I Can Speak For Myself

Give God praise for all the deacons and ministers here at New Birth.

Writer, novelist, and college professor Toni Morrison was the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and was known for her groundbreaking work of bringing to the forefront silent stories of Black life in America.

From her first novel, The Bluest Eye, which chronicled the story of a young Black girl who prayed for blue eyes because she believed that this was the standard of beauty, to Song of Solomon, which followed the journey of a young Black man living in Michigan who embarks on a journey to uncover his family's past in the Deep South to discover his true identity, to Beloved, which describes the horrors and psychological trauma of slavery in America.

Morrison's commitment to addressing the original sin of this country is why her books are on the top 10 most banned books in America.

Because the truth is hard for people to accept.

The revisionist-in-chief intends to rewrite the pages of our history by attacking our museums in order to eradicate the rich legacy of a people who have come over a way that with tears have been watered.

The assault on voting rights and democracy is an attempt to erase the legacy of a resilient people who sang in the heat of the antebellum sun, "Up above my head, I hear music in the air.

There must be a God somewhere." The dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion that has cost 600,000 Black women their jobs is an effort to diminish the legacy of a people who believe their way to freedom because they knew trouble won't last always.

From Accra to Atlanta and from Haiti to Harlem, the freedom dreams of our ancestors braved the dark night of despair and ushered in the hope of a new day with a revolutionary spirit because they were bold enough to speak for themselves.

Our freedom did not come as a result of one person signing the Emancipation Proclamation, but through the courageous efforts of a people that said, "Before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free." Because when you make up in your mind that you are no longer gonna wait for anybody to do for you what you can do for yourself- [clapping] ...

you become dangerous to the enemy.

As long as you go along to get along, people don't have any problems with you.

But when you decide to accept that nobody is gonna do for you what you can do for yourself, and you know that to thine own self be true, you become a threat to the status quo.

I came to speak to somebody today who has decided to walk boldly in your freedom because you are not going to allow the enemy to hold you back into bondage any longer.

Somebody here needs to know that free people are a threat to the plans of the wicked.

The devil is on your trail, not because of where you went to school, not because of who's in your family, but because he knows how free you are.

The devil can't stand a free worshiper.

The devil can't stand someone who understands that no matter whatever I went through, I'm still gonna press my way to the house of God.

I, I don't care what I went through this past week, I'm not gonna allow anybody or anything to stop me from getting to the house of God.

Because I'm like David, I was glad when they said unto me, "Let us go into the house of the Lord." Is there anybody in here this morning that came to make the devil mad? I refuse to go back into bondage.

If you wanted to keep me hostage, you shoulda stopped me before I came to New Birth this morning.

But since I'm here-

here-Lord, say so.

Look down your row and tell you're sitting next to a free person, "I'm free indeed.

I no longer bow.