“Carved in Ebony”: In Observance of Black History Month

In December, I received a book from my granddaughter Katrina—and I am happy to report that on February 9 she and her husband Ryan became parents of Nina Irene, a beautiful baby girl and Junes’ and my first great-grandchild. But this blog post is about Katrina’s Christmas present to me. 

Observing Black History Month

As is widely known, February is designated every year as Black History Month in the U.S., and I read the book Katrina gave me partly as a way to learn more about Black history. Let me share with you a little of what I learned from that book.

Carved in Ebony (2021) was written by Jasmine L. Holmes, a youngish (b. 1990) Black woman who lives in Jackson, Mississippi, with her husband Phillip and their three young sons.

Author Holmes’s slim book is about ten outstanding African-American women, all born in the nineteenth century, who have largely been unknown by the general public. Indeed, I didn’t remember hearing even one of their names prior to reading this book.

But they were all notable women—and good for me (and you) to learn about during Black History Month.

“God’s Image Carved in Ebony”

While, fortunately, it is not nearly as true now as when he spoke those words fifty years ago, in the Introduction, Holmes cites these words of Malcolm X: “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman” (p. 18).

But writing about ten outstanding Black women of strong Christian faith, Holmes asserts, “black women are made in the image of God. They are that image carved in ebony hues, wrought with a purpose, for his glory” (p. 19). Their exemplary lives should no longer be neglected.

“God’s Image Carved in Ebony,” the fifth chapter, is about Amanda Berry Smith (1837~1915), who even though she was born into slavery, became an evangelist, a missionary to Africa, and the founder of an orphanage for Black children.    

Amanda’s father bought his freedom from slavery and then that of his family when she was still young. But the Berry family was still poor, so Amanda left home to work as a live-in domestic.

She married at the age of seventeen, but that rocky marriage ended when her husband didn’t return from the Civil War. Then her marriage to James Smith ended with his death due to cancer in 1867. Soon afterward, Amanda began to fulfill her calling to be an evangelist.

In 1878, Amanda traveled overseas and preached in Great Britain and in India. Then she served as a missionary in Liberia for eight years, beginning in 1882.

Her final ministry was at the Amanda Smith Orphanage and Industrial Home for Abandoned and Destitute Colored Children, which she founded in Illinois in 1899 and where she served until 1912.

At the end of her long, productive life, Amanda was described as a woman in whom “God’s image was carved in ebony.”

The Example of Charlotte Forten Grimké

Charlotte Forten was born the same year (1837) as Amanda Berry and died about seven months earlier (in July 1914). But their lives were vastly different: whereas Amanda was born into slavery, the Forten family were prominent free Blacks in Philadelphia and active abolitionists. 

Although I hadn’t heard of Charlotte before reading the ninth chapter in Jasmine Holmes’s book, I had probably heard of the man she married in 1878, the nephew of the amazing Grimké sisters, the subject of my Feb. 24, 2016, blog post.  

The same year Amanda went overseas as an evangelist (1878), Charlotte married Francis Grimké, pastor of the prominent Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.

In addition to her position as the pastor’s wife at that church until her death, in 1896 Charlotte helped found the National Association of Colored Women, and she remained an active advocate for civil rights until her death.

Yes, although not widely known, there are many outstanding nineteenth-century Black women—and now in 2022 the U.S. will likely have a new Supreme Court Justice similarly “carved in ebony.”