By Dr. Levon R. Yuille
As I reflect upon the journey of black Americans, it is obvious that we as a people have a history that is filled with many trials, tribulations, and defeats. But that is not the entire story of the black man. We have also experienced in our history times of great progress, victories, and success. And when it comes to black Americans here in the United States of America, all of the previously stated experiences are most certainly part of our journey in this nation, where black people have experienced the worst and best of this great nation.
Long before black people came to America in chains, we were dispersed to numerous other nations of the world. In his book, The Slave Trade, Hugh Thomas, a former professor of history and chairman of the Centre for Policy (U.K.), and author of Conquest, tells of the booming slave trade of blacks by Islamic hordes, and the thriving slave industry that weaved its insidious web from Portugal in the 1400s to other nations of the world. And as we know, the black slave trade made it to the shores of America.
The arrival of the slave in America was under the harshest of circumstances, both physically and emotionally. Snatched from their homeland, forced into the torturous cramped spaces of slave boats, chained and separated from loved ones and home, slaves were introduced to the harsh reality of their new home—slavery in America. One of the greatest depictions of the horrors the slaves experienced was in the great novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
One of the most under-reported aspects of slavery was and is the complicity of Africans in the aiding of those involved in the slave trade. Because whites’ immune systems prevented them from going into the interior of the jungles of Africa, they often depended on Africans to capture other Africans and bring them to their boats on the shore. It is hard to imagine this type of betrayal, but it is well documented in numerous research pieces on slavery in Africa. It is one of the cold realities of slavery, that Africans when it came to this wicked practice, strengthened the hand of the wicked slave traders. What a betrayal.
It is hard to believe that blacks could have experienced, and do experience, any greater betrayal than being captured by their own people and sold into slavery. But there is a far greater crime of a people to their people. Because as a black man I represent the fact that as bad as slavery was, slavery didn’t kill all my ancestors, and that is why there are over 40 million black people in America.
But the horrible truth of the matter is that there should not be only 40 million blacks in America. There should be approximately 54 million blacks in America. So where are those other 14 million blacks that should be in America? The cold fact is that they are dead—killed by individuals who have been aided and abetted by many in the black community.
There is a monster killer in the black community whose name is abortion, and aiding and abetting this monster are black organizations like the NAACP, The Black Caucus, black politicians, many black clergy, black educators, and many other black leaders. These folks encourage black people to vote for pro-choice candidates like Obama and many other black political leaders who support the practice of abortion—the killing of our most innocent citizens. Nothing has killed blacks like abortion, yet many black leaders cheer on the pro-choice candidates who vote to make certain that thousands of innocent babies die every day—and many of these dead little people are black.
Hopefully the day is soon coming when there will be a great cry of repentance and conversion among black leaders and they will, with the zeal they joined the civil rights fight, join in the greatest civil rights battle our black people have ever faced—to stop the killing of millions of our people in abortion facilities. And until all black people join this battle, it will indeed be our black leaders’ greatest betrayal.
Dr. Levon R. Yuille is president of the National Black Pro-Life Congress.