Years ago, someone at a blog I used to frequent asked how slavery is still affecting black Americans. The answer has been right in front of him for at least a couple of centuries.
A few weeks back, one of my church friends - a black lady - discovered my last name and asked me what its origin is. When I told her that my father was Kenyan, she laughed and said “oh, so you’re one of the lucky black Americans who doesn’t have a slave name. You didn’t have to get an X.” I laughed and said yes, that’s correct.
Sitting next to me, was one of my best friends at church - a white man - and he was perplexed by the conversation. “I’ll explain it to you later,” I said. So this missive is for my friend, but not just him.
I was born in 1961 and in the 60s and 70s there was a movement among black Americans to rid themselves of “slave names,” that is, the mostly English surnames which black Americans had acquired - mostly through force - via American slavery.
Prominent in this movement was the Nation of Islam (NOI) whose members, upon being accepted into the organization, took on an X, which represented the unknown surname/family names which our African ancestors were forced to give up.
Of course one of the NOI’s most famous members was Malcolm X; the X took the place of the surname with which he was born: Little. Longterm or prominent members often took on a full Arabic name. Example: Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.
As someone who, through the luck of the draw, was born with an African surname and patronymic, I’ve watched how attitudes about these things have played out over the decades. My American father chose not to give me his surname because he felt that it was better for me to hold onto my known heritage, something which was highly prized among many black Americans of the time during which I was growing up.
I’ve said before that I grew up as a nothing-ist; not a Christian, not an atheist. That, however, isn’t entirely true.
For a few years family - my mom, my American dad and my sisters were members of the NOI and I am a graduate of the NOI’s Sister Clara Muhammad Elementary and Secondary School.
My parents took me out of public school - against my wishes to be sure - and put me into the NOI school. I hated it but when I graduated, I could have gone on to a junior college. However, I didn’t feel it as if I knew enough; the NOI school taught absolutely no science. So my parents allowed me to attend a public high school and I have a diploma from there also.
We had joined the NOI a few years before Elijah Muhammad died and when that happened, his son Warith Deen Mohammed took over the leadership of the organization and transformedy it into a more traditional form of Islam.
After the changing of the guard and the doctrine, we drifted away from the NOI, and roughly ten years later, my parents started going to church. Ten years after that, so did I.
During the time that we were members of the NOI, we never discussed Allah or read the Quran. Recently, when I asked Dad what they were thinking when they joined the NOI, he said he was more impressed by their doctrine of independence and self-help than by any religious belief.
Dad and Mom chose to give my two American sisters first names of Arabic origin. (Ironically, my Kenyan sisters and brother all have British given names.) This was before any of us knew about the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade.
It’s fascinating how many of us sought to rid ourselves of the vestiges of one set of slave masters by - unwittingly - taking on the vestiges of another set.
I’ve watched how Arabic given names, like Jamal and Ayesha, have spread far and wide among black Americans. And I’ve watched how this naming tradition has morphed into black children having nonsensical names, with no origin other than the imagination of their mothers.
And sadly I’ve watched as illegitimacy has become the norm rather than the exception among black Americans with many not even knowing the identity of their biological fathers and, therefore, being unable to pass on even their fathers’ “slave names” to future generations. It’s a full and ugly circle.
I’d call this a snippet of the black American search for identity.
RELATED: Slavery and Names