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Love. What is it? What is this feeling that makes us care for others more than we care for ourselves? This feeling that causes our hearts to soar to the highest of high planes and sends us to the depths of loneliness when unrequited? Love.
What.
Is.
Love?
When I was a little girl, love was siting around my family and listening to them talk and laugh. It was hugs and kisses. It was hearing the words I love you several times a day. It was smelling coffee on the stove and sitting with my grandparents while they watched old westerns on tv. It was granddaddy’s hotcakes at 4am. It was family, community, and the neighborhood stopping by to say hi to my grandparents. It was reading books and books and books about any and everything. It was being looked at with kindness and tenderness. It was my aunt and uncles talking to us with such tenderness. It was my father, insisting that we know about our culture and our people. It was dreams of going out into the world and experiencing all that the world had to offer. For me, love was being kissed on my chubby cheeks and being held so tightly I would smile with delight. When I was a little girl, I experienced so much love in my life, I don’t know what a life without receiving love looks or feels like. I don’t know what a life without giving love looks or feels like.

When I started this podcast, I knew that I wanted to create content that would allow me to share all the love that I have in my heart for those that I love with all of my heart. I wanted to create something beautiful for my ancestors and my people both near and far.
I wanted to create something beautiful for you.
I wanted to create something beautiful for you because I love you.

LAW-7

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On March 31, 2019, Ermias Joseph Asghedom was called home to God. He was a beloved son, father, brother, nephew, grandson, cousin, uncle, husband, friend of the people, leader, and a servant of God. May your soul forever rest in His loving embrace.

We will always love you.

 

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In celebration of Black History Month, Race, tells the story of Jesse Owens, who showed us all what grace, dignity, and strength looks like in the face of racism.

 

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Many years ago, I took my son to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN because I wanted him to see the last place Dr. King visited before he was assassinated. It was a moving experience for the both of us. We sat at the lunch counters where young Black activists were attacked and on the bus where Rosa Parks sat. We walked into the jail cell Dr. King  was held in and listened to his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” through a phone mounted on the wall, and we stood in front of the room Dr. King ate and slept in the night before his assassination, undisturbed since that day in 1968. As we made our way onto the balcony and looked down at the walkway, still stained with his blood and carefully preserved, in my mind I could see his body below me as he lay dying from an assassin’s bullet, I could see the arms of his colleagues pointing to a little red brick building across the street and I could hear the bullet firing, piercing my senses. I closed my eyes and held my son close as tears slid down our faces and we openly wept.

We have come a long way in our fight for equality, since that fateful day in 1968, but we must never think that the fight is over. If you would like to revisit the life and legacy of Dr. King, in honor of his birthday, please go see The Mountaintop, a play by Katori Hall. Hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “…daring, rousing and provocative.”– , The Mountaintop will inspire you to always keep Dr. King’s dream alive.

If you would like to visit the Lorraine Motel, please visit the National Civil Rights Museum for more information on Dr. King’s Last Hours.