For My Yoke Is Easy, and My Burden Is Light (Matthew 11:30)

posted by Hope on January, 19th, 2011

• Sharebar

When I reflect on the enormous shadow which my father left when he passed away ten years ago, I realize that it would have been very easy to find a corner within that shadow and just rest there. Undetected and undisturbed.

Even after ten years, I am surprised by my family’s almost organic leaning towards activism. Rather than choosing to find a corner and rest, I, along with my sister and my brother, each of us chose, or were perhaps assigned, a corner of our father’s legacy to uphold and defend. And the weight of each corner is formidable. It is a burden that few will ever understand.

And yet, as my Chairman Andrew Young reminds me, as his parents reminded him, it is an easy burden… I would add that it is an easy burden only when you look at it from a certain angle in a certain light… but I digress…

I cannot count the amount of times I have been told of the breadth and width of my inheritance; but unlike a cash inheritance, a legacy cannot be invested conservatively and without risk — a little here and a little there - to retain the full value of the principle. A legacy is either wasted — spent with little or no caution — or it is compounded, upsized, augmented, and diversified. For the spectators and the critics of the legatee, there is no middle ground. You have either grown your legacy, or squandered it.

My pride over my heritage is obvious to all who know me. My confidence in the future of the Leon H. Sullivan Summit and the Leon H. Sullivan legacy is undisputed, but my confidence is also tested quite a bit — a consequence of my birthright that reminds me just how valuable it is. The purpose of a test is to check your progress. A necessary component of education.

My father passed away ten years ago, five months prior to the fateful morning of 9/11. He passed away before Dr. Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State, before Coretta Scott-King passed away; before Hurricane Katrina claimed 1,700 lives on the Gulf Coast, before a 7.0 magnitude hurricane with 59 aftershocks claimed thousands of lives in Haiti, and before the most powerful country in the world elected an African American to be our President of the United States of America, President Barack Obama.

Ten years later, I recognize the brevity of the time that has passed but I also stand in awe of the invincible march of history that continues with or without us.

My father convened five Summits during his lifetime. We are in the process of planning our 4 since he passed away, our 9th Summit of African leaders and world leaders from across the world, a Summit called the Leon H. Sullivan Summit. I am honored to have watched his unorthodox management style, his brilliance and raw emotion that powered every vision he articulated and every move he made — just like his favorite game: chess. I can still vividly remember those times as I watched my father wrestle with decisions of great enormity — decisions that affected history, actually, taking place in the very room where we sat. I remember wishing I could lift the burden from his heart and his back. And then, inevitably at some later time, I would watch him radiant with pride and joy when those difficult and heart-wrenching decisions that were taken only after consultation with his God and his Grace — reaped the benefits of his Midas Touch. It was golden. The intended consequence prevailed.

As I recall those moments, I now recognize that this burden, while enormous, is also easy.

The path to promise is uncharted and untested, but the promise that brought us this far will also bring us through the wilderness to the open air.

Today, the intense planning for the 9th Summit is upon us at the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation. We all can feel the tailwind of a magical legacy and at times we feel the pressure of a powerful and unrelenting headwind. Nevertheless, like our signature chartered airplanes, we climb above the clouds, push through unexpected storm patterns, change flight patterns when we must to avoid uncertain consequences, buckle down amid turbulence, quiet frightened and unruly passengers, and always, always maintain our altitude and land on schedule, at our intended destination,safe and sound.

That is a testament to our pilot — and our legacy.

An easy burden, indeed.