It’s my history - Time to reflect, challenge ourselves
I am perplexed often by the looks on people's faces when I tell them what my day job is: I am the chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas. You see, I am a Black man, and some people have not lived enough to truly know folks of a different background.
Many people, including those in the media, sent me congratulations as the first Black Republican chairman when I was elected last August. Oops. I am actually the second Black Arkansan to be elected to this position. The honor of being the first belongs to Chairman John E. Bush, elected in the 19th century and the co-founder of the Mosaic Templars of America. In fact, we salute him by having his portrait on display in the lobby of our party headquarters.
As we enter February, the start of Black History Month, we should be mindful of the many Black Arkansans who have left their mark on history.
From those who were pivotal in the civil rights movement like the Little Rock Nine, Ozell Sutton and Annie Abrams. Giants in business and arts like John H. Johnson, Walter "Wiley" Jones, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Al Green and Maya Angelou. Public servants like the nearly hundreds of Black legislators that served in our state Capitol or sports figures like Darren McFadden, Sonny Liston, and Bobby Portis.
Yes, there are many, many Black Arkansans to be proud of that we can point to for inspiration, excellence and what is possible. However, we should not celebrate them solely because they, like me, are Black. We should celebrate them for what they achieved on their own merits.
It has been my life experience that too often we relegate Black folks to that attribute first and foremost, and it is nothing to be ashamed of, celebrating the overcoming of adversity. It happens to be something I know a little about.
I was born a foundling, which is the term given to someone like me who does not have a birth date, but instead celebrates the date they were "found."
As a newborn, my biological mother placed me in a box one wintry night in Chicago and left me in front of an apartment complex. By God's grace, I was not there too long before a man left the apartment complex to discover me moving in the box. He took me inside and got the Chicago police to come and investigate. They would later take me to an orphanage downtown.
That little Black child, raised on the south side of Chicago, would go on to graduate college, work on the corporate side of one of the largest companies in the world (Walmart), become the deputy Arkansas secretary of state, the first elected Black county judge, the secretary of transformation and shared services under Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and, not the first, but the most recent Black chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas.
To relegate my life's story to "Joseph Wood, he can't be a Republican, he's Black" seems to shorthand all of who I am, who my wife is, and who I wanted my three daughters and grandchildren to be.
No group of voters in Arkansas or America is a monolith. Everyone, regardless of their race or ethnicity, is as capable of transforming their own life and the course of their community as the next person. The key rests with reverence for what hand God dealt you but realizing you still must play the cards.
As for me, Black History Month is a time to reflect on where I and others have been, and then challenge ourselves. What is next on our journey? Stay on your journey--the world is waiting!
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