The wait is over. I’m so pleased to be able to announce for the AYA Black Love Day committee the Long Love Honorees for 2016. Long Love .. . Long Love is seasoned love. Long love is made new over and over again. As each person grows, the love grows. As each one in the couple discovers deeper parts of themselves, the love deepens. As the challenges of life make us discover or develop anew, the love becomes renewed.
Time and the trials and tribulations of life make LONG LOVE sweet love.
And the honorees are: Baba Jihad and Mama Sakinah Abdullah. Revolutionaries and Muslims since high school, their love has been a journey and a blessing to our communities - Atlanta, GA, Miami Florida, Syracuse, NY and points in between. They are still active. But you want to know about their love, right?
How long? Baba Jihad says ... "I say her wearing this red dress. “She was in the 6th grade! She captured my heart; then, disappeared from site." He looked for her, asked everybody, even knocked on doors. It was no use; she was gone. Gone from site, but not from his heart. It took some time, but he finally found the one who held his heart. Now, in the 8th grade she says: “He just kept pestering me; then somehow he got my phone number. After those conversations, my resistance melted into our love.”
Of course everyone has a Junior High school love. Yes, I know they call it middle school now, but we’re talking about back when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's Message to the Black Man was touching
Jihad: “Her parents (who were very strict) didn’t want me to date her while I was openly involved in the Black liberation movement. When I started to come over, I made it my business to get to know and earn the respect of her father. If he said, “Let’s go to the track,”we went to the track." I wasn’t much into watching sports until he wanted to watch sports. Sakinah likewise became his mother’s 6th daughter. Our families were joined even before we were married."
It’s a good thing too. "When the police were searching for me because of my alleged involvement in what they deemed a riot or rebellion, I couldn’t go home because I knew they’d be watching it. I went to Sakinah's until I could get transport out of town."
He couldn’t have gone further south. He had to lay low in Miami for 14 months. This and some unexpected discoveries put the first real strain on their young love. Jahid: "I had my boys keep an eye out on here." “Yes", says Sakinah, "If anybody tried to talk to me, there they were - all up in it." At about the llth month mark, said Jihad: I got my 'Dear, John' letter.”
Obviously, they got over that hurdle, but it wasnt’ easy. The way he did it, and the way they did it, spawned a new love - the one we’re celebrating next week.
Join them to hear the rest of the story. I was surprised, elated, and learned a move or two from both of them. You will too. Lone love is a growing love, a renewing love, a replenishing love.
Come celebrate Baba Jihad, and Mama Sakinah’s Long Love that has nurtured our liberation movement, our black business movement, our Spiritual movements.
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