SOME TRIBUTES
TO OUR MOTHERS

Anytime we have a nation that has made progress in some areas and not others we must continue the struggle.

We are living in the middle of the American Paradox.

The paradox is that we've made so much progress that we can put a Black man in the White House and so little progress that we  can't walk a Black teenager through a gated community in Sanford Florida at the same time.

We've got to dispel this paradox.

Right now somewhere in this country in a maternity ward babies are being born.

Why are some born citizens and others are born suspects?

If you're a certain color you're a suspect.

If another color you're a citizen.

Until all children in America are born as citizens we won't stop marching we won't stop standing up we won't stop protesting  we won't stop gathering.

We've got to have one nation, under God, with equal protection under the law for everybody.

Let me say this and I'm going to let our guests speak:

I'm not going to do the eulogy for my mother today, I'm going to do it at her funeral.

But, I will say this.

I spoke on Wednesday night at Allen Cathedral.

Little did I know that by the time I got home and got to bed was the time my mother died.

When I got up at 4 o'clock that morning to get a 6 o'clock flight to Sanford is when I got the phone message that she had  passed while I was asleep.

I thought about on the plane Andre how I'd talked about Moses.

The story of Moses is the story of my mother and of many Black women.

But why would you say that, Reverend?

The story of Moses started when he was born to a woman who lived under oppression.

In fact his mother was in slavery and there orders by the Pharaoh to kill the newborn male children.

And Moses' mother used her ingenuity used her initiative her innovative and her creative skills to find a way to navigate her son  through slavery and oppression.

She didn't have a degree in political science, she never studied how to deal in nonviolent civil disobedience.

She didn't know nothing about Ghandhi's [philosophy and techniques].  

All she knew is she loved her son and she would do what she had to do to spare him and bring him through.

For three months she tried to keep him quiet.

She tried to deal with his crying and his screaming.

She didn't want them to hear him because they would come and kill him.

But when she could hide him no longer she got a basket and plotted with his sister that I'm going to put him in the Nile and put him in the hands of God and God will make a  way somehow.

And the sister followed the basket as it went to Pharaoh's house.

And when Pharaoh's daughter picked it up she said to her, "Do you want me to get somebody to take care of the child?"

"You can keep the child like it's yours. I can get one of the Israelites to take care of him."

And she went and got Moses' mama who raised him up in Pharaoh's house.

They thought they were raising an heir but they were raising a liberator, they were raising a freedom fighter.

His mama raised him up in Pharaoh's house to be the one to tell Pharaoh to "Let My People Go!"

Our mothers had to put us in baskets.

Some baskets had food stamps.

Some baskets had welfare.

Some baskets had bad schools.

But they were trying to get us around Pharaoh.

But they found a way to raise us up where we went from the back of the bus to the front of the White House.

Our mothers raised us under the heel of oppression, under the stamps of apartheid.

They beat Jim Crow.

They beat racism.

They beat bias and bigotry.

Our mothers is like Moses' mother.

They made a way out of no way.

Stand up Black woman!

You did your job!

Thank you Ada Sharpton!

You made a way out of no way.

We walk with our heads high, with our shoulders back.

We ain't got no shame in our game.

You fought a good fight.

You fought a good fight!

Eighty seven years.

You kept the Faith!

You finished your course.

Your children are grown now.

We can stand on our own two legs and tell Pharaoh "Let our people go!"

Pharaoh, free Trayvon!

Pharaoh, deal with Ramarley Graham!

Pharaoh, our mothers raised us in baskets so we can look at you eyeball to eyeball.

We won't back down.

We won't bend.

We won't bow.

We won't sell out.

We won't back down.

This is our day.

This is our time.

I am,

I am,

I am my mother's son!

Call me Trayvon!

Call me Trayvon!