A Voice Calls in the Night Find My People Save My People

By Marian Olivia Heath Griffin

IT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED that African Americans have been and are still being subjected to marginalized and harsh treatment today in America. We came to the Americas a million years ago and helped build this wilderness country. It is incumbent upon us as a nation to come to grips with the humanness of all people and treat each other with respect and love, acknowledging each other’s skills, talents and achievements. We are a strong nation of people. Let’s not allow the weak, racial prejudicial side of us to rule us. We can only move forward if we have a collective truthful and faithful heart.

There is something inherent in all of us that should not be stifled or extinguished. We are all put on earth for a specific purpose. All generations should be given an opportunity to be what we can be as our Creator ordained it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796079173

Marian Olivia Heath Griffin

Marian Olivia Heath Griffin lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with her husband of fifty-eight years. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor and College Administrator (retired) for thirty-six years, the last seven years as Director of International Student Affairs. After she retired from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she decided to utilize her degree in Mass Communication and Photography to tell her people’s stories and history. Griffin graduated from Delaware State University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology and Psychology, a Master’s Degree program in Atlanta University School of Social Work, a Master’s Degree program at Gammon Theological Seminary of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. She received her Master’s Degree from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Psychological Counseling and Social Work. She received a Master’s Degree in Educational Supervision and Mass Communication and Photography from Southern University. She did further study at Louisiana State University and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She studied Genealogy at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library in Baton Rouge. She has traveled over the fifty states of the U.S. and six of the seven continents. She has written eighteen books in two years, published them with XLIBRIS and compiled and published two photo books with MYCANVAS BY ALEXANDER. She is proud of her three children: Rev. Bertrand, II (Rev. Kotosha Seals Griffin), Karen G. Phenix, (Keith Phenix) and Dr. Michael (Tracie Haydel Griffin). She adores her eight grandchildren: Nia, Kiara, Christian-Paris, Michael, II. Amelia-Grai, Victoria, Olivia and Sophia – all Griffins and one god-child, Whitney White, one great grandchild – Keomi Phenix, one great- godchild, Amelia Pleasant and her brother, Warren, six great- nieces, Whitney Foucheaux, Amoree Sanders, and Danee Heath, Tikia and Lentia Brown, and great nephews: Bobbie, Jr., Enrique and Alberto Garcia, Tyler Heath, Lauren and Kee Kee Dennis, Arshawon Brown (recently deceased), Willie, Jermaine. Brown, Michael Martin and sons, and Devonte Walker.

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Copyright © 2020 by Marian Olivia Heath Griffin.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-7960-7918-0

                 eBook          978-1-7960-7917-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/18/2019

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CONTENTS

Author’s Notes

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Chapter 1 Origin: Lucy’s Legacy

Here’s How it All Started

Tour of Lucy’s Legacy

Chapter 2 Lucy’s Legacy: the Hidden Treasure of Ethiopia

Chapter 3 Africans’ Travels From the Homeland

Chapter 4 The Original African People

The Origins

University of Pennsylvania Expedition

Egypt - A Gift of the Nile

First Great Pyramid At Sakkara

A New Type of Pyramid

Egyptian Agricultural and Irrigation System

The Perennial System of Irrigation

Three Main Sowing Systems In Egypt

Egyptian Climate

Commerce and Industry

The Tomb Findings

Egyptian Religion

The Egyptian Flag

Chapter 5 Where Did the Origin of Life Come From?

Chapter 6 So Many Theories About the Beginning of Life!

The New World Order

Chapter 7 Africans: Egyptian Builders, Inventors & Scientists

Egtptians: Hieroglyphic Writing

Egyptians: The Rosetta Stone

Egyptians: Scribes

Egyptians: Papyrus

Egyptians: the Calendar

Egyptians: Temple Building

Egypt: The Nile River

Egyptians: The Wheel

Egyptians: Lady Tiy of Nubia, Mother of King Tut

Egyptians: Mummification

Egyptians: Medicine

Egyptians: The Doctor/Magician/Priest

Egyptians: Architecture

Chapter 8 West Africa: A Different Culture

The Indigenous People

Missionaries In Senegal and Mali

Invasion of West Africa - Hundreds of Years Ago

Beginnings of African Slave Trade

The Dawning of a West African Nation

Chapter 9 Amerigo Vespucci, Not Christoforo Colombo

Amerigo Vespucci

Cristoforo Colombo

Pedro Alonso Nina

Estevanico (Little Steven) An African

Chapter 10 Goree Island Slave House

The Mandingoes

A Society of Universities and Higher Education

Transformation from Africa To America

Chapter 11 Who Were We in Africa?

African Warriors

Noah’s Ark

The Lone Dove

Chapter 12 Kenya, Another African Nation

Nairobi

Tsavo West National Park

Tsavo East National Park

Lake Nakuru National Park

Mombasa

Maasai

Maasai Men’s Roles

Maasai Women’s Roles

Maasai Village People

Mount Kilimanjaro

Samburu

Chapter 13 Who are We in America?

Slavery In Virginia

Boys and Men On the Ships.

Girls on the Ships

Dr. Martin Luthe King, Jr.

James Baldwin

Musicians and Dancers

Great Authors, Poets and Intellectuals

Black Athletes -Baseball

Jockeys

Boxers

Football

Olympics

Golf

Tennis

Basketball

Wrestling

Chapter 14 Black -Child of Two Cultures

The Mark of African Blood is the Melanin (Black) In their Rich Skin Color.

Chapter 15 A Long Way From Home

Home In Bondage

Chapter 16 Four Hundred Years of Slavery

Why Should Blacks Celebrate Fourth of July?

Conclusion

Bibliography

DEDICATED AS AN AUTHENTIC GUIDE TO OUR DESCENDENTS TO WHOM WE OWE SO MUCH AND SHALL TEACH OUR HISTORY, CULTURE AND ACHIEVEMENTS WELL AND TRUTHFULLY.

WE MUST FIND OUR PEOPLE!

WE MUST SAVE OUR PEOPLE.

AUTHOR’S NOTES

E ach morning at four a. m. o’clock, I wake up and say my prayers. I hear a voice calling me in the night. It is Jesus. He is my Supervisor.

This morning my still, wee voice whispered, A VOICE CALLS IN THE NIGHT. FIND MY PEOPLE! SAVE MY PEOPLE!

I warmed up my computer. Ready or not, here I come.

Thank you, Lord.

I wrote the title that had just been given me.

But I also had heard another voice whispering:

Run, Lettie, Run! RUN, LETTIE, RUN!

My mother, Lettie, told us this story over and over again when we were little.

Early one morning, over a hundred years ago, my grandmother Sadie was calling to her only daughter, Lettie, to run away from a raging fire that had starting blazing in their downstairs grocery store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Part of the blazing fire was coming from the grocery store through the ceiling up to the second -floor apartment.

My mother said, I ran downstairs and out the door.

She was ten years old. She had been reading a children’s book in the living room of their family apartment, but had fallen asleep.

But I was fully awake now, when I heard my mother’s voice, Lettie said.

Mother Lettie’s baby brother, Clarence, was two months old. My grandmother Sadie quickly snatched him from his crib and ran downstairs. My mother Lettie was already outside. Grandmother Sadie grabbed Lettie’s hand and ran into the street. This was in April, 1919, a cold blistering morning in Philadelphia.

Why am I dreaming about this fire one hundred years later? This year is 2019. My mother told us this story many times, to teach us obedience.

The house was blazing as vividly as lightning flashing in the sky. There was a frightening terrifying strangeness in the air; a horrendous, awful feeling seemingly spreading among the people gathering outside the burning store/apartment.

My grandparent’s grocery store/apartment was falling down before anyone could think to help save it. This building had been built four years ago by Sadie and Herbert Harper soon after they were married in 1904.

There was a terrible odor spreading in the air from the smoke. The people were moving around trying to get away from the fire and the odor.

This incident was as vivid tonight in April, 2019 in my dream as if I had been right there on the scene many, many years ago. I was dreaming in technicolor and awakened, startled with the blazing fire over my head, I told my grandchildren.

Then the words came: A VOICE CALLS IN THE NIGHT! FIND OUR PEOPLE! SAVE MY PEOPLE!

Simon Nami, in the Foreword to JOSEPHINE BAKER IN ART AND LIFE, by B. Jules-Rosette, made this significant statement:

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, when our world is faced with the worst identity crisis of its history, and global chaos places human beings in stifling conflict with each other, the author offers a reminder and a lesson for today and for the future. It is the lesson of (enlightened) or luminous humanism. (para.)

I was familiar with my dreams and premonitions down through the years. I used to dream over and over again the same dream when I was a small child. I used to dream that someone came into our house and killed all the Heath family. I dreamt this dream from early childhood to middle adulthood.

In February, 1980, my sisters called my house in Louisiana from a hospital telephone in Milford, Delaware to tell me that Daddy had had a major heart attack.

I called the principal of our children’s school and explained that we had to drive to Delaware from Louisiana to see my father. When we arrived the next day in Delaware at my sister, Nancy’s house, before I saw my two sisters, I knew Daddy was dead.

I got out of the car and said, This is the end of my dreaming about death.

All of my siblings were living. Both of my parents were dead.

Bert, my husband, asked me what I had just said.

"I will tell you later, I said.

I have prayed over and over for God to help me understand my dreams and deliver me from bad dreams.

Anthony Shafton, in his book, DREAM-SINGERS. denoted, A reverence for dreams runs like a clear spring through African experience. His book details this heritage through a vivid look at the private dream lives of more than one hundred African Americans. He explores the prevalence of ancestor dreams, the belief in predictive dreaming, the openness to dreamlike experiences in the waking state, and the link between dreams and spirituality at the core of the black dream experience. (p.)

{The Lord said}, I have heard your prayers and seen your tears.

I began to read books and material to understand about dreaming of family deaths. I was being prepared for both of my parent’s deaths from a little child to adulthood. I dreamt about both of my parent’ s passing.

Shafton states, The exploration of dreams reveals an intriguing African connection underlying the tapestry of beliefs and attitudes, as well as signs and dreams which illuminates a wealth of interpretations and approaches into a distinct African American spiritual tradition.

Shay Youngblood said, Dreams, my mama taught me, don’t lie.

I couldn’t understand this one. It was one hundred years later. This dream was about the fire burning down my mother and grandparents house when she was a little girl and my mother obeying the words of her mother. The fire blazed in April, 1919. My dream about the fire was April, 2019.

Alice Walker stated in her book, POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY, I was not just looking for help, I was looking for deliverance. (p. 8.)

Sadie and Herbert Harper’s (my grandparents) dream house and grocery store business had gone up in smoke. She and her husband had worked so hard to have something in life, only to have it burn to the ground.

Sadie left her parent’s home in Delaware, to start her life as an independent woman when she was only sixteen years old. Sadie Fountain, and her older brother, Charles Wesley Fountain moved to the big city of Philadelphia in a rooming house. They were looking to find work.

She had met her suitor, Herbert Sidney Harper soon after he moved from Rocky Mount, North Carolina to Sussex County, Delaware.

Herbert was born around 1877 to Delcy and Steven Harper in North Carolina. There were five other children born to Delcy and Steven: Edna, Nancy, Joseph Burton, Robert and John C. Harper.

Sadie was only sixteen and a half at the time when she moved to Philadelphia. She was born around 1888 in Middleford, Delaware to freed-slave father, John Henry Fountain and freed slave mother, Amanda Collins Fountain. They had the following children: Charles Wesley, Sadie Mae, Lettie, (my mother was named for her aunt Lettie), Martin (called Marty), Clarence (uncle Clarence was named for his uncle Clarence), Louis and Sylvester Fountain, according to the 1900 United States Federal Census Bureau. These were the children listed in the Fountain household along with the two adults, John Henry and Amanda Fountain. By 1910, only Sylvester, the youngest son was listed on the United States Census Bureau for that family.

John Henry, Sadie’s father, was blind from his early childhood. Her mother, Amanda was a domestic worker and mid-wife. She had worked hard to keep the family together. Amanda had a condition and was getting sicker as the days went by.

The two oldest children, Charles Wesley Fountain and Sadie Mae Fountain left home at an early age to make a new life for themselves.

Sadie and her brother moved into two rooms in a rooming house on the South side of Philadelphia. Sadie was soon persuaded to marry her husband, Herbert who had followed her to Philly. They were married on April 10, 1904 by a magistrate. The newly married couple moved into a larger rooming house together.

Between the two of them, they had fifty dollars which they had been saving many years. Herbert was much older than Sadie, born in 1877, and was very industrious. Herbert got a job working on the railroad and Sadie did menial jobs to sustain themselves.

They soon bought a small piece of land in a secluded area of Philadelphia. They immediately started building their grocery store and put an apartment over the grocery store.

Sadie and Herbert Harper had decided to make their home in Philadelphia as a brave, bold move from both of their family’s lifestyles. Both of their families were share -croppers in Delaware and in North Carolina. The Fountain and Harper family ancestors were freed slaves who purchased or were given property by their former slave owners.

Margaret Walker wrote in FOR MY PEOPLE, For my people lending their strength in the years, in the gone years and the now years and the maybe years…dragging along, never gaining, never reaping, never knowing and never understanding.

Sadie and Herbert wanted to pursue their own dreams by owning property and learning a new way of life other than plowing in the fields. They wanted to educate their children in the finer schools.

According to Edward Bellamy, in his book, LOOKING BACKWARD, The almost universal theme of individuals who have celebrated this bi-millennial epoch has seen the future rather than the past, not the advancement that has been made, but the progress that shall be made, even onward and upward till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny. (p.7.)

It seems that nowhere can we find a