FEBRUARY 18 — A FAITH THAT ENDURES, A PEOPLE WHO RISE
February 18 rests in the heart of Black History Month like a coal that still burns. It may not sound across the headlines, yet it carries weight. Black history is not a chain of cold dates; it is a testimony written in tears and in triumph. It is the record of a people pressed down but not destroyed, wounded yet worshiping, despised yet dignified. The image of God was never erased, though men tried to trample it into the dust.
On this day in 1931, Toni Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio. She would become the first Black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Through novels like Beloved, she compelled a nation to face the memories it preferred to forget. Her pen did not merely tell stories; it summoned conscience. She wrote with fire wrapped in beauty, with lament clothed in lyric, and her words still stand like watchmen on the wall.
February 18 also marks the birth of Audre Lorde in 1934. Poet. Essayist. Witness. She refused to conform to silence. She insisted that truth must be spoken, even when the voice trembles. Her life declares that conviction is not cruelty and that justice without courage is only decoration.
Yet this date also carries a dark shadow. On February 18, 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated in Montgomery, Alabama, as President of the Confederacy. The same soil that heard vows to defend bondage would, in later years, tremble beneath the marching feet of those demanding freedom. History remembers both the wound and the healing. It remembers the rebellion against equality and the rising cry for liberty. The ground has absorbed both tears and prayers.
The fall of the Confederacy was good. Every good and perfect gift comes down from above (James 1:17). The collapse of a system built to preserve slavery was not a tragedy of righteousness but a mercy of justice. God, who rules over nations and humbles kingdoms, brought down the “Confederate States of America” in His providence. Give honor to whom honor is due — to the men and women who sacrificed to end it, and above all to the God of heaven, who in His own way and in His own time overruled history and brought it to nothing.
Here is where faith speaks. The Bible declares that God made from one blood every nation of humanity (Acts 17:26). The Word of God does not stutter on this point. It proclaims with trumpet clarity that every person bears heaven’s imprint. No race stands closer to the throne. No skin tone dims the glory of divine craftsmanship. To despise another image-bearer is to insult the Artist.
The story of Black America carries the sounds of Exodus. Chains were real. Whips were real. Injustice was codified and preached from pulpits that knew better. Yet faith rose in cabins and brush arbors. Spirituals floated into the night sky like incense. Prayer meetings became fortresses. The Lord was not an ornament of culture. He was bread in famine and water in a dry land. Christ was not a slogan. He was survival.
There is power in that truth. Oppression could not suffocate worship. Hatred could not extinguish hope. Systems built to crush the soul could not silence the songs of Zion. The adversary meant to erase, but heaven preserved. What men plotted in darkness, God overruled in His providence.
And now we stand on February 18, not as spectators of history but as stewards of it. Gratitude must rise. Repentance must be honest. Justice must be pursued without apology. Unity must be forged in truth, not in shallow sentiment. Love must be more than a word; it must be a will, a choice, a cross-bearing obedience.
Black history is American history, and both stand under the searching light of the Gospel. Suffering has spoken loudly, yet it has not spoken last. Christ speaks last. He stands over every chapter of pain and declares resurrection.
So let this day be more than ink on a calendar. Let it be a summons. Remember the courage. Honor the endurance. Confront the sin. Cling to the Savior. For the light still shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it (John 1:5).
May we bow low before the Lord who judges justly and saves mercifully. May He purify His church from prejudice, strengthen weary hearts, and knit us together in righteousness and love. Amen.
BDD
