dallas, Croatia got a downtown fan parade and a flag so big it needed several people just to keep it off the ground. These are not the cities that usually get written about in international dispatches. They showed up anyway.

Out on the roads between the big host cities, something even less expected has been happening. International visitors who rented cars and drove across rural Texas or through the Deep South between matches came back with stories they couldn’t stop telling. There have been stories of restaurant owners helping foreign fans get where they needed to go because their rides fell through, small-town spots welcoming British tourists with free food simply because they had come so far, and Alabama firefighters giving visiting supporters a full station tour and sending them away with free merchandise. None of this was organized. None of it was sponsored. People just did it.

The reaction from international visitors has been, in a word, stunned. Not in a bad way. Fans from Germany and Brazil have been posting videos of themselves inside Buc-ee’s like they stumbled into something sacred, which, if you’re from Texas, you understand completely. Free refills get their own reaction videos. So do the ice machines. So does the fact that someone behind a counter smiled at them without being required to. Marina De Buchi, a British entrepreneur living in California, told ABC News it keeps catching visitors off guard even when they think they’ve prepared themselves for it. “A lot of people say Americans are fake,” she said. “I just don’t think that’s true. I think Americans are just really nice and friendly.” She has lived here long enough to know the difference. She also said that for Americans themselves, hearing it has clearly meant something. “They hear a lot of bad at the moment. I’m glad to be seeing the rose-tinted-glasses side of it.”

That part is true and worth sitting with for a second. America has had a rough few years of looking at itself, and most of what it has seen has not been flattering. The World Cup has pointed the mirror a different direction, and what is coming back is a country that still knows how to open a door. Six players on the US Men’s National Team roster were born outside the United States, and the team reflects a larger immigrant and diasporic American story. Many of the people working the stadiums and driving the fans around and pouring the drinks came from somewhere else too, or are the children of people who did. That is not a footnote. That is the reason all of this works as well as it does.

Content creator Shawn Moran in Boston said his entire social media feed transformed overnight from its usual noise into something he barely recognized. “Seeing nothing but pure joy and happiness for a whole week has been the greatest thing,” he said. Hard to disagree. Boston Globe reporter Emily Sweeney put it the way most people in that city are feeling it right now: “With all the crazy things going on in the world, it’s really nice to just see people from all different places getting along.”

Visiting fans will forget the final scores long before they forget the person who drove them to a match, or bought them a drink, or put a traffic cone on a statue’s head and laughed about it with them. A World Cup lasts a few weeks. The memory of how a country made you feel lasts considerably longer.

America is not perfect. Anyone paying attention already knows that, and this summer has had its complicated chapters too. But the version of this country that has shown up at this World Cup, in its firehouses and dive bars and roadside travel centers, has been generous and curious and genuinely glad the world decided to come. That matters. And right now, the world is noticing.

Staff Writer; L.L. McKenna

Politics explained through the lens of justice and equity. Offering perspective that informs, challenges, and empowers.

One can contact this brother at; LLMcKenna@ThyBlackMan.com.

To which I say, “So what.”

Basing the notion of fair representation on racial, gender or ethnic identity needs to be put in a folder — a paper folder stored in a dusty steel file cabinet. Most of us have additional identities — as electricians, teachers, environmentalists, grandparents, bus drivers, stock investors, union members.

Who would represent me under this broader definition? Someone with brown hair who streams a lot of true crime, has too many opinions and used to play the flute. That perfect human being has yet to appear on my ballot. If she did, I might not vote for her anyway if we disagreed on tariffs, green energy and immigration.

The Founders designed a republic in which representatives would debate ideas, not their reflection in a bathroom mirror. Besides, people of similar physical identities disagree on lots of things, including matters tied to identity.

This DNA-based notion of “fair representation” comes up in the thorny matter of redistricting, that is, the redrawing of House districts in ways that would allegedly help one party. Donald Trump kicked off the latest round. Panicky that Democrats might swamp the midterms, he’s pushed Republican-controlled states to change the lines to remove “safe” Democratic districts, or so he thinks. Democratic-controlled states countered with their own gerrymandering.

Trump was responding to a recent Supreme Court ruling, Louisiana v. Callais, which weakened limits in the Voting Rights Act on race-based redistricting. He apparently believes that dividing Blacks among majority-white districts would leave them too small a share of the vote to elect their preferred candidate. The assumption under that assumption is that Black voters agree on who should represent them.

Consider the lively primary race in a newly redrawn South Florida district. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat, decided to run in a largely Black district after Gov. Ron DeSantis helped erase her own district lines.

“A lot of people in the community are angry,” says Dale Holness, a former Broward County commissioner who is African American. By community, we assume he means the “Black community.”

But he does not entirely speak for “the community,” even by his definition. Many of these constituents have interests beyond the race of their representative. Issues like Social Security, medical coverage, abortion, the war with Iran, gasoline prices.

John Beckford, a Broward business leader originally from Jamaica, is Black. He said that Schultz has “always been a part of the African American, Black community, the Caribbean community. It’s not like she’s now a stranger trying to make herself known.”

Business owners and other voters of all colors might want to retain a rep who is a senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which sends federal money to the districts. That interest might double in the likely event that Democrats take control of the House in the midterms.

Opponents of the current Republican leadership tactics hold that the redistricting mania will lead to less “representation” of black voters. But others argue the exact opposite, and they include Republicans.

The partisans who think they are cleverly scattering Black voters into white-majority districts would also be increasing the Black voters’ clout in those same districts. That can make a difference in close races, especially as political allegiances continue to splinter.

History should also have its say. A Black man was elected U.S. president twice by a majority white electorate. There are reasons to support a candidate other than resemblance to self. And those tend to be the better reasons.

Written by Froma Harrop

Official website; https://twitter.com/FromaHarrop

Death has a way of reminding everybody that a legacy is never just professional. Somebody lost a father, grandfather, friend, mentor, and presence. The rest of us may look at his life through songs, award shows, documentaries, business deals, and the careers connected to his name, but they have to live with the empty chair. Before opinion enters the room, respect should be paid.

Once that is said, there is a larger conversation worth having. Clive Davis was one of the most important record executives America ever produced. That much is clear. For Black folks, especially those of us raised with soul, gospel, R&B, funk, blues, and hip hop moving through the house, the question gets a little deeper than awards and industry titles.

What did this man mean to Black music?

The answer is not simple, and it should not be made simple just to make him look bigger than he was. Black music did not come from a record company office. It was already holy ground long before any executive learned how to sell it. Our music came out of pain, faith, labor, joy, Saturday night, Sunday morning, front porches, church pews, cotton fields, city blocks, family kitchens, marching lines, funeral homes, and block parties. No business figure can claim that.

Still, something in the music reached his ear. Not just a good beat or a pretty voice. Plenty of executives heard Black artists and still treated them like they were only useful for one audience, one chart, one section of the store, or one type of radio station. Clive seemed to understand that our music was not a side road. It was the highway.

That is where his importance sits.

A lot of people in power have loved Black sound while disrespecting Black people. America has a long history of taking from us, copying us, watering us down, and then pretending the original source was hard to find. We have watched that happen with blues, rock and roll, soul, jazz, gospel, hip hop, and every branch that grew from those roots. Sometimes the world will dance to us before it will listen to us.

The man was still a businessman. Nobody should be confused about that. This was not some charity worker walking around saving singers from obscurity out of pure love. Labels had to be run. Deals had to be made. Sales mattered. Radio mattered. Timing mattered. Hits and stars were part of the work.

But there is a difference between using Black talent and actually believing it can stand at the center of the world. That difference is worth talking about.

Whitney Houston may be the best place to start, because her story still makes people feel something before they even finish saying her name. Greatness did not have to be handed to Whitney. That voice was already in her. Coming from Cissy Houston, church, and a musical family tree with deep roots, Whitney carried training, beauty, control, youth, and something heaven had touched.

No executive gave her that gift. What Clive did was recognize the size of it. That is not a small thing in a business where some people only notice Black talent after it has already made money for somebody else.

Looking at Whitney, the record man saw more than a strong singer. A woman with that kind of voice could cross borders. Pop radio, R&B radio, television specials, award shows, movie soundtracks, international stages, all of it sat within reach. Some people might have tried to keep her in one lane. Under his guidance, multiple roads opened, and the whole world had to deal with her talent.

That came with its own trouble. I remember the conversations around Whitney. Some Black folks felt the industry made her too polished, too clean, too acceptable for white audiences. Others defended her because Black excellence does not always have to arrive with grit on its face to be real. A Black woman singing with elegance is still Black. A Black woman standing in a gown with perfect diction and a full orchestra behind her is still carrying something from home.

That argument never fully went away, and maybe it should not. Crossover success has always asked Black artists to pay some kind of price. The world loves our gift, but it often wants to manage our image. Whitney’s career showed both sides of that blessing. Her rise reached heights few singers ever touched, but those heights came with pressure most people could not survive.

Aretha Franklin is a different part of the story. By the time Aretha Franklin came into his Arista orbit, the Queen of Soul was already royalty. That name did not need explaining in a Black household. You said Aretha, and everybody knew. That woman had already sung her way into history. Respect, pain, love, faith, womanhood, pride, and sorrow all passed through her voice with authority. Even the piano sounded like it was testifying when Aretha sat down in front of it.

What I respect about that chapter is simple. The music business did not get to treat her like yesterday’s news. This industry can be ugly toward women once they are no longer the newest face in the room. Black women catch that twice as hard. One minute the business wants their sound, the next minute it acts like age erased their value. Aretha was not done, and someone with power seemed to understand that.

There is something powerful about helping an established Black woman continue to be heard. Not discovered. Not invented. Heard. Aretha did not need a man to validate her soul. What she needed was the machinery to keep moving with her instead of moving past her. There is a difference.

Then came Alicia Keys, and the picture changed again. A young woman sitting at that piano with braids, New York in her posture, soul in her voice, and classical training in her hands did not feel manufactured. Alicia felt like somebody’s talented niece who had been practicing while the rest of the world was outside playing around.

The industry loves a pretty young singer, but Alicia was not just that. A musician sat at that piano. A writer. A young artist with seriousness in her spirit. Backing her mattered because it gave room to a Black woman who did not fit neatly into the quick package the business often wants. Instead of chasing only a hook, Alicia brought songs.

That is one thread running through his relationship with Black women in music. Whitney, Aretha, Alicia, Dionne Warwick, Jennifer Hudson, and others all had different gifts, different eras, different struggles. Their greatness did not come from him, but his ear often knew when greatness deserved a bigger stage. In a business that can be quick to reduce Black women to image, attitude, youth, or market category, that ear meant something.

LaFace takes us into another room. L.A. Reid and Babyface helped shape a whole generation of R&B, and the larger business structure around them gave that label room to move. If you were around in the 1990s, LaFace was not just a company name on the back of a CD. It was part of the sound of the decade.

TLC had style, nerve, humor, hurt, and message. Those sisters could make you dance and still make you think about self respect, relationships, AIDS, and young women trying to find their footing. Toni Braxton carried a low, rich voice that sounded like heartbreak had put on a silk dress. Usher grew into one of the great male performers of his time. OutKast changed everything for Southern hip hop.

That last one hits close for me. As a Black man from the South, I know what it meant when OutKast stepped forward and refused to sound like anybody else. Country, space age, poetic, strange, brilliant, and unapologetically Southern all lived in their music. Atlanta sounded different after them. The South became impossible to ignore.

Bad Boy was another kind of machine. Sean Combs brought flash, ambition, marketing sense, and New York confidence. The Notorious B.I.G. brought a voice and pen that still sit near the top of hip hop history. Faith Evans carried church soaked emotion into records that lived between R&B and rap. That Bad Boy sound was everywhere for a while. Cars, clubs, school dances, television, radio, barbershops, everywhere.

Nobody in a corporate office created hip hop. The Bronx did not need permission for that. Black and brown youth built the culture from turntables, rhymes, parties, walls, sidewalks, and hunger. But once hip hop was ready to become a global force, business muscle mattered too. Distribution matters. Promotion matters. Radio relationships matter. Budgets matter. The sound coming from young Black America was not a fad to laugh at. It was the future knocking hard.

That is why I say Clive Davis believed Black music could rule the world. Not because he was the source of it. The source was us. The source was our mothers singing while cooking, our fathers playing records on Saturday, our churches, our neighborhoods, our pain, our swagger, our survival, and our joy. The source was Black life.

But the man knew the world wanted what we had, even when the world did not know how to admit it. Those voices could fill stadiums. Those songs could cross oceans. Our rhythm could move people who did not understand the history behind it. A Black artist did not have to stay in a box marked “urban” or “soul” or “R&B” just to make the business comfortable.

There is a caution in all of this too. We should never confuse access with ownership. Black music has too often made other people rich while Black artists fought for control, publishing, masters, respect, and peace. That story is old, and it is still going on. Any tribute to a powerful executive has to leave room for that truth. The business has never loved us as much as the audience loved the music.

Even so, fairness requires saying that this man had an ear many executives did not have. A single was not the only thing he could hear. Sometimes a whole career came through the speakers. Sometimes the lasting power of a voice was plain to him before the rest of the industry caught up. That kind of ear feels rare now, in a time when everybody seems to chase whatever gets clipped, posted, streamed, and forgotten by next Friday.

Maybe that is one reason his passing feels like the end of an older kind of music business. Not a perfect business. Not always a fair one. But one where somebody could still sit with a song and imagine ten years, twenty years, maybe even forever.

Clive Davis leaves behind a complicated and towering legacy. For Black music, his place should be spoken of with balance. Give the artists the first honor. Always. Some were directly guided by him. Others came through the labels, partnerships, and business structures he helped build or support. Either way, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Alicia Keys, TLC, Toni Braxton, Usher, OutKast, The Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, and so many others carried the actual fire. They were not great because a powerful man stood nearby. The gift was real before the paperwork.

But doors were opened wide enough for more of the world to hear them.

That is worth remembering. That is worth respecting. And as his family mourns the man they loved, the rest of us can look back and say that in his long life, Clive heard something in Black music that America still tries to explain, copy, measure, and contain.

Power was there.

Beauty was there.

The world was changing.

More than once, the old record man was wise enough to get behind it.

Staff Writer; Jamar Jackson

This brother has a passion for poetry and music. One may contact him at; JJackson@ThyBlackMan.com.

Not performed emotion. Not the composed, camera-ready version of feeling that politicians learn somewhere along the way. Michelle was up at the podium talking about him, about his parents, about the girls, about what she described as his unshakeable values, and he kept looking down at his shoes and reaching up to wipe his face. The crowd of thousands saw it happen in real time. Thousands more watched from the public watch party on Midway Plaisance, where people danced and ate and stood around in the June heat just to be near the occasion.

The Obama Presidential Center is finally open. More than a decade from announcement to ribbon cutting, with lawsuits and community pushback and environmental concerns and a pandemic somewhere in the middle of all of it. A 19.3-acre campus in Jackson Park, blocks from the lake in the South Side neighborhood where he became who he is. A museum. A library branch. A community athletic facility with a basketball court. Gardens. A playground. The campus itself is free, though the museum requires paid timed-entry tickets.

The morning after the ceremony, on Juneteenth, he and Michelle walked into the new Chicago Public Library branch inside the campus and surprised a group of third graders from a nearby elementary school. That was not on the schedule anybody outside of a very small circle knew about. Nothing he does is accidental.

Here is what I keep coming back to when I think about what that center means right now, in this particular June, with the midterms coming in November and the country feeling like it is running a fever that nobody can quite diagnose. The location was a choice. The date was a choice. Juneteenth was a choice. The free campus was a choice. Every single element of that place reflects an argument he has been making, quietly and consistently, for years now, about where the real work of democracy actually happens.

It does not happen at the top. That is the argument. It never did.

Obama has been saying versions of this to Democrats since before he left the White House and the party has absorbed it partially and imperfectly, the way institutions tend to absorb lessons that require them to change how they spend their money and their attention. The school board race nobody organized for. The state legislature seat that got lost by two hundred votes in a precinct where the canvassing stopped three weeks before election day. The city council member who has been running unopposed for twelve years because nobody built the infrastructure to challenge her. These are not small things. They are the architecture of everything else and Democrats have a habit of treating them like footnotes while chasing the headline race.

What he keeps pressing on is citizenship, that specific word, not voter, not supporter, not the base. Citizenship carries weight that the other words do not. It implies that you owe something. That participation is not optional when the thing you are participating in is the continued existence of a system that needs human attention to function. Feeling strongly about politics while only showing up every four years when the presidency is on the line is not citizenship. It is spectatorship with strong feelings attached.

The Presidential Center was always meant to be a physical argument for that idea. He chose the South Side partly because of his own history there and partly because of what it signals to put something like this in a community that has not always been the recipient of this kind of institutional investment. The partnerships with local youth organizations, the hiring from surrounding neighborhoods, the programming aimed at young people who might not otherwise walk into a space like this, all of it reflects a belief that the next generation of organizers and civic leaders is sitting in those communities right now waiting on something to grab onto.

On voter responsibility he does not give Democrats the easy version of the conversation. He accepts that suppression is real, fights it, and also refuses to let the party use it as the complete explanation for every turnout problem. Both things exist simultaneously. You litigate the suppression and you build the culture. One without the other is incomplete.

Obama approval numbers when he left office were around 60 percent. The nostalgia for what his presence in the White House felt like has only grown since, partly because of what came next and partly because time softens the parts that were harder to sit with. He deported more people in his first term than any president before him. The drone program extended into countries the United States was not formally at war with. The banks that caused the financial crisis were protected in ways that the homeowners who lost everything in it were not. The former President believed, maybe too generously, that modeling reason and institutional respect would eventually produce a reciprocal response from the other side. It did not. The years since have made that plain.

But the center is not a monument to a perfect presidency. Obama would be the first to tell you that. What it is meant to be, what the whole project has been pointed toward since he and Michelle stood in a YouTube video in 2015 and said Chicago, is a place where the next version of the work gets done. Training people. Developing leaders. Giving the South Side something to build around for the next fifty years regardless of who is in Washington.

The midterms are coming. Republicans are defending important Senate seats in Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio. Democrats are trying to hold Georgia, Michigan, and New Hampshire. The margins in most of those races will be decided at the ground level, by organizing that either happened or did not, by precincts that were worked or ignored, by the kind of sustained local effort that does not generate a single national headline but quietly determines everything.

That is what he has been trying to tell the party. Show up smaller. Go earlier. Build something that holds without a single name at the top holding it together.

He dedicated the center on June 18, and it opened to the public on Juneteenth in the neighborhood that helped make him. The message was in the details, same as it always is with him. Whether Democrats are listening the way they need to is the only question left.

Staff Writer; L.L. McKenna

Politics explained through the lens of justice and equity. Offering perspective that informs, challenges, and empowers.

One can contact this brother at; LLMcKenna@ThyBlackMan.com.

Politically, I consider him a liberal, though he would argue the point, but I digress.

He wanted to know my thoughts about ESPN sports commentator, Stephen A. Smith.

Smith and I travel in the same circles, but he has yet to have the pleasure of meeting me.  I find this amazing since we have actually been at several events at the same time.

But as usual, all things in due season.

My thoughts on Smith are based on my personal observations, conversations with industry insiders and those who have personal relationships with him.

My primary and most important thought on Smith is that he is greatly OVEREXPOSED!  Last time I checked, he was not Jamaican, but yet he has a million jobs.

He has shows on ESPN, YouTube, XM Sirius.  He is constantly being interviewed in one media format or another.

For those who do not know, I make a living by helping high profile people navigate all things media.

Smith’s trajectory is unsustainable and unnecessary.

I am not one to count other people’s money, but if media accounts are accurate, he recently signed a deal with ESPN that made him one of the highest paid individuals in sports media.  Included in his deal is the right to have his own production company and produce outside content that is not owned by ESPN.

This is not an uncommon arrangement with elite entertainers like him, but it is unnecessary.  At this point it is all about ego.  He is definitely not worried about paying his light bills every month.

I have had many clients go down this path and all have been destroyed by the ego associated with drinking from the cup of fortune and fame.

I tell every one of my clients, “Fortune and fame is like soap, the more you use it, the less you have.”

My advice to Smith is to focus on being even better on ESPN and not dilute his talents by being spread too thin.

A few outside projects every now and then is OK, but I see and hear him way too much.  When was the last time you heard the name Lizzo?  She is exhibit A in overexposure and then puuuffffff!

And this idiotic talk about him running for president?  Boy, please!!!

I understand why he is promoting and encouraging this type of speculation, but it will prove to be counter-productive to his brand.

One of the most insidious down sides of social media is that in order to continue to get subscribers, likes, and followers, you must constantly feed the beast!

How do you feed the beast?  Controversy!

You have to constantly engage in petty online fights with high profile people who you have never met or create show topics involving the underbelly of race, homosexuality, or sex.  The bigger you get, the more extreme your behavior must be.

Podcasters Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson are two exceptions to this rule.  They are so genuine and substantive in their content that there is no need for them to play the fool for clicks and likes.  They feed the beast with their substance and it works for them.

If Smith were totally focused on his role with ESPN there would be no need for him to get into public pissing matches with people like former ESPN colleague, Jason Whitlock.

I have never nor will I ever understand how adults can get into a public feud with people that have absolutely no contact with their lives.  All parties come out looking like fools.

But this childish behavior feeds the beast.

Again, I do understand why Smith is encouraging this talk about running for president.  In political circles he is mocked and ridiculed because he is not a well-read person and it shows.

Smith reminds me of people like Jasmine Crockett, LeBron James, Steve Kerr to name a few.  Just because you have a platform to speak from does not mean you need to comment on everything.

Sometimes silence is the loudest statement one can make.

I have heard Smith pontificate on political issues that made me cringe.

Solomon once told me in Proverbs 4:7, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”

It is not enough for someone like Smith to quote statistics, though sometimes they come in handy.  He needs to be able to demonstrate that he has the understanding to go along with the statistics.

He who knows how will always have a job.  He who knows why will always be his boss.

There is no question that Smith has the how down pat.  He is a very intelligent person, but he needs to do much better on the why part.

He has carved out a niche for himself in media and he should be proud of his accomplishments.  He has worked his butt off and deserves all the accolades and money he can get.

But he must not lose focus on what got him to this point in his career—sports.  Not politics, pop culture, or foreign affairs.

My friend I was having dinner with finally told me why he had a sudden interest in my views of Smith.  For various reasons he assumed that I had a personal relationship with Smith and he trusted me to deliver a discreet message to him.

The top executives at ESPN also think that Smith is doing too much but they are afraid to have this conversation with him because they are terrified of any possible racial implications that could end up in a lawsuit.

This is what America has come to when it comes to race relations.  A major company like ESPN and its white executives are too afraid to have a man-to-man conversation with one of their top employees because he is Black.

Stephen, we have many mutual friends and so I am quite sure this column will somehow get to you.

I do not know if you have surrounded yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear or those who tell you what you need to hear.  Far too often it is the former and not the latter.

My unsolicited advice to you is to get back to your first love—sports journalism.  This social media is going to further damage your brand.  I think you are better than that.

With your production company, I would love to see you do documentaries and in-depth feature reporting.  Social media could be used to compliment this long form of journalism.

This will also make you more valuable to ESPN.

Social media is like the tinkling cymbal or the sounding brass full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

I can easily see you being a billion-dollar enterprise if you get back to your roots and not try to be all things to all men.

Stay thirsty my friend.

Staff Writer; Raynard Jackson

This talented brother is a Pulitzer Award nominated columnist and founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future (BAFBF), a federally registered 527 Super PAC established to get more Blacks involved in the Republican Party. BAFBF focuses on the Black entrepreneur. For more information about BAFBF, visit www.bafbf.org. You can follow Raynard on Twitter; RealRaynardJ; on Gettr: RaynardJackson.

Can also drop him an email at; RaynardJ@ThyBlackMan.com.

“ Remember Lot’s wife.” (Luke 17:32)

There is an abiding danger, however caused, that the present generation, and indeed generations to come, forget the significant milestones of the past, and thereby nullify the achievements, endeavours, and travails of those who have passed this way, and how God has been central to their survival and accomplishments.

Europe today calls itself “post-Christian” as if Christianity is a worn garment that you can cast off after it has served its purpose. Sadly, this same attitude is seen in some non-European countries, and coupled with the spread of vicious atheism, believers need to look back and remember the important role God played in the preservation of humanity.

It is also important that we see how essential and interlinked are the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Some believers think that the Old Testament has no relevance to Christianity and the Church Age, and they deem the Old Testament as nothing more than the Jewish Bible.

While it is true that the Old Testament is a Jewish document recording the dealings of God with the Jews, and detailing the beliefs and practices of Judaism their religion, it is also true that the Old Testament is a fore-runner of the New Testament and is the foundation on which is built a lot of Christian theology. And it stands staunchly as Holy Scripture for all time.

In addition, it’s true that the Old Testament saints (nearly all Jews) and the New Testament believers (nearly all Gentiles) are one people in Christ with a common heritage, as noted by Paul in Romans 3:29-30. Hence, when God asks us to remember something that pertains to the one, it must of necessity have some relevance to the other.

The biblical feasts and festivals should be remembered, above all, because God  instructed the Jews to keep them in mind, but also for their significance, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.” (Leviticus 23:1-2)

Israel, like all countries, have different years. Here in Barbados, for example, we have the financial year that begins on 1^st April, as well as the calendar (Gregorian) year that begins on Ist January. In Israel, each month begins with the new moon, and the first month of the new year, Nisan, is in the Gregorian calendar month of March or early April. Israel’s 12 month calendar is as follows:

1. Nisan, 30 days – 2. Iyar, 29 days – 3. Sivan, 30 days – 4. Tammuz, 29 days – 5. Av, 30 days – 6. Elul, 29 days – 7. Tishrei, 30 days – 8. Marcheshvan (or Cheshvan), 29/30 days – 9. Kislev, 30/29 days – 10. Tevet, 29 days – 11. Shevat, 30 days – 12. Adar, 29 days.

In the Bible, Israel had seven feasts, or festivals, that they were to keep throughout their generations. They added several others after independence in 1948, but the seven biblical ones are as follows in calendar order:

1. Passover, Exodus 12:13-14

2. Unleavened Bread, Exodus 23:15

3. Firstfruits, Leviticus 23:13-14

4. The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), Leviticus 23:16-21

5. The Feast of Trumpets, Numbers 29:1

6. The Day of Atonement, Leviticus 23:26-32

7. The Feast of Booths (Tabernacles or Ingathering). Leviticus 23:39-41

The Passover is perhaps the most wellknown of the biblical feast, and it commemorates the time when the firstborn of the Egyptian household was killed and the Israelites spared. The Israelites were instructed to kill a lamb and spread its blood across the door posts and lintel, and when the death angel passed, it would pass over the Israelites, sparing their firstborn. The full details of the event are recorded in Exodus 12:1-14.

Why does the Passover matter to believers?

The Passover is the most important festival to believers because the Lord’s Supper, (that we take regularly as the Holy Communion), was a Passover meal. Remember what Paul said regarding this, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” (1 Corinthians 11:25). When Jesus passed the bread to his disciples and told them that it was his body, and that they should eat it, Jesus was portraying himself as the Passover lamb, and Paul acknowledged it, “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” (1 Corinthians 5:7)

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was the event when the Israelites were instructed to eat bread without yeast, illustrating the hasty preparation they made to depart from Egypt. The Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted for one week and followed immediately after the Passover. The full details of this event are recorded in Exodus 12:15-20.

Why does the Feast of Unleavened Bread matter to believers?

In Matthew 16:6-12, Jesus described the Pharisees as hypocrites, and their teaching as yeast. He warned his disciples to, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” (Matthew 16:6) In the New Testament , yeast is often associated with evil, and Paul said, “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” (Galatians 5:9) Since believers are to purge themselves of evil (1 Corinthians 7:1) and to present their bodies as a living sacrifice unto God (Romans 12:1), it is apt to remember both the origins of this feast and its application by Jesus.

The Offering of Firstfruits was a festival that took place at the beginning of the harvest and commemorated Israel’s gratitude to and dependence on God. In fact, Israel brought first fruits to God at various times of the year, depending on the specific crop that was harvested, but the Offering of Firstfruits, detailed in Leviticus 23:9-14, occurred in combination with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and focused on the barley harvest. The full details of this event are recorded in Leviticus 23:9-14.

Why does the Offering of Firstfruits matter to believers?

Many churches throughout the world still engage in this Old Testament festival, the Harvest Festival, because all life on earth depends on crops of every variety to exists, and believers show their gratitude to and dependence on God. Some regard this festival as symbolic of the resurrection of Christ, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.” (1 Corinthians 15:20)

In addition to these three, they are four other feasts that were to be remembered. The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) that celebrated the grain harvest, and the day Christians celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit; the Feast of Trumpets as stated in Numbers 29:1, was a celebration at the end of the agricultural year, and which Christians associate with the end of the age and trumpet blowing (Matthew 24:31, 1 Thessalonians 4:16); the Day of Atonement was concerned with atoning for the sins of the people, and which Christians associate with the sacrificial death of Christ on Good Friday (or Jesus’ Second Advent); the Feast of Booths (or tabernacles or Ingathering) was concerned with living in huts made from palm fronds to recall the sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness before entering the land of Canaan, and which Christians associate with the start of the Millennium (and Christ living among us).

All these feasts were related to the spiritual life of the people. When God asks us to remember, he is not asking us to do a trip down memory lane for sentimental reasons, but for practical reasons related to our spirituality. In the most significant cases that God asks us to remember, he wants us to do something, to act, to take steps in a certain direction, to follow a course of action to uplift, invigorate and strengthen us in the faith. Here are three examples:

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8). The world has gone mad in disrespecting and disregarding the sabbath day, and everywhere you can see how Sunday, for them, is just another day. Alas, some believers follow the example of the world, and engage in a number of unimportant things, things they could easily do on other days, and forget that God says to keep the sabbath holy. Believers need to remember, and act, “To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.” (Psalm 103:18)

“Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” (Revelation 2:5). This is not only true for the Ephesians, who had left their first love, but for all believers who have fallen away, regressed, or relinquish their enthusiasm and passion for the things of God and of Jesus. Get back to where you once were, is the call here for believers to remember.

“ Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” (Revelation 3:3) The Sardisians had gotten sloppy, and it was badly affecting their spirituality. Believers today can get sloppy too, not being watchful and attentive, and being vulnerable to calamity if God puts in his appearance.

God loves his children, and so prompts them to remember things – for their own good.

Staff Writer; Henderson W.

You can contact this Christian brother at: HWard@ThyBlackMan.com.