365 Black Nuggets: Wisdom for Each Day of the Year

By Saint Rest Publications

365 Black Nuggets: Wisdom for Each Day of the Year is a collection of quotes, proverbs, and sayings that represent a very small sample of the collective wisdom within the African experience. This book is meant to help the reader to become aware of and connect to

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saint Rest Publications
• Release date: Jan 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9780966397291

Book preview

What ‘we’ have to do is reactivate the memory of ‘us.’ ... and in the process of remembering is the process of Sankofa. - Dr. Marimba Ani (2008)

Introduction

365 Black Nuggets: Wisdom for Each Day of the Year is a collection of quotes, proverbs, and sayings that represent a very small sample of the collective wisdom within the African experience. This book is meant to help the reader to become aware of and connect to the wisdom forged in the African experience; a wisdom and experience often overlooked, undervalued, or assumed not to exist.

I make no claim that this collection is exhaustive or representative of the full experience. This collection is heavily bias towards the African-American experience. In my effort to better represent the African Diaspora, I include proverbs from 37 different African ethnics groups and countries. I have also included activist and scholars with a Pan-African perspective.

365 Black Nuggets: Wisdom for Each Day of the Year is organized by month and date. Each day has a specific nugget of wisdom; some are simple one-liners while others are more lengthy. However, each is an opportunity to reflect on a thought/idea/value rooted in African cultural heritage.

To reflect think about:

What is the main point and why is it being said?

How does the main point impacts/guides your actions/thoughts/advocacy/relationships?

If more people in your family/community was informed/guided by the main idea, how would your family/community change?

I hope you will share your reflections and our collective wisdom with your family and friends. Remember - Each one, teach one and Pamoja tutashinda (Together we will succeed)!

A luta continua (The struggle continues)!

Lathardus Goggins II, Ed.D.

Publisher

JANUARY

Lift every voice and sing, Till earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as

the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun

Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might, Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God,

where we met Thee;

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world,

we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand.

True to our GOD, True to our native land.

James Weldon Johnson (1900)

Lift Every Voice and Sing

1

Make yourself the subject of intense study,

and you will find God.

Proverb - KMT

2

Social scientist are now convinced that children learn social, racial, and religious prejudices in the course of observing, and being influenced by, the existence of patterns in the culture in which they live.

Kenneth B. Clark, Ph.D.

3

Nothing succeeds like success.

Alexandre Dumas

4

I don’t stop when I am tired. I stop when I am done.

David Goggins

5

No act of kindness, no matter how small,

is ever wasted.

Aesop

6

We must reinforce argument with results.

Booker T. Washington

7

A tree is known by its fruit.

Proverb - Zulu (South Africa)

8

It's alright to crawl before you walk; it's alright to