Upon my birth, the State of Alabama identified me as "colored." In my lifetime, our label has moved from "colored" to "Negro" to "Black" to "African-American." These identifiers were initially used to ensure we would be reminded constantly that in the eyes of the law we were neither fully human nor full citizens. As a child, I remember the sense of pride in proclaiming "Black Power" and "I'm Black and I'm proud" as statements of resistance to the common narrative even if only at home with our parents. The Black Lives Matter movement is a proclamation of another truth long denied as we demand the undoing of white supremacy. My elders affirmed our inherent God-given dignity as they shared their lived experiences of blatant oppression as descendants of enslaved Africans. As a child, the kidnapping and enslavement of my ancestors seemed parts of the distant past as did the Emancipation Proclamation. Most of my g...