Mother's Day from an African American Perspective

Mother's Day.  A day to honor mothers of the present.  It's also a time to remember and honor the mothers of the past.  For me it's especially a time to think about and reflect on those African American and African mothers of the past in my family.

The African mothers.  Imagine that first expression on their faces as they gave birth to their children.  Compare that expression to the facial expression when told that slave traders had taken that child, now much older away from Africa into enslavement.  They would never see that child again.

The early years of African American mothers in these United States of America was not a joyous time.  The years when black people were enslaved in the United States meant that the child of an enslaved black woman could and many times was taken away and sold into slavery far away from the mother.  That black mother never had the opportunity to watch that child develop.  That mother did not have time to nurture that child into adulthood.  She lost contact with that child, forever.

We should never forget what those mothers went through emotionally seeing their children snatched away from them.  So as you look your mother in the eye and give her a kiss and hug, sometime today think about those original African mothers, and African American mothers whose mother hood was ruined by the American institution of slavery.