Roll, Jordan, Roll
For Black Music Month & Black Pride Month
by©️Leslye Joy Allen
All things actually collide, we just don’t always see or feel the collision. And by collision I mean when two things meet each other softly or drastically but not necessarily fatally. When you dive in a pool or a lake you hit that water, but unless you can’t swim you survive the collision.
As we near the end of Black Music Month and Pride Month, I happened to pull out my old copy of historian Eugene D. Genovese’s seminal book “Roll, Jordan,Roll: The World the Slaves Made.” It is thoroughly researched, and completely takes enslaved Black people out of the shadows and grants them agency in spite of their condition as property and servants.
That world my slave ancestors made was largely out of earshot and eyeshot of slave holders and overseers. The elderly Black slave that told the children stories by day, might be planning a revolt or an escape by night. The mammy who tended to her master’s children by day and hurried to the slave quarters by night to teach to other slaves what little rudiments of the alphabet she had gleaned from the master’s children.
Yet, I remember studying Genovese’s book in class and I told Dr. Eskew something about the book that surprised both of us. Genovese accurately identified the River Jordan as a central body of water in the religious cosmology of Afro-Americans no matter what religions we belong to. Yet he never identifies why the Jordan River was so important to the slave.
The river Jordan is the river that Moses was not permitted to cross. Moses retired and handed the leadership over to Joshua. The river Jordan is also the river where John baptized Yeshu’a ben Yosef (commonly called “Jesus”). Yet, Genovese never explained as I just did above the significance of this river to us.
The river Jordan is 156 miles long. It flows north to south from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. If you look at a modern map you will notice that the Jordan is located along the western borders of both the countries of Jordan and Syria and the eastern borders of Israel.
The exodus of the Israelites out from slavery in Egypt remained a favorite biblical story among Afro-American slaves. And for all the crazy ass white Christian nationalists who never seem to ever understand that there is literally no one in the Bible that could be classified as “white”—they can carry on with their lunacy. But that is an essay for another day.
(Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin)
When the Israelites finally got out from under slavery in Egypt to arrive at a piece of land that God had promised them, they wandered in the desert for 40 years as punishment for their cutting the damned fool when the Creator delivered them to a place called Canaan—I knew this biblical story belonged to us Black folks.
Now I am not going to tell the whole story, but I must say that the River Jordan was both an obstruction as much as it was a pathway. That is our message as an Afro-American people, and that means ALL of us: the so-called Straight, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Non-Binary, and etcetera.
There are Black male pastors that run when they see me coming and with good reason. Yet, I know that church is not just about belief or proof. I also know that as an Afro-American I belong to a people where if there really was no God my people would surely conjure one up.
Therefore, in the name of Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin, two Gay warriors that never lost their way, the following is a song by Reverend James Cleveland who influenced an entire generation of Black singers and musicians, including Aretha Franklin.
Just so you know, Reverend Cleveland was as Gay as the day is 24 hours long. And for the Black folks and members of Black clergy reading this, you know good and damned well that if the Black LGBTQIA community members left Black churches that the only people that would be left to make music would maybe be about four Nigg*z that could play “Chopsticks.”
So, be kind to each other. Embrace each other. Happy Black Music Month. Happy Pride Month. Roll, Jordan, Roll.
I am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work and research with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp or PayPal; or become a paid subscriber to me on Substack to help me sustain my research and commentary.
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