That was the rallying cry that I will remember most. It was a humble exalt offered for a disillusioned and ambivalent humanity, coined by the late Rev. Jesse Jackson. When I first heard the three-word phrase years ago, it sunk deep.

It is a phrase that dishonors no one yet can uplift anybody—if you just embrace it.

Those words can pull you from the depths of depression, remove some from the guilt of systemic oppression, and create a cause célèbre of racial reconciliation—if you just believe it. And more importantly, that it exists for everyone, regardless of the varied skin hues we crassly amuse ourselves with.

“I am Somebody,” will forever be true, even if as a Civil Rights Leader, protégé of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and predecessor to an American president, Jesse Jackson’s family was denied the request to lay him in state at the Capitol Rotunda. Why? because I have already seen Rev. Jackson highly honored in a quiet mountain enclave, where decades ago another leader also tried to bring justice to the masses.

At a small stone monument in Keane California, I saw a life-sized replica of a migrant cabin, work clothes folded neatly across the bed. Nearby hung a framed photograph of the Rev. Jesse Jackson wearing sandals, kneeling beside the frail, foodless United Farmer Worker Leader Cesar Chavez. I snapped the image, trying to avoid a glare from the glass covering it.

My husband and I had accidentally discovered the burial place of Chavez while on a sunny afternoon drive through the Tehachapi mountains. I knew little about Chavez then, and lesser still about Jackson’s pilgrimage to that 36-day hunger strike in Delano, CA. in 1988. It was to support boycotting farm workers and their over-exposure to pesticides while harvesting table grapes. Now I know a bit more, because of that visit to Keane, and later Chavez’s book. Each provided a chance to learn about “somebody” else, rather than erroneous perceptions about who they might be.

I discovered that in the decades since that a tiny nation of people, whose ancestors came here legally, via the Bracera Program (over four million strong) have strived to ensure nutritious fruits and vegetables stay on our dinner tables. They allow us to slither in between clean, fresh, Downey white sheets and soft down pillows in comfy hotel rooms at night, while we cackle between tacos and tequilas in quaint Mexican restaurants. Others diagnose our ailments with stethoscopes hung around their necks and teach our children in classrooms because they are “Somebody” too.

Our nation will endeavor to honor Rev. Jesse Jackson in three separate funeral services this week, despite no recognition on Capitol Hill. He of course would demand that we continue to “look to the hills from whence cometh my help…” (Psalm 121:1), then march forward with determination, despite the disappearances, incarcerations, and cruel injustices. He would remind us that these acts of evil weigh our country down like a sea of concrete, a futile effort to breathe fresh air, oblivion during our descent into the abyss below.

Rev. Jackson’s lifetime of service gave us momentary respite, but a million reasons why we must vote en masse to “keep hope alive,” despite what others may say or do. Rev. Jesse Jackson professed that we are all of value, crafted uniquely by our Creator, and that each one of us individually must count. Hence his attempts to free the Iranian hostages, negotiate the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, fight South African apartheid and so much more. This is what a life of service means.

So we say, rest on Rev. Jesse Jackson. We will not and cannot forget you, what you stood for and the Christian values you espoused. What a privilege and honor to have heard, seen and embraced “Somebody” like you from afar. Thank you for your service Sir. Now let the church say, Amen.

I would soon meet Julia in person, less than a year later for our “inaugural” reunion. Over seventy-five members of our extended families chose to attend, all who previously knew nothing about each other.

Once in Alabama, we checked into our hotels, then caravanned to a small enclave of Pickens County, and Old Bethany Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery, where death certificates showed our ancestors were buried. But there were no headstones to identify them. Such is the dilemma of African American cemeteries, overrun with weeds, sunken crypts, and an onslaught of cicadas screeching in trees overhead. Difficult conditions for surveying the land. Like Old Bethany, often burial grounds in similar cities are unearthed after a new business development unknowingly exhumes skeletal remains. Then hard decisions must be made.

Former Senator Sherrod Brown authored Senate Bill 3667 in 2022 to help clean-up, restore and refurbish lost African American cemeteries. It surprised me to learn that former Senator Mitt Romney co-sponsored it. So, bipartisanship is possible. The bill stalled and its actual implementation is uncertain—for now anyway.

Across the lawn from our ancestors was a neater, nicer, fenced in cemetery (the white section) with an old tin sign further down the dirt road that read, “Burial place of James McCrory, bodyguard to President George Washington.” McCrory was with Washington at Valley Forge Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. Who knew that our formerly enslaved ancestors final resting place was near, yet so far from American history? Only ours were never a memorable part of the story.

Subsequently, our family scraped together donations and purchased a nice headstone with five of our ancestors’ names engraved on it to erect in Old Bethany. It was the least we could do, both to celebrate our coming together again, and to ensure something is left for future generations. Unfortunately, in less than a year, an unknown entity had knocked the headstone off its base, requiring substantial repair. Yes, more should be done to maintain and protect places of interment.

As for the most famous individual interred at Old Bethany, James McCrory, he came to mind once again this week, as I researched his former boss George Washington’s enslaved runaway woman Oney “Ona” Judge. Advertisements seeking her recapture were published in the Philadelphia Gazette in May 1796. Despite Washington’s voiced indignation at why she ran away in the first place, Judge never returned. She married, had children and died in New Hampshire in 1848.

Then, 230 years later in January 2026, during his sprint to purge the few existing Black History monuments, President Donald Trump ordered the National Park Service to remove the artistic tribute to Oney Judge in Philadelphia. Among other pressing administrative issues, he had been ordering these removals consistently since returning to office.

I was not taught about my own ancestors, Oney Judge nor the other enslaved people at Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. It might have made history more interesting, but thankfully Washington’s meticulous documentation about them still exists. Thousands of other formerly enslaved people have no such record. This is one of the many reasons why I conduct genealogical research. I want to bring awareness about them, who they were for their descendants today, and why things remain as they are in our country. The online Mount Vernon.org does a decent job of highlighting some of Mount Vernon’s finest citizens of color. The website’s organizers indicated they would be working more on this effort in the future.

In 2008 the Friends of Old Bethany Cemetery and the Alabama Historical Commission erected a formal, new and improved signage to commemorate James McCrory’s final resting place. A local reporter featured it again in an article celebrating President’s Day in 2016.

And in 2026, there is the ongoing mission to remove, desecrate, digitally eliminate or otherwise re-entomb African American history. Will this ease the angst of why a mere mention of slavery evokes such disdain? And why do ongoing issues of systemic racism and dehumanization of others based on color, culture, and caste continue to plague us? Or do we simply seal our lips, covering our ears and eyes, refusing to grapple with the complexities of it? while many others are seldom allowed to ever forget.

Discovering a whole new branch of our family was one of the greatest genealogical treasures I have experienced to date. However, Cousin Julia began showing symptoms of dementia just months after we first met. It was a heartbreaking, bittersweet footnote to her amazing ninety years of life. I am so glad we have her on videotape. She helped us to connect with others, building new relationships, fostering friendships, creating funny and fond memories, and even tackling some not so pleasant revelations in the decades after. We learned to talk things over, stop contributing to the trauma of secrecy, inane familial hierarchies or coddling heirlooms of hypocrisy. We acknowledged historical inaccuracies, correcting what we could when and where possible. And we have tried to move forward with forgiveness, empathy, and respect intentionally. We have not always been successful, but we try. Because of this, I choose to celebrate Black History moments all year long.

As foreigners, we have been in this American experience together since 1619, and as a nation since before 1492. Therefore, we can and should proclaim with determination and expectation, despite our human imperfections, “Happy 250^th Anniversary America,” because to be truly great again demands that, ‘We The People’ must finally mean ALL of us, all of the time.

May Black History moments, yours and mine, pave the patriotic way.

This year has changed me. I cannot watch much television anymore. As a result, podcasts like The Best People with Nicolle Wallace occasionally filter into my YouTube streams when other programs have ended. That usually means I left it unattended, or am preoccupied with business or household stuff until…

Recently Nicolle was interviewing historian Heather Cox Richardson, whose comment on current activism caught my attention. Cox Richardson had this to say.

“…the resistance to the Trump movement has been unusually old and white and that I think is actually a very good thing because it provides cover especially for our brown, but certainly for Black Americans who are wisely staying out of the public eye on this because they refuse to give the president justification for cracking down on them...”

The comment struck me on several levels, the obvious one being about why we are remaining out of the public eye. It resonated the most.

This is what often happens when one provides a populist opinion for a group of people as diverse as those from the African diaspora. First, there is the generational divide all cultures must contend with. We are no different. Young adults in our community are battling high costs, with wages and residences that can’t keep up with demand or affordability. Many are young parents and most are huge social media consumers more preoccupied with how to build wealth, respect and personal autonomy all at once. Not easy.

Those older, age fifty-five plus have seen this dark demonic drama before. The hooded terror from the south, migration, hindrances at the northern gates, disenfranchisement, bi-partisan grifting for our votes, broken promises, physical and intellectual lynching, and historical crematoriums constructed to erase our contributions and undeniable story from America’s founding.

And we are tired.

It does not mean we are turning bruised and blue-hued other cheeks, discarding hard won homesteads, nor burying our heads in black sand deserted beaches. We are, as we have done for centuries now, fighting to keep smiling or giving. We are beating a more acoustic drum, forging new and innovative ways to rise with sound minds and high-step over mere survival. We are keeping intact our strongest and most treasured foundations, family, faith and friends, while holding American ire, insanity and revisionist oratory at bay, yet keeping enemies ever so close.

And it does not mean we don’t care either. We always have. That is why change came for more than just African Americans. It meant justice for women and foreigners too.

Yes, we are avoiding knees on necks, and the inhumane battering and brutality of bodies for our own safety. But it is only one of the many reasons you do not see us out there, out front. Our ancestors knew this part of the journey well.

It is what happens once you start following the North Star.

There is never enough money, and sometimes food. I know, I was once part of such a family.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama came to understand those needs well. In 2011, she embraced military families and together with Dr. Jill Biden, wife of the Vice President they sought real change and established “Joining Forces.” The initiative was to bring attention to the unique experiences and strengths of America’s service members, veterans, and their families.

It was not a feel-good replanting or paving over of the Rose Garden, a refurbishing the White House interiors or “Just Say No” campaign. It was a do something now effort. It was the kind of support I sure would have welcomed as a young mom and wife in the frigid Mid-west years ago.

The military’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) was always nice for entertainment, but was never meant to meet the physical, psycho-social and economic needs of families like mine. Nor could it help me, a timid, post-surgery mom of two toddlers, endure the region’s isolation and subzero temperatures. My husband was battling his own personal snowbanks, while away on two-day work assignments. Over time, it wore us both down.

Military families are asked to endure far more than you can imagine, often without the resources needed to thrive versus mere survival. Some exist on food stamps, and the issues they have may go unnoticed until they are in a health crisis or marriages dissolve, not to mention spiritual deserts of the soul.

Multiple members of my family have been veterans, and Veterans Day should remain a proud recognition of their valiant service, both at home and abroad. But let it also be a reminder that active-duty service members and their families are a valued part of our extended communities, not just during deployments or on designated holidays. We have open opportunities to support them daily, right now in the places where we already live, work and worship.

Reach out to them or a local reputable organization that supports them today. Invite them into the community. Ask what is needed and then provide the help. Now that’s patriotism in its finest hour.