The Collective Souls of Black People
How did we get here? How did we become who we are? Where did we come from? What are our true roots? What are we made of and in whose image have we conformed? We are all cut from the same cloth, the mud from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia formed by the Hand of God, and made in His image in the Garden. God breathed souls that were formed in Africa, tattered across the middle passage, ripped to shreds during our enslavement, reformed and restructured under the unrelenting presence and pressure of being Black in this world, and our ability to adapt and recreate ourselves to the environment in which we found ourselves. How do we embrace the truth of our past and present history without going backwards but intelligently moving forward?
The disintegration of the African American family manifests itself in our physical soul with hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, AIDS/HIV, depression, poverty, black on black crime, violence against black males, single families, schisms and divisions among ourselves, and in general a loss of our identities and an overall sense of the loss of ourselves – our soul. We are conflicted as a people and if the truth be told – most of us don’t like ourselves or each other. Yes, this workshop explores how our experiences as a people have formed our collective souls in this country and throughout the African Diaspora.
It is a multifaceted series of workshops developed specifically to address our unique issues, using our collective history from Africa to America; our spiritual and biblical history, the black church, ancient history, scientific, archaeological, and anthropological evidences to reconstruct the truth of our history. These teachings and innovative instructive exercises are aimed at educating, elevating, healing, restoring black families, and our community. This institute looks at slavery and it’s devastating effects on black families; it looks into Ancient Black History and the implications of having been disconnected from it via the middle passage; it looks at our collective history in America: the culture and beliefs that formed as a result of it; and most how to collectively heal and move forward. It is God’s message to His people.