I know that I do not live independent of the expectations my great grandfather has of me. In fact, if I could hear him speak to me he would be urging me to push a little faster and do a little more. He is one person that I am researching that I am have really come to love. If I never discovered anything about him, I would still be wondering who I am most like.
I knew when I found this biography that I had inherited my sense of community from my great grandfather, Rev. Lafayette Franklin Vance (1861-1952). I am sure that if he were in my place today, community would include family, neighborhood, city, country, state, and the world.
I am also of mixed ancestry, and I wonder if he too felt a kinship to all three (African American, Caucasian, Native American) and how people accepted him for that. I wonder if he felt as I do: You cannot hate any one without hating yourself. I hope that I am living in such a way that I might be true to his memory and his legacy as described in the first paragraph:
I am equally as sure that he would be working among the people he could physically visit each day and using the new tools we have embraced to reach people around the globe. I am humbled by the amount of information that I am discovering about him that I did not know before I began researching. I am reminded that he accomplished so much, and I have so much more by comparison. I am without excuse. I must do more.
From Centennial Encyclopedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Volume 1 (below) I discovered he was was given the stewardship to purchase Sterling College and appointed a trustee in the early 1900's. I need to research Sterling College which would have been situated in Greenville, South Carolina.
I knew when I found this biography that I had inherited my sense of community from my great grandfather, Rev. Lafayette Franklin Vance (1861-1952). I am sure that if he were in my place today, community would include family, neighborhood, city, country, state, and the world.
I am also of mixed ancestry, and I wonder if he too felt a kinship to all three (African American, Caucasian, Native American) and how people accepted him for that. I wonder if he felt as I do: You cannot hate any one without hating yourself. I hope that I am living in such a way that I might be true to his memory and his legacy as described in the first paragraph:
Caldwell, A. B. 1919. History of the American Negro and his institutions. Atlanta, Ga: A.B. Caldwell Pub. Co.
I am equally as sure that he would be working among the people he could physically visit each day and using the new tools we have embraced to reach people around the globe. I am humbled by the amount of information that I am discovering about him that I did not know before I began researching. I am reminded that he accomplished so much, and I have so much more by comparison. I am without excuse. I must do more.
From Centennial Encyclopedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Volume 1 (below) I discovered he was was given the stewardship to purchase Sterling College and appointed a trustee in the early 1900's. I need to research Sterling College which would have been situated in Greenville, South Carolina.
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