The Gospel According to a Black Woman

By Ebony Adedayo

What is your truth? When we have been living our lives according to other people’s expectations and someone else’s narrative, this question requires much self-care, self-examination, and love in order to determine what it is, and then live it. For Black women, who have been held to certain stereotypes and other people’s beliefs, this question rings loud and strong. In The Gospel According to a Black Woman, Ebony Adedayo addresses this issue head on.

In her words, “What happens if we, as Black women, insisted that truth is not only found in sacred texts like the Bible, but is also found in us, within the depths of our experience? What happens if we collectively insisted that our lives, our bodies, are also sacred texts that need to be studied and taken seriously?” That being said, fasten your seat belts as this dark-skinned Black woman, through journaling and poetry, takes us on her journey of truth through the following themes:

               In the Beginning

               Trials and Tribulations

               Lipstick on a Pig

               Holding Up the World (Even As the World Kills Us)

               Remembering What We Learned to Forget

               A Way Out of No Way

               What I Am Not Going to Do

               Black Joy

I loved the way that each theme is illustrated by her poetry and her journals, thus adding extra impact to her expression of truth. I also loved her note that when someone’s truth is used as a tool of oppression and maligning, that “truth” is actually a farce. Also of note is her take on her final story, Forgetting Sodom.

She reminds us that this is a journey and not a destination, and through her work she doesn’t shy away from the historical and contemporary issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, abuse, identity, #45, COVID, culture, the workplace agenda/politics, religion and spirituality. She further reminds us that it is not a Black woman’s responsibility to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to social justice.

Adedayo is the founder and creator of the Kinky Curly Theological Collective, a space centering African-born and African American women. She is also a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota in Curriculum and Instruction, minoring in Culture and Teaching and African American and African Studies.

After reading her work, I was reminded of this quote by Luvvie Ajayi: “Until the lion shares his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sister Ebony, for uplifting and validating the truth of Black women.