Tag: church

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Unshakable

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My son-in-love, Kamau, posted that he was booking a flight to Africa. There was a storm coming, he said, and somebody needed to build shelters for the giraffes.

He displayed a picture like it was urgent.
Dark sky. Lightning splitting it wide open.
Giraffes standing tall in the open plain.

He might have been joking (hard to tell with him.) Because that is Kamau.  Compassion wrapped in comedy. Protection tucked inside a punchline. A heart that sees danger and immediately asks, Who needs covering?
I love that about him. ( Don’t tell him I said that.)

But when I looked closer at the picture,
those giraffes were not panicking. They were not lowering themselves to the ground.
They were not scattering. They were standing.

Unshakable. Unmovable.
Storm pressing in. Mortal danger possible.
And yet their necks were lifted.
Their legs planted.
Their bodies steady in the wind.

It made me think of Psalm 91:
“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Under His feathers you will find refuge.”

Those giraffes looked uncovered. But they were not unprotected. They looked exposed.
But they were not outside of shadow. Psalm 91 does not promise the absence of storms. It promises covering in the middle of them.

And then Psalm 46:10 settles it:
“Be still, and know that I am God.”


Not be frantic. Not be consumed. Not be undone. Be still. Still like you trust the One who commands the sky. Still like you believe the storm does not get the final word. Still like your roots run deeper than what threatens you.

We are living in days where thunder travels across oceans. International conflict crackles like lightning. Voices rise. Fear spreads.

But maybe faith looks like a giraffe in a storm.
Not dramatic. Not reckless. Just anchored.
Unshakable. Unmovable.

And I smiled again. Because my son-in-love thought he was just telling a joke. Instead… he helped me write a sermon about faith standing firm in adversity.

He is going to be so embarrassed when he reads this. Make sure you tease him for me.

Love, Chelle
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com

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You Are Black History

Posted in Black History Month, faith, God, inspiration, love, relationships, Uncategorized, workTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Black history does not live only in textbooks, timelines, or framed portraits. It lives in you.


It lives in the prayers your grandmother whispered that no one recorded. It lives in the courage it took for your parents and grandparents to keep going when quitting would have been easier.

It lives in the way you show up to work, to church, to community, to family — even when the reward is unclear.


Black history is not only something that happened. It is something that is still happening.


It is made every time you choose dignity over bitterness. Every time you carry joy in a system that profits from your exhaustion. Every time you tell the truth — even quietly. Every time you endure, love, build, teach, heal, or believe anyway.


Some names were written down. Many were not.
Some stories were celebrated. Many were survived.
But history is not only what is remembered — it is what continues.


You stand on the shoulders of those who were victorious without reward. Those who served faithfully without applause. Those who planted seeds they would never live to see bloom.


Their courage flows through you.


And we have always known how to leave something behind.


Breadcrumbs on the ground when the path was uncertain. Hushpuppies tossed not as waste, but as wisdom — a way to distract danger long enough to keep moving. Cornrows braided tight to the scalp, not only as beauty or tradition, but as memory — paths etched into hair, holding maps to water, to safety, to freedom.


What could not be written down was carried. What could not be spoken aloud was encoded. What could not be protected by law was protected by love, community, and God.


This was not myth. This was method.
A people learning how to survive systems designed to erase them — by remembering anyway.


If you are still leaving breadcrumbs for those coming behind you… still marking the way quietly… still choosing faith, dignity, and care when no one is watching…
You are doing what has always been done.


You are part of a holy lineage of guidance and endurance. A living echo of the God who makes a way where none seems visible and leads His people forward, step by step.


“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
— Galatians 6:9
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
— Psalm 119:105


If you are still standing, still hoping, still loving, still reaching for God and for one another — you are Black history in motion.
Not just because of where you came from, but because of how you choose to live.


We see you. We honor you. You matter.
Love, Chelle

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A.D. King – The Other King

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Before history narrowed the movement to one name, there were two brothers.

Alfred Daniel Williams King. Born in 1930. Preacher. Organizer. Strategist. Three years younger than Martin Luther King Jr. but standing in the same danger.

When Birmingham, Alabama became ground zero in 1963, A.D. did not visit. He moved there.
Birmingham was nicknamed “Bombingham” because of the frequency of racial terror bombings. Churches. Homes. Black neighborhoods.

A.D. helped lead mass meetings and demonstrations alongside Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Abernathy. While Martin carried the national microphone, A.D. carried the local weight: Organizing. Stabilizing. Coordinating.
Keeping frightened communities steady.

He was arrested during the Birmingham Campaign.His home was bombed.  While Martin wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” A.D. was outside holding the infrastructure together.

Movements do not survive on speeches alone.
They survive on people whose names do not trend. After Martin was assassinated in 1968, A.D. stepped further into leadership. 
One year later, in 1969, A.D. King was found drowned in his swimming pool at just 38 years old. The death was ruled accidental. But many in the community questioned how a strong adult man, familiar with his own pool, could drown under unclear circumstances.

No national day of mourning. No holiday. No monument echoing his name. History has a habit of compressing movements into a single face. But there were always second lines. Siblings. Strategists. The ones who held meetings when the cameras left.

We still do it today. We elevate one leader.
We forget the organizers. We chant one name.
We overlook the network. A.D. King represents that hidden layer.

He stood in the same fire. Faced the same threats. Carried the same calling. But the spotlight did not linger.

Micah 6:8

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

CARRY THIS WITH YOU
If your work is not visible, is it still valuable? Of course it is.  If your name is not printed, is your impact erased? Of course not.

BREADCRUMB
History may narrow the headline. But heaven keeps fuller records.

We see you, A.D. King — for carrying weight without applause.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.

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Freedom House Ambulance Service.  They Built The System

Posted in Black History Month, faith, God, health, inspiration, relationships, selfhelpTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In the late 1960s, Pittsburgh’s Hill District was a historic Black neighborhood — culturally rich, economically battered.

Urban renewal had displaced families and shuttered businesses. Hospitals were distant. Emergency transport was often handled by funeral homes or police wagons with little medical training. In Black neighborhoods across America, ambulance service frequently meant delay without treatment.

People were dying not only from injury —
but from the absence of care.

In 1967, that absence met resistance.

Out of the Hill District came the Freedom House Ambulance Service — one of the first professionally trained paramedic units in the United States.

Under the medical vision of Peter Safar, a pioneer of CPR and modern resuscitation, and through the clinical leadership of Nancy Caroline, Freedom House became more than an experiment.

Nancy Caroline did not observe from a distance.
She wrote curriculum.
She rode in the ambulances.
She trained the men personally.
She demanded mastery.

She helped build one of the nation’s first structured paramedic training programs and later authored Emergency Care in the Streets, a foundational EMS textbook used across the country and internationally.

The standards were not lowered for the Hill District.
They were raised.

The men recruited into Freedom House were largely unemployed Black residents. Some were Vietnam veterans. Many had been labeled “untrainable.”

They became among the first paramedics in America.

Among the early paramedics were:

John Moon
Mitchell Brown
Timothy McCall
Wesley Lee
Walter Brown
Dennis Williams

And others whose names history is still restoring.

They mastered advanced cardiac life support, airway management, trauma stabilization, and mobile intensive care techniques. They responded to thousands of calls. Their survival rates were strong. Their professionalism undeniable.

They were not ambulance drivers.
They were architects of modern emergency medicine.

In 1975, the City of Pittsburgh dissolved Freedom House and created a new municipal EMS system.

The training model remained.
The protocols remained.
The infrastructure remained.

The leadership did not.

The new city EMS became predominantly white.
The Black paramedics who had proven the model were no longer centered in the system they built.

Their experiment became policy.
Their innovation became ordinance.
Their presence became history.

Public memory credited institutions.
The Hill District remembered who carried the stretchers.

Several Freedom House members continued careers in emergency medicine and public service. Others carried the quiet distinction of having transformed pre-hospital care long before the country was ready to credit them.

Modern EMS systems and structured 911 response protocols carry their fingerprints.

They were not a pilot program.
They were a foundation.

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” — Psalm 118:22


BREADCRUMB
Sometimes the rejected become the infrastructure.



We see you, Freedom House:
John Moon.
Mitchell Brown.
Timothy McCall.
Wesley Lee.
Walter Brown.
Dennis Williams.
And the others whose names deserve light.
You brought intensive care into neglected streets. You professionalized emergency response in America.


You turned crisis into curriculum.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward.
Still here.

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The Hymn Before the Headline

Posted in Black History Month, cancer, christmas, faith, food, God, inspiration, love, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

Before it was debated,
Before it was dissected on timelines and talk shows, it was a hymn.

Originally titled
Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Negro National Hymn)

Hymn.

Not rebellion.  Not replacement.


Hymn.

Written in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson, and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson, it was first sung by Black schoolchildren who were barely a generation removed from bondage.

And still they sang.

Psalm 98 says, “Sing unto the Lord a new song.”

Our ancestors did.

They sang through Jim Crow.
They sang through separate water fountains.
They sang when hoses knocked bodies down and dogs were turned loose.
They sang when grief had no courtroom relief.

This hymn was not written to divide a nation.
It was written to steady a people.

When it shows up on a Super Bowl stage,
that is not intrusion.
That is history breathing.

A hymn is not about replacing anything.
It is about remembering.

Black History Month is not about exclusion.
It is about acknowledgment.

And acknowledgment is not an attack.
It is truth standing upright.

So when we lift every voice,
we are not asking permission.

We are honoring inheritance.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.

Some songs survive because they are catchy.
This one survived because it carried us.

To the children who first sang it.
To the elders who kept it in the pews.
To every voice that trembled but did not stop

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here..

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Prathia Hall — The Woman Who Put the Dream in the Air

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Prathia Hall was a preacher—and I don’t mean honorary, invited-once-a-year preacher. I mean called, trained, Scripture-handling, fire-in-her-bones preacher. That alone put her at odds with the world she was born into.
She came up in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, not watching it on television, but working it. Organizing. Marching. Preaching. Sitting in mass meetings where faith wasn’t decoration—it was fuel.


And Prathia knew words mattered.
She preached with rhythm and Scripture braided together. Not shouting just to shout. Not performing. She preached like someone who believed God was actually listening—and that people were, too.


One night, after a church had been bombed, Prathia stood in the rubble and began to pray out loud. And as she prayed, she kept saying a phrase again and again:
“I have a dream…”
Not as a speech.
As a prayer.


That cadence—the hope, the structure, the repetition—later showed up on a much bigger stage through Dr. King. History remembers the microphone. It often forgets the woman who helped tune the sound.


Prathia Hall kept preaching anyway.
She worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), helped train young leaders, and taught theology that didn’t separate heaven from justice. She believed faith was supposed to interrupt oppression, not soothe it.
She didn’t chase credit.
She chased truth.

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” — Romans 10:17


SIT WITH THIS
Who taught you how to speak hope before the world was ready to hear it? And where might God be asking you to keep saying the thing—even if someone else gets the credit later?


BREADCRUMB
Some words don’t echo right away.
They wait—until the world is ready to hear them.

We see you, Prathia Hall — for preaching freedom into the air before it had a stage.


Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.


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Charles Hamilton Houston: He Built the Road

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Charles Hamilton Houston believed something radical for his time:

That the law — when disciplined, prepared, and forced to tell the truth — could be used to dismantle injustice.

He was not a march leader.
He was not a headline.
He was a builder.

Born in 1895, Houston became a lawyer and educator who saw segregation not just as wrong, but as structural. He believed it had to be taken apart piece by piece, case by case, classroom by classroom.

So he did the slow work.

As a professor at Howard University School of Law, Houston trained a generation of Black lawyers to be precise, relentless, and morally clear. Among them was a young man named Thurgood Marshall.

Houston taught his students that excellence was not optional — because lives depended on it.

“A lawyer is either a social engineer or a parasite on society.”

Houston chose to be a social engineer.

Long before Brown v. Board of Education reached the Supreme Court, Charles Hamilton Houston was already laying the groundwork.

He challenged unequal pay for Black teachers.
He dismantled segregation in graduate and professional schools.
He forced courts to confront the lie of “separate but equal.”

Case by case, brick by brick, he weakened the foundation of legalized segregation.

Others would stand in front of the nation when the walls finally fell.

Houston would not.

His health deteriorated under the strain of the work.
He died young.
And when history celebrated the victory, his name was often missing from the story.

He was victorious without reward.

Charles Hamilton Houston reminds us that some people are called to prepare the way, not walk through the door themselves.

“Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight paths for Him.” — Isaiah 40:3

Houston prepared paths others would walk — paths that led to justice, dignity, and opportunity for generations he would never meet.

If you have ever done work that made someone else visible,
labored behind the scenes while others stood at the microphone,
poured yourself into something you knew you might not live to see finished,
or believed faithfulness mattered more than credit,

Charles Hamilton Houston stands with you.

He built the road.
Others crossed it.

And God saw every stone he laid.

We see you, Charles.
We honor the work you did quietly.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.

Love, Chelle

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Susie King Taylor: She Served Anyway

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Susie King Taylor was born enslaved in Georgia in 1848, in a world where teaching Black people to read was a crime and Black women’s labor was expected but never honored.


From a young age, Susie learned to read and write in secret. She was taught quietly, moving from place to place so no one would notice. Knowledge, for her, was not just education—it was resistance.


When the Civil War came, Susie did not wait to be invited into history.


She followed Union troops, and at just fourteen years old, she began teaching formerly enslaved soldiers and children how to read. She became the first Black woman known to openly teach formerly enslaved people in a Union camp.


She did not stop there.
Susie served as a teacher, a nurse, a laundress, and a caregiver to wounded Black soldiers. She worked in field hospitals. She tended infections. She cleaned wounds. She buried the dead. She did the work that kept soldiers alive long enough to keep fighting.


She did this without rank.
Without formal pay.
Without protection.
Without promise of recognition.
And when the war ended, the men she served alongside received pensions.
Susie did not.


Her body carried the cost of years of labor and exposure. Her hands had held dying boys. Her back bore the weight of war. Yet the government decided her service did not count.
She was victorious without reward.


In 1902, Susie King Taylor published Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops—one of the only Civil War memoirs written by a Black woman.

She wrote because she knew that if she did not tell the story, it would be told wrong—or not at all.


She documented unequal treatment, exhaustion, racism within the Union Army, and the quiet strength required to keep serving anyway.


Recognition did not follow.
She died poor.
Her contributions remained footnotes.
Her name was largely absent from textbooks.


And yet, without women like Susie King Taylor, the war would not have been survivable for Black soldiers.


Susie King Taylor teaches us that some people do the work because it needs doing, not because they expect to be thanked.
She was not disguised like Cathay Williams.
She was not sidelined like Claudette Colvin.
She was fully visible—and still denied.


“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” — Colossians 3:23


If you have ever done essential work no one wanted to name, given care without credentials, served faithfully while others were promoted, or known your contribution mattered even when systems said it didn’t—Susie King Taylor stands with you.
She served anyway.
History followed later.


We see you, Susie.
We honor you now.


Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.
Love, Chelle

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Cathay Williams: Known By God. Hidden By History

Posted in Black History Month, faith, God, inspiration, love, selfhelp, Uncategorized, workTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Cathay Williams is one of my favorite Black history figures — not because she is well known, but because she is not.


I was first introduced to her by my nephew, Remmie, during one of the hardest seasons of my life — while I was going through breast cancer. He told me her story and then said something that stopped me cold.


He said I reminded him of her.


Like Cathay, I hid some of the pain I was really going through — not out of denial, but out of love.
Not because the fight wasn’t real, but because I wanted to encourage others who were fighting too.


Cathay Williams was born enslaved in Missouri around 1844. During the Civil War, she followed the Union Army as a cook and laundress. But when the war ended and the Army opened its ranks to Black men only, Cathay did something unthinkable.


She cut her hair,

wrapped her body,

changed her name to William Cathay

— and enlisted.


For nearly two years, she served as a soldier in the 38th U.S. Infantry, one of the original Buffalo Soldier regiments. She marched. She guarded. She endured brutal conditions — all while hiding her identity in a world that would not make space for who she truly was.


Eventually, illness exposed what society refused to imagine:
a Black woman had carried a rifle, worn the uniform, and served her country faithfully.


She was discharged — not for lack of courage, but for daring to exist outside the rules.


Cathay Williams lived a life where survival required disguise.
Not because she lacked strength — but because the world lacked vision.


There are seasons when God calls people to serve before the world is ready to name them correctly.
Cathay was known as William by the Army.
But she was known fully by God.
“The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:7


History overlooked her.
The Army dismissed her.
But heaven recorded her obedience.
Some call her story deception.
Others call it desperation.


But I call it courage under constraint.


And here is the part history often whispers instead of says out loud:
Cathay Williams never received military honors.
She never received a pension.
In 1891, after her health had been permanently damaged by her service, she applied for a military disability pension. It was denied. She died poor and largely forgotten.


She was victorious without reward.


Cathay Williams did everything she was asked to do — and more.
She served faithfully.
She endured quietly.
She finished her assignment.


Her story reminds us that victory and recognition are not the same thing.
“Well done” does not always come from the systems we serve — but it is always recorded by God.
She didn’t fight for history.
She fought through it.
And God did not waste a single step she took.


She did not live to see her story told.
But her life still speaks.


And for those who have ever given their strength, their hope, or their encouragement without guarantee of return:
You may be unrewarded by the world —
but you are not unseen by God.


We see you, Cathay.
We salute you.


Love, Chelle

About the History in Bread Crumbs
Bread Crumbs reflections are grounded in documented historical records, including archives from the U.S. National Archives, Library of Congress, court records, contemporaneous newspapers, and first-person accounts. Spiritual reflections and personal connections are clearly marked as such and are offered with respect for the historical record.

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Stone Soup For A Restless World

Posted in faith, food, God, health, inspiration, love, relationships, selfhelp, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

(Inspired by the traditional folktale “Stone Soup”)
There is an old folktale—often called Stone Soup—with roots in European oral tradition, passed from voice to voice long before it ever lived on a printed page. No single author can claim it, because it belongs to the people. To grandmothers. To kitchens. To cold evenings and tired hearts.
My grandma told me this story when I was a child.
In it, strangers arrive in a village with nothing but a pot, water, and a stone. The villagers insist they have nothing to give. Nothing extra. Nothing to spare. But as the pot begins to simmer, curiosity loosens fists. A carrot appears. Then an onion. A potato. A handful of herbs. What begins as nothing becomes a feast—not because of the stone, but because everyone adds what they already had.
“All the believers were together and had everything in common.”
— Acts 2:44
What my grandmother made sure I understood wasn’t cleverness or trickery.
It was this: waste nothing, because even the smallest thing can become enough.
That lesson followed me into adulthood and straight into my freezer.
I freeze the little bits.
The half cup of vegetables left after dinner.
The last spoonful of beans.
The scraps that don’t look like a meal on their own.
And on nights like this—when the world feels heavy, when the news is loud, when unrest simmers hotter than any stove—I pull out those frozen fragments. I drop my own version of a stone into broth. I add spices. I stir. And somehow, once again, there is soup.
Scripture reminds us that when we bring what we have—no matter how small—God knows how to make it enough.
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others.”
— 1 Peter 4:10
Nothing fancy.
Nothing wasteful.
Nothing done alone.
Wouldn’t it be lovely—
in a world so divided, so guarded, so afraid of scarcity—
if we could remember how to do this together?
Not fix everything.
Not agree on everything.
Just show up with what we have.
A carrot. A story. A pot. A willingness.
Stone Soup reminds us that abundance doesn’t start with excess.
It starts with shared heat.
With open hands.
With the quiet decision to believe that together is still possible.
Tonight, I’ll keep stirring.
And I’ll keep believing.
Love, Chelle
DefyGravityWithoutWings.com