I first learned about Black Solidarity Day from Auntie Sonia. She lived up the block from me on East 54th Street between Winthrop and Clarkson Avenues in Brooklyn. I was about 7 or 8 years old. I had recently returned to the States from spending my formative years at the skirt tail and in the welcoming arms of my grandmama in a little town called Reading in Montego Bay Jamaica. Auntie Sonia's son Aubrey became my best friend.
I loved going to her house. Everything was African. She had African masques on the wall, Afro headed figurines on the shelf, African printed curtains, and those glow in the dark zodiac posters that we thought were "nasty" (lol) and Manu DiBango on the turntables. At her parties we did the bump and dances from New Guinea.One day she proudly proclaimed that her children were not going to school and she was not going to work the first Monday in November. Something she did every year. Instead they would spend that time amongst themselves learning more about their history and spending her money amongst her own. I was like wow. "Aubrey don't have to go to school". Yes, she said, "It's a Black Holiday".
I ran home and told my Mama that we didn't have to go to school on Monday because it was a Black Holiday. My Mama dismissed me in one look and told me to go to bed and make sure I as up in time for school the next morning. Now that I am older, I am realizing that for us, Black Solidarity initially was a different concept for us to grasp. Though ruled under a British system in Jamaica, we were taught by Black teachers, I picked fruits from my coconut, mango, lime, sour sop, ackee and banana tree in my yard. And what we didnt' grow we went to market and bought it from people who looked like us. So on the surface what Sonia was exclaiming, we lived in many ways already in Jamaica.
As I grew older I began to appreciate the meaning of Black Solidarity Day in America. I celebrated it in my own way and as I grew older and even in college obstained from all things European that first Monday before election.
It's only in the last few years that I am now realizing that I have not celebrated Black Solidarity Day in the way that I should . How does one grow in greater consciousness while manifesting behavior that is of a lessor consciousness.
By the time you read this Black Solidarity Day will be over. But you'all remember how it use to be. It use to be fire. A Good portion of us were absent hence the "day of absence". I may very well be speaking for my self with this brief lamentation...but i will say this. I'm going to do better to honor my ancestors, to honor Auntie Sonia, and to honor those who expect us to remember the path they layed and not be lulled into a sleepy consciousness that produces little in terms of tradition...for our children to see.
