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For many believers the resurrection on Easter morning was the beginning spring forward movement of a second generation Generation Tables of births in spirit of "goodness" to overcome what was and is not good, ... in accordance with Roman calendar and logic about success, sex, love and power. For believers, the resurrection on Easter morning signaled that spirit and body of goodness (like energy and matter) cannot be created or destroyed; ... and thus humanity (sons and daughters of homo-sapiens) will have everlasting life on earth (unlike the once upon a time generations of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon inhabitants). This reasoning of course, ... differs from "Armageddon" pundits who still do not believe the spirit of goodness moved forward a hundred-fifty years ago with the Great Emancipation War that began in April 1861. In fact, African-American pessimists and preachers of doom and gloom have to be relatively ignorant to not comprehend that something wonderful inspired so many ancestors of other folks happened. Moaning and groaning about a "second coming" as an excuse to avoid and deny getting on board what has already come and gone. Too many descendents of down and out slaves still have not gotten on-board the inspiration and motivation train for life, liberty and pursuit of goodness via enlightenment, education, equal opportunities and useful employment or enterprise. Why not? Real scholars like Professor John McWhorter up from ancestors who served in U.S. Colored Troops during the Great Emancipation War to generate change (rather than sit and rap about slavery). There are many stories that need to be researched and published by scholars "who had a dog in the fight" about pursuit of goodness for "the least of us." Rachael Weeping For Her Children
There were real live saviors in the spirit of Jesus Christ who came, saw and heard a million mothers weeping for their lost children born and taken away to slave markets near and far, ... with most never to be seen again. But, Rachael weep no more for from your womb salvation has been born again for all who can see and count. Some of us beneficiaries like to refer to these ancestors as the Lincoln Generation, and others may recall that Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman among others was born in that wonderful generation for change for and by Christian believers of all colors.
The talented tenth in generation #61 participated in and functionally witnessed a "second coming" for bodies and souls that missed the first one. For those who care to know, many of the uniformed conductors in the Grand Army of the Republic were courageous young men like James M. Trotter (father of Monroe Trotter), ... not for money, fame or glory but perhaps to benefit "the least of us" to be born in liberty? And, more than three generations later the rest of "the least of us" (including many otherwise believers) still do not have contents of character tickets to ride into the "promised land." April 2011 marks the beginning of the 61st generation of believers in spirit of Jesus as the Christ; and 150th anniversary of beginning armed hostilities leading to ending of chattel slavery in the United States, ... from which many modern-day young scholars have emerged (born four generations later). It is hoped that some will care and know enough to publish some words of wisdom that might be helpful spreading knowledge and understanding about matters that mattered back then and now, ... even to preachers and rappers who read little and say a lot to folks even less enlightened or educated. Generation #61 that birthed Douglass and Lincoln was truly one of the first affirmative action source generations in the modern world pursuits of liberties and happiness. And, we ought never forget the goodness espoused in that generation was very much opposed from start to finish by ideologies dating back to slavery in the Roman Empire that crucified Jesus. Our ancestor Easter Frog, born abt 1815 (born in the Lincoln generation #61) is cause for us to believe that her unknown mother (enslaved by an owner of Cherokee heritage) was likely a believer in resurrection of Jesus on the third day of his crucifixion by Pontius Pilot. Family history stories handed down during past generation is that Easter Frog was fathered by a Cherokee father at a time and place in American history when there were numerous Native Americans east of the Mississippi River and living in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia as slave owners.
The Cherokee slave owners were more open to allowing Christian missionaries to move among them preaching to slaves as compared to White owners who were generally very skeptical about White preachers telling slaves about Jesus. Many African heritage slaves converted to Christian faith during the 18th century; and generated beliefs and faith in a living Christ resurrected on Easter morning proving that "goodness cannot be destroyed and from one have come many more than can be counted by man or machine." The great challenge, now as always in the past, is for gifted and talented new generations to overcome "flimflams" by modern day Pharisee and Sadducee. Such men and women still exploit poor of heart and purse in a culture dominated by Roman reasoning and rationale of their inferior being and behavior. Easter Frog was mother of Adaline Frog, born abt 1844 the grandmother of William Thomas Frog Kyle Atkins, born 1906 in same faith that existed and perhaps originated with mother of Easter Frog. The question is what do we choose to believe about her? If she was "nothing of substance or importance" in accordance with customs and laws in lands of her birth, ... should she matter to us who are her descendents. Should we simply forget about her and remember only Jesus and his mother? How do preachers and priests teach matters about the faith of our Easter?
Family research indicates Easter Frogs' mother had absolutely nothing but her faith to lean on. We know she existed somewhere in the Western Virginia, Eastern Tennessee and West Virginia areas that once had numerous Cherokee slave owners of African heritage people. She certainly did not have the power to pursue liberty and happiness regardless of what slavery apologists might like to believe. In fact, her life was not her own; nor by law were the lives of any children to whom she gave birth. We know that at least one daughter is buried in Salem Virginia, and speculation by at least one family member is that Alex Haley's grandmother Queen Queen may have been another daughter (looked White) who was sold "down-river".
We choose to believe that naming her newborn baby "Easter" meant the birth of "hope" (minus "happiness") in faith, ... as an only possession she could claim to have. Indeed, even the clothing on her back and shoes (if any) on her feet belonged to the slave owner with legal property rights to strip away for punishment as any time or place so chosen. Some Cherokee historians have suggested their slave children were born free unlike what occurred among White owners; but such claims merely affirm that race based lies can be propagated in all colors and causes, past and present. Ironically, pursuant President Andrew Jackson's proclamation after the War of 1812, the Cherokee Generations had all of their lands taken from them and forced their relocations to west of the Mississippi River. It appears that in the process, Easter and all or most of her siblings were sold to White slave owners in Virginia and Tennessee (and maybe North Carolina) for labor and/or breeding of more slaves.
Lest we ever forget, ...Easter is all about believing energy and matter was or can be resurrected and uplifted from death and nothingness such as existed for many millions of human beings in the not distant past. Even the most skeptical non-believers are forced to acknowledge the picture photographed in the era of the great emancipation war was that of a real enslaved old man and woman.
Philosophically we are compelled to believe the old and haggard looking woman was likely was over 80 years of age, and a mother. She perhaps gave birth to ten to fourteen enslaved offspring sold and traded in a third generation of a hundred or more slaves to enrich people that claimed them as their private property. Most slaves after generations of brain-washing accepted this definition of them being nothing more than chattel property, ... blotting out memories of the process that first proclaimed them in Africa to be captives and then later that of sub-humans in America. Our abiding joy is that despite it all, beliefs were nurtured that generated the generation of births like the Emancipation Patriots whose lives made a decisive difference in the great victory by Christ or any other name preachers tend to ignore, ... albeit a few do or did have ancestors with functional "callings" in the struggle during which most beneficiaries did nothing but "wait upon the Lord." Yet, we now believe that from some chosen wombs, functional saviors (sons and grandsons) believing in Jesus were born to serve in the U.S. Colored Troops and Navy to generate liberty (not glory). We ought never forget that saviors are born, not made or make believe by preachers who imagine the faith to be something different than what we have seen and heard. It is about and for the spirit of "goodness sake," the Jesus Christ we believe many believers like the above believed to exist in their midst because they were "two or more" believers. Indeed, without faith, there would never have been an effective beginning of the ending we now benefit from (and many ideologue conservatives still suggest was via unconstitutional means against opposition of their ancestors, not ours excepting perhaps that of Clarence Thomas and other disciples of Roman jurisprudence in the name of democracy).
Easter morning, according to our calculations of the philosophy of life we choose to believe in our life, liberties and pursuits of happiness, ... was beginning of second generation of goodness starting with resurrection that occurred in 30 C.E. according to the Roman calendar and more or less verified by chronicles of Josephus albeit there are some critics who doubt his validity. While the former tax-collector Matthew gives us insight into a movement that succeeded in generating goodness; Josephus is important in providing our better understanding of movements that succeeded such as the movement by Cristus (Jesus), Protestant Movement, Abolition Movement, Southern Christian Leadership Movement and Women's Movement. It might afford better understanding of attempts at other ambitious movements (such as the short-term Black Power Movement of the mid 1960s) that fluttered loudly before falling flat. The Roman Jewish historian Josephus (37-100 C.E.) was born about five years after the crucifixion of Jesus. His histories of Jewish rebellions against Rome helps document Jesus of Nazareth, his brother James and others like Pontius Pilot and John the Baptist. He wrote and published his histories in context of rebellions against the Roman empire that John of Patmos later envisioned would be destroyed in The facts are that most dominant scholars in the activist veins of human initiatives generating beneficial change for others and "the least of us" have agreed for centuries, including Thomas Jefferson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ... that Jesus was the most brilliant philosopher (regardless of their differing religious beliefs) in human history. Believers believe he lived to see and hear three generations of human beings: 1. HIS own that included John the Baptist and men like Peter who died in the energy of "goodness." 2. That of his mother and her cousin Martha, both descended from the Prophet Nathan, gave birth in the matter of "goodness". One might argue with non-believers that believers believe mother and child are still the essence of faith about existence of Jesus or any other being. 3. The generation of King Herod who murdered the infants of Bethlehem and John the Baptist; a Pharisee Priesthood that exploited poor people in the name of religion; and Roman Emperor Tiberius who appointed Pontius Pilate that also ordered the killing of many Africans, Greeks and Jews other than Jesus for many reasons. Appetites for evil rarely if ever are satisfied via a single feast or victim; and, when corrupted by possession of power will ravage more and more while proclaiming themselves innocent of the actions they have initiated and made to happen. Pilate is a very important historical figure in the arguments and debates about power for any cause or color in Africa or anywhere else. Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilatus
We perhaps owe much of our knowledge about events before and after Easter to Mark the Evangelist who apparently was a teenager in year of the crucifixion around 30 C.E. and lived to about 68 C.E. Historians generally believe he was both a scholarly disciple and biographer for Peter but equally famously remembered for establishing the African Church via teaching citizens of Alexandria before being dragged to his death "We have the victory, Christ is risen." In the context of pure science of course, the resurrection on Easter morning could not or did not occur because we have not been able to duplicate and observe it; and it is thus a matter of faith that it occurred. The real significance is that so many ancestors believed that if power existed to lift Jesus from the dead; ... then surely such empowerment could lift their lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness/goodness. We are especially concerned that too many youth of African heritage have been swayed away to never never land by make believe pseudo scholars pretending to have superior knowledge about generations of "the least of us" in Africa and elsewhere. Africans are and always were part of the human population, and existed in Roman Empire of people of various shades and hues Black, Brown and White. Our salient point for new generations of scholars to acknowledge is that love of Jesus as the Christ by people of different attitudes and behaviors after his death in the name of organized religion or politics does not diminish the fact of HIS impact on humanity. Perhaps, older generations of scholar believers have an advantage over newer ones because of the fact that having experienced decades of up-front acclamations and denials as to who people of African heritage are, were or can be; ranging from the topic of humans and citizenship to employment and education not excluding Christian fellowship. So, our point is that those who would proclaim that JESUS was or was not is most understandable to "the least of us" who as some African-American fraternal orders used to proclaim "crossed the burning sands." We saw and heard the faith of a generation that generated our births!
Much of what "we think we know" resulted from the African Christian scholar believer Origen to whom we owe our grasp of the Christian philosophy above and beyond what religious organizers and interpretations evolved to be. Jesus apparently wrote nothing but yet his name and words allegedly spoken have transcended through sixty-eight generations of human births, ... captured and kept in every language on the planet with a dynamic/literary history including African languages such as Amharic, Coptic and Twi.
Many scholars of African, Asian and European heritage have a continuing interest in trying to address the question: What did Jesus know, and when did he know it? He lived in a world ruled by a very ruthless Roman Empire with essentially a combination of Hellenist and Latin cultural dynamics that dominated Aksumite, Berber, Celt, Copt, Germanic, Semite, Slavic and all other cultures encountered. We are prejudiced and doubtful of historical claims that beliefs about Jesus were introduced to Aksum in the 15th century C.E. the Portuguese, ... coinciding with Prince Henry's initiation of the African-European slave trade in year 1453 C.E. with both royal and papal approval to do so. We make this point to emphasize our beliefs that knowledge and understanding of "goodness" did not come into existence by slave traders and their proponents and apologists in Church or State even unto this day. Gifted and talented youth need to learn more about their inherited faith beyond the shackles of race and color based reasoning. They can do so by examining the philosophy of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness/goodness that makes their lives worth living in faith, hope and love attributed to a philosophy given before Jesus died. And, then draw conclusions about the afterwards by millions of priests and preachers since then adding and/or deleting what they saw and heard in lives ranging from legitimate scholars to ignoramus pretenders to know things that scholars do not (even though scholars are able to read, research, and write better and more). The philosophy attested to the teachings of Jesus has turned this world upside down, and any historian worth his salt will attest to the horrors of the past path that existed before him, which raises the issue as to whether goodness we now pursue would exist without the philosophical under-pins.
The fact that most and more Europeans were evangelized to be Christians before many and most Africans does not suffice to claim Christianity as a "White man's religion" which is in fact a fallacy of race based reasoning by people of African, Asian and European heritage "who know not that they knew not." Many people of African heritage have moved across the globe and integrated many places and time-lines as human beings who saw and heard teachings about Jesus. Enlightened and educated gifted and talented youth ought not claim ownership or rejection of a driving philosophy of life freely given as the inspirational source for billions of lives, ... Black, Brown and White long before racist reasoning decided otherwise. A lot of people such as William Tyndale labored, struggled and died to enable reading and conclusions by new generations of believers and wonderers. Our view is that those youth who have not pursued reading great literatures (including Shakespeare) are not pursuing enlightenment as a necessary process to help others in the long journey up from "nothingness." Whatever the truth might be there is little doubt among believers who know about human history before and after first century events, ... that beliefs propagated in his name generated philosophies of life for generation of movements that moved "the least of us" to here and now. It is inconceivable to us that any other known movements in the past twenty centuries could or would have ended the slave raids, trades and chattel slavery as our ancestors knew it, ... established and maintained by Africans, Arabs, Christians and Jews who also worshipped the same all powerful and just creator worshipped by Hebrew patriarch Abraham and invoked by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.
There have been many attempts at generating counter movements to supplant the person and even teachings of Jesus, most notably the French revolutionaries spouting their anger at Roman Catholic Cardinals, Bishops and Priests in the late 18th century. Yet, the reality is the very essence of their call for liberty, fraternity and equality was rooted in the philosophy and teachings of Jesus, not their age of reasoned enlightenment. Reasoning that ordinary people needed a form of deity, Maximilien Robespierre reasoned that he and his fellow intellects could create one that was harmless to their revolutionary movement. So far as historians and demographers have been able to determine, a talented tenth is born in every generation for as far back in human history recorded and passed on to new generations seeking knowledge and understanding as to how goodness comes into existence. Biblical scholars still research and wonder if the non-violent movement by Jesus inspired functional disciples like Kwame N'Krumah and Martin Luther King, Jr., or was HIS philosophy of life part of previous movements by Jewish activists? Or was Jesus imagined by believers like our ancestors shackled in slavery to be all and more than that of the past and future to come. Such matters are more than simply about religion or pretentious priests and preachers; but rather a sustainable philosophy by which "the least of us" need in their lives to survive.
The philosophy of life espoused by Jesus before his crucifixion by the Roman Empire has impacted the world like no other event before or since; and the theologies accepted or rejected as result of his death are still a dynamic issue for new generations to give scholarly consideration. There are or appears to be at least two schools of thought embraced by believers and non-believers alike. Both schools of thought relate to energy (power) and matter (including human beings); and as attested by some of the greatest minds (like Newton, Jefferson and Einstein) in human history ... we do not know what we do not know. But, we have free will to believe or not believe power exists beyond our human abilities to replicate, ... such as the resurrection matter alleged to have occurred on Easter morning abt. 30 C.E. beginning a second generation of goodness. One does not have to be a Startrek Online fan to imagine and wonder about possibilities in a universe still unfolding knowledge beyond human understanding but acceptable via faith alone such as the nature of Jesus. Is HE or was HE? What does it matter to who, how, when, where and why to humanity? National Humanities Center Our thoughts are that not all enslaved people internalized Jesus as their savior and Lord but enough did to generate sufficient believers in the quest for liberty that generated the Great Emancipation War. Much more importantly, the gifted and talented among people of African heritage from at least ending of the American Revolution through World War II, ... more or less evolved a philosophy of life for Black folks centered on teachings of Jesus as a fundamental means of achieving empowerment. Their descendents in places like Dayton, Ohio generated new generations with believers like our much beloved poet:
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Spring forward sixty (60) believer generations from the first Easter in 1st century C. E. (Christian Era) to an era for regeneration of goodness many of our ancestors referred to as the Emancipation. Most scholars who care to remember might choose to research and write about one or more of their "talented tenth" affirmative action ancestors that generated changes benefiting "the least of us." 
HEN all is done, and my last word is said,