Pearls

I prefer to believe, as the Zulus, that [our loved ones'] spirits hover on forever. That we can speak to them and in some uncanny way they answer. That when we think of them, lift them from our recessed memories, we also re-awaken their spirit.

That this nearness makes us reassess our lives in relation to what their influence, character and personality did for us in their lifetime.

It would seem that it is then that longing for them eased for a moment, and it is then that we too, being fragile mortal beings, should no longer fear our own deaths.

As William Mitford said, 'Men fear death, as if it is questionably the greatest evil, and yet no man knows that it may not be the greatest good,' At least to me it is a comfort to remember my parents, aunts, and uncles and in remembering bring them a closer to continue to enrich my life.

--Madeline W. Murphy
  August 4, 1979

Songs my mother taught me,
in the days long vanished
seldom from her eyelids were the teardrops
vanished

New I teach my children,
each melodious measure;
oft the tears are flowing, oft they flow from my
memories treasures.

--Anton Dvorak

"We fawn over men of large wealth, even in the churches, Jt seeing the judgment of God that is often pronounced over them. We are deeply moved by men of glib tongue, not discerning the forceful eloquence of men whose hearts 'e honest. We patronize the poor, forgetting one of the most obvious facts of experience that, 'God chose what is k in the world to shame the strong.' Like the righteous people of Jesus' day we take a dim view of the publicans and sinners. We prefer the company of the respectable, forgetting that Jesus once said, 'The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. ' To see people in the light of what God can do in them, with them and through them is solid wisdom."

--Author Unknown

"Again I saw that under the sun the race is
not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor
bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent,
nor favor to men of skill, but time and chance
happen to them all."

--Eccl. 9:11 (RSV)

"[W]e look toward the 21st century as a time of promise, if we keep in mind that a black paper must be a carrier of and preserver of black culture. This is the most urgent on-going need of today's black press. Because as schools have become desegregated, as more young blacks have moved into what they think is the mainstream, we have forgotten or been ignorant of even the recent history of the civil rights struggle. Who among these really knows or remembers that H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and scores of others who were jailed, tortured, murdered and vilified, made it possible for us to even reap the few gains and benefits that we may now take for granted? However, as the plaintive cry now so often heard, "Aw, man, that's old history. We don't need that stuff no more!" is an indication that by not remembering our history we shall be doomed to repeat it. And, it is the black press that should not let this happen.

The press, in this regard has a role to pia press has a great responsibility to meet this ur~ It cannot bury truth, nor can it rationaliz erty, unemployment, lack of housing, poor education of our people because it must seek something c11 sational to write about. Because while it seeks the dream of financial security, the cost paid for ignori endemic problems of a black community will haunt it.

--Madeline W. Murphy 
  August 13, 1988

"As we face the challenges that lie ahead,
Think of the child
Who became a warrior
He broke the chains of oppression
And freed a Nation of people.
Mightn't we be that child?"

--Author unknown