In the Beginning, the World Was Black:

A Reflection on Origin and Identity

When I saw those words—“In the beginning, the world was Black”—something in me paused. It wasn’t just the beauty of the image, though that alone could stop time. It was the truth in it. The bold, quiet truth that’s lived in my bones for generations. It felt like an echo from my ancestors whispering, “Remember who you are.”

There’s a reason darkness makes people uncomfortable. There’s a reason people associate Blackness with the unknown, the feared, the forgotten. But I’ve come to see it differently. Blackness, to me, is not the absence of light—it’s the origin of it.

Before there were cities or languages or borders… there was Black. Before “history” began recording names and wars and conquests, there was rhythm. There was life. There was creation flowing from the depths of something so sacred it could only be divine. And from that divine place, people like me were formed.

Sometimes I forget that.

Sometimes I let the world convince me that my story started with struggle, not stardust. That my history began with chains, not cosmic brilliance.

But I’m learning—relearning, really—that my roots run deeper than trauma.

They stretch back to the stars. To the soil. To the silence that held power before language gave it shape.

So when I walk, I try to walk like I remember.

I carry myself like I come from something eternal. Because I do.

I come from Black women who were galaxies in motion.

From men who dreamed under skies no one else dared to name.

From a people who didn’t just survive—they defined time before it had a clock.

In the beginning, the world was Black.

And I am the continuation of that beginning.

Not lost. Not late. But right on time.

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