True Black Power Is Black Spirituality

Black Spirituality Was Demonized Because It Was Dangerous

They feared our rituals.
Feared our songs.
Feared our dreams.
Feared our gods.

So they called it evil.
Vodou. Winti. Obeah. Hoodoo. Santería.
Not because it was dark — but because it was untamed.
Because it didn’t need a false religion to save us.
Because it set us free from the inside out.

They feared that our magic could not be colonized.
That our prayers didn’t beg — they commanded.
That our drums weren’t noise — they were technology.
Sacred codes. Direct calls to the divine.

And when the world speaks of slavery, it speaks of wounds, shackles, ships, and whips.
But rarely does it speak of what could not be whipped away:
Spirit. Will. Fire. Memory.
The unseen weapons of the Black soul.

Because while the chains rusted, something eternal was rising.
And no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t own it, kill it, or convert it.
That’s why slavery didn’t end from compassion.
It ended from fear.

Fear of the gods that wouldn’t die.
Fear of the women who whispered spells in the night.
Fear of uprisings born not just of pain — but of prophecy.
Fear of warriors who walked with ancestors at their backs.

Take Haiti.

1791. In the forest of Bwa Kayiman.
A Vodou ceremony sparks the most legendary rebellion the world has ever seen.
Blood was offered. Spirits were summoned. The enslaved rose like flame.
And they didn’t stop until they were free.

That wasn’t luck. That was spiritual warfare.

They called on Ogou, the loa of iron and war.
Ezili Dantò, fierce mother and protector.
Papa Legba, gatekeeper between worlds.
They didn’t just fight with weapons — they fought with possession, prophecy, and pact.

And the French empire?
They were overthrown. Not out of mercy. But because they were outnumbered — not by soldiers, but by spirit.

Look at Harriet Tubman.

She didn’t lead people to freedom with maps.
She led with visions. With divine instruction.
She saw the route in her dreams.
She moved in silence. She trusted the whispers.
She was more than a conductor — she was a seer. A spiritual warrior. A living altar.

Or the Black Panthers.
Yes, they carried weapons. But they also carried strategy, rituals, discipline.
They fed children. Taught astrology. Used sacred symbols.
They understood that you don’t just fight systems — you build sovereign ones.
They were warriors guided by spirit, legacy, and soul strategy.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

Two different voices, same deeper current.
Malcolm reconnected us with divine identity and ancestral truth.
Martin preached love — but it was radical love, weaponized by faith.
They both prophesied. Both paid with their lives.
Both awakened something too powerful to contain.

Even in Suriname, we had Bonnie.
In Curaçao, Tula.
Brothers who rose up not only out of anger, but out of memory.
They remembered who they were.
They remembered the spirits of their land.
They remembered freedom — not as a dream, but as a birthright.

And that’s what was truly dangerous.

The Black soul that refuses to forget.
The Black woman who prays in a language older than empire.
The Black child who dances to rhythms that call the ancestors home.
The Black man who dreams revolution with his whole body.

That’s why our spirituality was demonized.
Because it’s the only thing that kept us alive.
Because it could not be broken.
Because it reminded us that even if the body is chained, the soul is not.

And now, as we approach Keti Koti, the Day of Broken Chains,
we must not only remember our pain.
We must remember our power.

Because slavery didn’t stop from morality.
It stopped because they knew we would rise.
Because our spirits would not stay silent.
Because we would speak in tongues, light candles, call names, and return to ourselves.

So this year, let Keti Koti be more than a memorial.
Let it be a summoning.

Call back the warrior spirits.
Feed the ancestors.
Pour libation on the soil.
Drum. Pray. Rise.
Not as victims, but as keepers of the code.

Because we were never meant to survive —
and yet we did.
And not just survive.
We remembered.
We conjured.
We reclaimed.

And now,
we return.

Love you,

Mara Michels