Reflections on Ossie Davis' Homegoing

Ossie Davis
December 18, 1917-February 4, 2005

I have not been present at many events in my lifetime, events of great magnitute, that I imagine I will be able to recount (god willing) to my descendants. I suppose I should be able to testify to four years at a historically black women's college. I hope to herald the nurturers, the inventive intellects, the fearless activists, the autonomous black women of Spelman and their life affirming legacy. Their strength of spirit is one seldom seen elsewhere. But when driven to recall a single event, a transformative moment in time, freedom times, I fear that I will be at a great loss.

TV, sexy, seductive and insidious as it is, might paint my spirit's conundrum more vividly. A painting that we as African Americans used to hang in our battered but hardly heavy hearts hung in Clair and Cliff Huxtable's home for 8 memorable years. Ellis Wilson's "The Funeral Procession", as familiar to fans of The Cosby Show as the colorful 'Cosby' sweaters that clothed the fictional patriarch each episode graced the far wall bearing down on the assemblage of the supremely talented black artists who tread through the elegantly appointed parlor. One such episode found the family in their lived-in room reflecting black. Cliff and Clair's parents with Rudy, Vanessa, Theo, Denise and Sondra looking on, told of a March on Washington. They told the story of putting down posessions, skipping out on work, putting on sunday's best and assembling on the capitol steps. I imagine they love to tell the story. I would not be so foolish as to wish I could have experienced segregation, but I would love to tell the story of community, resistance, of integrity, of black beauty, of goodness, and most of all Godliness.

Article Author: Jalylah Burrell

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