Short Christmas Stories By Famous And Everyday Black Women

Below, SuzyKnew! shares a radio broadcast, a couple of poems, and news stories on Christmas by famous and everyday Black women

Looking For Black Santa, Leoneda Inge, WUNC, North Carolina Public Radio December 2011

Durham, North Carolina is one of the most diverse communities in the state. Mayor Bill Bell likes to say it’s the city with NO racial majority. Then why is it so hard to find an African American Santa Claus?

….Two years ago, I found the cutest 1970s photo of me and my younger sister sitting on a white Santa’s lap. I loved the photo so much, I decided to make it my annual holiday card. But before the copies went out – I asked a friend to do a little photo-shopping – to give Santa a tan. Now that really made me smile. I mailed it to black friends and white friends, relatives and co-workers – they loved it!

Click here to  read more and listen

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem (First shared during the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony.)
By Dr. Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.

Peace.

Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth’s tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.

We, Angels and Mortal’s, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

***

Choose to be Happy, Ayesha Karim 2012

I am happy because I choose to be; my life is far from perfect.

Others are content but I make conscious choices to be Happy and to be a positive person.

You don’t have to be rich or have a lot of money and material wealth to be happy.

Many wealthy people are poor in Spirit with all the money, fame and things that they have.

This Christmas Eve night as I write this poem I think about how I manage my money focusing on my needs first and then my wants.

I ask myself: Can I afford that? Do I need this? Can I wait for the store price to go down and get that dress on sale?

I hope that once I am financially stable with a decent job I can have a coat drive for kids age 1 through 16 in Trenton, New Jersey when every boy and girl gets a cute new coat and I hope that my story inspires others my battle with mental illness over 19 years…

 

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Collecting Black Christmas Figurines – The challenges and the rewards

Merry Christmas to all!