Tag: http://www.civilrightsmuseum

America, Asia, Countries, Culture, Europe, Pilgrimage

Give us this Day – the sermon on the mountain

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Watch therefore for ye know neither the.day nor the hour that the Son of Man cometh – Matthew 25

Ignoring that this is the Parable of the Ten Virgins and that it deals with how prepared or otherwise they were to serve the bridegroom.

But there is a message here about preparedness and the buzz phrase ‘stay alert’ and, scholar that he is, I’m sure Boris Johnson would know of the passage’s significance.

All of which Biblical touchpoints brings me to a mountain looking over Jericho, Jerusalem and The Promised Land… www.visitjordan.com and Wham bam, thank you Hamam

The Promised Land: On Mt Nebo

Which is the closest Moses got to taking his people home which was of course the central theme of the sermon on the mountain.

He died atop the mountain, punishment for an earlier row with God.

No, not that one, but a homily in the church given by the Sri Lankan pastor in Mt Nebo.

Alas, I was whisked away from hearing his pay-off as our G Adventures group www.gadventures.co.uk were bound for the desert.

As you all know by now I make a point of going where people play and pray.

And listen to the sermons.

Here’s to Moses

When your holy man (and it’s almost always a man) gets to pace the stage.

Use his hands and tease, cajole, comfort and berate us.

It’s no coincidence that some of the world’s greatest orators have been preachers… Martin Luther Dresden’s renaissance and https://www.dresden.de/en/tourism/tourism.php.

And Dr Martin Luther King Easy DC and https://washington.org,

Me and Martin: In Dresden

Though, of course we could never see Martin Luther in his pomp now but you couldn’t help but get a sense of the man in Saxony.

And there is a preacher at Luther’s church, the Frauenkirche in Dresden worthy of his famous predecessor.

As he recalled his own father taking him to the ruins of the church where only the statue of Luther still stood and vowed that one day it would be rebuilt.

His near namesake is all over Washington where his statue remains unfinished in homage to the unfinished struggle.

While in Memphis https://www.civilrightsmuseum.org his last resting place The Promised Land the Civil Rights Tourist will want to take in the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, Tennessee.

Where he gave his rousing ‘I have been to the Mountaintop sermon https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zgVrlx68v-0.

Like Moses he (and me) did not get to the Promised Land but he has seen the glory of the Lord.

And we will too when all this is over.

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Swing low, sweet Harriet

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I doubt whether there will be too many England rugby supporters who will know the story behind their anthem.

But maybe they’ll get an idea after they watch the film I’ve been waiting all year for.

Harriet Tubman

I refer, of course, to Harriet which tells the story of one of the greatest Americans, nay a woman for the ages, hits cinemas today.

Harriet Tubman is as large a figure in American history as her more lauded peers Abraham Lincoln or Frederick Douglass.

And yet the ‘great’ Americans of our day have in their wisdom decided to hold off from giving her a worthy place on a banknote.

Myrlie Evers

An honour which had been reserved for American Presidents and a certain ‘bastard son of a whore and a Scotsman’.

I don’t know if the Scotsman bit was a bigger challenge and yet this son of the Caribbean rose to be George Washington’s trusty aide and moneyman.

And Broadway sensation. In fact if you look hard enough you can see Alexander Hamilton all over New York…

But much like the course of American history, the one I did, I’m off on a tangent.

Rosa Parks

So back to Harriet.

In the absence of her own bank note the best place to see Harriet is in the Deep South or on the big screen.

The backstory to ‘Swing Low’ was that Harriet was a slave who fled captivity.

The Underground Railroad

And yet was a key figure in the Underground Railroad to transport fellow slaves up north to Freedom.

At great personal cost and danger to herself with the equivalent of $1million bounty on her head.

The slaves kept their morale up by masking their trust in Harriet behind what their masters thought was a gospel spiritual.

Fannie Lou Hamer

You can learn more about Harriet and the history of slavery here on this site.

And meet another couple of iconic women, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer and the actual Myrlie Evers.

I’ll point you in the right direction and the hottest Smithsonian ticket in Washington DC, the African-American Museum.

And much, much more… Easy DC.

With the unfinished sculpture of MLK

My American Trilogy

And explore Tennessee and Mississippi in my American Trilogy series..

Which was part of the Martin Luther King 50th commemoration…

The Promised Land, The story of the Blues. And The King of Kings.

The story of slavery and the Road to Freedom is of course the whole of Ameria’s story.

Outside Ben’s Chili Bowl, central to the story, in DC

But here are some of the places and the websites I’ve been where you can feel truly part of it…

With special mention to the African-American Museum in DC, the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee and the Museum of Mississippi.

http://www.washington.org, https://nmaahc.si.edu, http://www.civilrightsmuseum, http://www.mmh.mdah.ms.gov.

Swing by your local cinema and see this film… I will. And I might even start singing.