This free lance article by Gloria Lewis Vaughn appeared in the Indianapolis Star Newspaper in celebration of Black History Month 2003.

February, the shortest month of the year, is designated a time to review, renew and revere the steps of our longest journey.  A journey that began even before we were niggras, Negroes, colored or blacks.

Before we collectively named ourselves African Americans, we sang along with James Brown, "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud."  We were still black when Curtis Mayfield serenaded our souls with "We're a winner."  My sisters and I came of age listening to "Black Pearl, pretty little girl, you've been in the background much too long."  Music was balm along the way when we were black.

Being black was synonymous with Afros and sheen, dashikis and tikis.  We exhaled and embraced our lips, our hips and even our nostrils.  We fell so in love with our noses that we began to call attention to them by piercing and placing diamonds there.

Yet, some were afraid to be black.  It was still too new.  It appeared radical to many who had been comfortably Negro for so long.  Even though blacks were vociferously validating a people's right to exist, many among us were paranoid.  "Don't clench your fist; it's disrespectful," "Don't talk so loud; be seen and not heard," was the heart of many Negroes in the season of being black.

We were seeking to shed the ills of slavery when we named ourselves black.  It was Mayfield who asked a musical question:  "If you had a choice of colors, which one would you choose, my brothers?"  We answered and chose black.

To me, for the very first time since slavery, we, as a people, determined what we would be called.  We had accepted niggra, Negro and colored.  We made a decision to be black.  We said it loud, we were black--and proud.

Our pride swelled as we witnessed time and again Muhammad Ali receiving the World Heavyweight Boxing Association championship belt.  Arthur Ashe dominated tennis.  Barbara Jordan ran for president.  And finally, I began to witness a people unearth their history and teach it to their children.  While black, we addressed fair housing issues and won Nobel Peace Prizes.  Encouraged by our poets, we embraced and implemented Maya Angelou's rune, "And Still I Rise."  All this accomplished, while being black.

Along the way, we learned that black is indeed a color and not a race.  We came into the knowledge that "It's not as important what you call us as it is what we answer to."  We no longer answered to inferior, less than, a fifth of a human being.  Those days died forever while we were black.

When we were colored, I was a child; I remember not understanding what the term really meant.  I heard colored men address white men as Mr. Bob, Mr. John and so forth.  But I rarely heard the reverse courtesy extended.  My elders were colored.  Just about all the colored people I knew worked hard.  Most of them worked in factories, foundries and clerical positions.

It took tremendous strength to be colored.  Being colored demanded faith.  We couldn't yet see what the end was to be when we were colored.  We knew that the words "something inside so strong" were not merely lyrics to a song, but the very fiber of our being.  We lived in a society of "separate but equal" when we were colored.  It was always separate but very seldom equal.

As we struggled to be colored, we found landmarks for our journey by reading Jet and Ebony magazines.  Madame C.J. Walker showed us how to become a millionaire.  Hattie McDaniel was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal in "Gone With the Wind."  We were all the colors of the rainbow, so it made sense to be called colored back then.  And every time Joe Louis delivered a knock-out punch, colored people inched closer to defining the color that was to be.

African, Afro and African American--from the banks of the River Euphrates, as far back as the River Nile, from the Beginning in the Garden of Eden--we've come.  As a beautiful butterfly, we've evolved.  We've cast off those things that inhibit flight.  We loosed the shackles that bound us to slave ships, even in our minds.  We threw out the Palmers bleaching creme and embraced who we were created to be.

Our history didn't begin on a slave ship, it didn't start when we set foot on this shore.  On our way to today, we've discovered we are more than conquerors.  We are black and proud.  We are inventors and healers.  We are the best of all we've ever been, "And still we rise."  We are!

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copyright 2003 by Gloria Lewis Vaughn

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