Some wonder, "Why do we keep celebrating Black History Month?" It is because Black History Month is a very special time of year. Granted, we do not become less black on March 1st. And we take pride in our heritage all year long. But by setting aside this month, we set our heritage apart. We take it from the pages of history books and bring it to life. We take the time to remember, to reunite, and to rededicate ourselves to our history. And what a glorious history it is!
When I consider Black history, I think of it as a narrative of people crossing color lines....and fulfilling dreams. African- Canadian, African - Americans have long struggled to understand their place in society.

With each passing decade, we have pushed the color line forward, widened the circle, and moved closer to America's promise of equality. During Black History Month, we honor the memory of African-Americans like Dr. Martin Luther King, as we celebrate current history makers like Dr. Condoleezza Rice. We remember the greatness of Jackie Robinson breaking down color barriers in sports, and then cheer as Tiger Woods sets another record. These and so many other heroes pushed color lines and then broke through them, forever altering America's history.

In my view, the most dramatic example of African-Americans pushing a color line is that of slavery. It saddens me to see some of us trying to distance ourselves from that piece of history. Others try to minimize it. In fact, I recently looked at my meager collection of book do not house enough history book on the subject...shame on me. Some flee from embracing our history, because so many have tried to make us feel less worthy because of it. But I am here today to remind you that our painful past of pushing color lines should make us hold our heads high in triumph, not hang them in shame. If we truly recognize how our history has sustained us and shaped our purpose as a people through a history of suffering and injustice, then we will understand how powerful and blessed people we truly are.

However it is during this period I take time out to reflect upon the great power that has emerged from
extreme suffering. I think about the men and women who endured the capture and beatings in Africa, but did not give up and die. I stop to think about the fortitude of the 12 million who endured the middle passage, packed in leaky ships, weak from starvation and disease, but did not give up and die. I think about the strength of the families that were divided and sold on the blocks like cattle when they arrived on American shores, but did not give up and die. I think about the courage of those who endured Jim Crow's separatism, and the beatings and hangings from hooded riders in the dead of night. I think about those who were killed just for holding a book or learning to read, but whose children persisted, and became great inventors, writers, doctors and scientists. None of them gave up. It is their blood that runs through our veins. We are the children of survivors - the strongest of the strong. I am the descended from faithful and courageous men and women who beat the odds, who led us into new frontiers, and who crossed color lines - literally breaking chains of oppression to fulfill their dreams. As the poet Maya Angelou remarked, "And, still I rise." That is our history. A history to take pride in and celebrate. One of my most beloved heroes is a former slave named Harriet Tubman. A picture of Sister Tubman fearlessly leading slaves through the Underground Railroad graces the walls in both my home and my office, and reminds me daily of her strength and courage.

Her life has shaped my life. Her history has helped mold me into the woman that I am. Harriet Tubman was a woman of great faith who allowed G-d to guide her through frequent prayer. She was a dreamer, always envisioning and working towards a better day, not just for herself but for her people. She was a trailblazer, creating new paths through rugged and dangerous terrain to lead a disheartened people to freedom. She never stopped fighting, never stopped pushing that color line, never turned away from a challenge - whether it meant openly defying the South by leading more than 300 slaves to freedom, or by helping the Union cause as an army spy, guide, and nurse.

Harriet Tubman felt the pain of the stones of hatred and prejudice that were thrown at her. But instead of cowering before those who cast stones, she faced them with a head held high, her eyes fixed upon a higher cause. She picked up each stone thrown her way - whether it was a cruel word, a beating, or a lack of food and shelter - and used it to make her stronger. Then, she laid the stones behind her to create a sturdy path for me - for you – for all of us to follow.

One story from her life stands out in my mind. It was the summer of 1849, and Harriet had made a decision: it was time to flee her slave owners. It was time to claim her freedom. No one else would join her - not even her husband - so she went alone. Under cover of darkness, with the North Star as her guide, she made her way on foot from the Eastern shore of Maryland to the state of Pennsylvania. Freedom was hers at last.
This is how she described it: "When I found that I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now [that] I was free. There was such a glory over everything...I felt like I was in heaven."

I get goose bumps every time I recite her words, because I can feel what she must have felt at that moment. Harriet Tubman had crossed the ultimate color line. The glory of achieving her dream changed her. Her determination to spread freedom changed the course of history.

Flash forward in time - last year, they celebrated the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown versus the Board of Education, a decision which ended racial segregation in America's public schools. A young lawyer named Thurgood Marshall argued the case. For Thurgood Marshall, the grandson of a slave, it was beyond time to cross that color line. Marshall, you see, had to fight to get the education he deserved. He attended segregated schools in Baltimore. He went to college in Pennsylvania because Maryland's universities were segregated. After graduating with honors, he applied to attend the University of Maryland College Park School of Law and was rejected — solely because of his race. Marshall never forgot that rejection, that "stone." In fact, it inspired him to push the color line. He earned his J.D. at Howard University's law school, and then crusaded against segregated universities in the 1940s before arguing the Brown case in 1954. In rejecting Marshall, the University of Maryland rejected the very man who would bring their segregated system down. A man who would achieve something none of its other graduates achieved — the honor of becoming a Supreme Court Justice.

This is our heritage. This is our history. Remember it. Celebrate it. And understand that our history is our future. John Henrik Clarke, an African-American historian, put it best when he said, "History tells a people where they have been and what they have been...but most important, history tells a people where they still must go... and what they still must be. "Throughout our lives, we will face many challenges and difficulties. We will run into roadblocks and obstacles. Some may come simply because of the color of your skin. Others will come from challenges you cannot foresee or imagine. It may take the full measure of your faith to help you overcome them. And it will take the knowledge of your history to guide us through them.

Let me take you just a short back in time once more, to a town in New Brunswick in late summer of 1999. It was just after I arrived almost 10 years ago. I recall sitting in the car waiting for my beloved while he conducted the banking. I chose to stay back in the car. It was a warm bright sunny day. I was sitting in the back seat of our car writing a journal entry. While I sat there in the back seat two men were standing outdoors sharing their obvious disgust of all the blacks migrating to there town. The fear washed over as it had many of my fore mothers. In this town being black was not good but I was not going anywhere.

Several months later I went for a leisurly bike ride and felt the pain of the beer bottle smashing into the side of my face from a fast moving car. Naturally I fell off my bike and decided walking my bike home would be safer than riding. The place was rampant with racism, but now I really was here to stay like it or not. Another day a friend and I went for a walk. It was a beautiful summers evening a vehicle approached, and pelted us with eggs. Then there was the evening we left a well known restaurant and we were met by a mob of angry white men what we call glorified haters “skinheads they cruelly- shouted obscenities at us. But you know I must tell you I stood defiant. The damage was already done. My memory of their cruelty is still quite vivid, because I was just moving to a place I had coined a lil’piece of heaven. I will never regret my defiance.

I recall after that moment I never felt afraid of those angry goons who tried to claim my dignity, and I was never belittled by their hateful words. I had courage because my mother had shared with me the history of our people. I had courage because my mother had taught me to take a stand for pride in I understood our history. I had courage because my mother had given to me, as a child, the gift of faith in Courage. And so I knew that no color lines, no eggs, no beer bottles, no obscenities could prevail against me. I was part of a larger history. The knowledge of that history has sustained me and given me the strength to cross many color lines in my lifetime. In the spiritual "Find Us Faithful" by Steven Green, he offers these words: "After all our hopes and dreams have come and gone, and our children sift through all we've left behind; May the clues that they discover, and the memories they uncover, become the light that leads them to the road we each must find." And so I encourage all people: Take strength from your history. Our freedom and equality is the product of the strength, courage and faith of those who have gone before us.When my challenges seem insurmountable, often times I turn around and survey the road that others have paved for me - the Harriet Tubmans, the Thurgood Marshalls, the heroes and trailblazers of my own family. I allow those stories inspire me. I Let their resilience encourageme. They never gave up and blamed others for their difficulties, but instead dreamed of a better day and willingly took on the challenge of crossing color lines to fulfill those dreams.

I remember their stories, and live out new ones in my life which can be passed on to future generations. I keep crossing the color lines. I keep fulfilling my dreams. And let the history of my great people empower me to be the great history maker of tomorrow.

We saw the lightning and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped."

- Harriet Tubman