Page 5 - McCastle Family Program Booklet 2017.indd

THE BLACK FAMILY PLEDGE by Maya Angelou
BECAUSE we have forgotten our ancestors, our children no longer give us honor.
BECAUSE we have lost the path our ancestors cleared kneeling in perilous undergrowth, our children cannot find their way.
BECAUSE we have banished the God of our ancestors, our children cannot pray.
BECAUSE the old wails of our ancestors have faded beyond our hearing, our children cannot hear us crying.
BECAUSE we have abandoned our wisdom of mothering and fathering, our befuddled children give birth to children they neither want nor understand.
BECAUSE we have forgotten how to love, the adversary is within our gates, and holds us up to the mirror of the world shouting, “Regard the loveless!”
Therefore, we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate, to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things, knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters.
We ARE our brothers and sisters.
IN HONOR of those who toiled and implored God with golden tongues, and in gratitude to the same God who brought us out of hopeless desolation, we make this pledge.
-Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 - 28 May 28, 2014)
McCastle’s FOREVER
(Adapted from “Blackwells Forever”.
LYRICS revised by Irwin W. Blackwell of Baltimore, MD.)
TUNE: “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
by brothers, James Weldon Johnson & John Rosamond Johnson
Verse 1
God of our un-i-verse
Maker of heav’n and earth
We sing our prai-ses to the-ee above.
May our souls e’er de-light
Filled with Thy ho-ly might
An-chored in love, steadfast in bro-ther-hood. Bless this mass.
Help us to cher-ish and love one a-no-ther. Give us strength, keep is to-ge-ther for-ever and e-ver. U-ni-ted by Thy hand, all over this great land God bless this house, God bless this fa-mi-ly!
James Weldon Johnson & John Rosamond Johnson
Our foun-der long de-part
Still lingers in our hearts.
Po-ssessed with vi-sion e-ver la-asting In-stilled with-in our minds, ne’er to fall be-hind Pull hand in hand, all o-ver this great land. We have come, mind-ful of he who has brought us to-ge-ther.
Let it dwell, for we are McCastles who will live for-e-ver!
Striving the best we can, to-ge-ther hand in hand, God bless this house, God bless this fa-mi-ly!
3
Verse 2