If our deepest hope, our most sacred desire, our greatest wish more than life itself, were a giant force of gravity pulling us toward some uncertain point in the future, then we might resemble the figures in Charles Bibbs’ “Glory Bound,” a drawing that in three figures captures the epic adventure of Black migration and universal human yearning.
The two men and one woman, the central images rendered in Bibbs’ intricate pen strokes and muted water-colors, manage at once to portray a bustling crowd and a tacit mountain. The figures hurry and yet, weighed by heavy bottoms, seem solidly rooted in a common space. They lean deep into each other. The woman anxiously pushes forward, but no one is in danger of falling.
Do they move together or do they just happen to move in the same direction?
Are they a family of three or the family of man? It would be simplistic to imagine a story of Black migration in which the sojourners merely stepped onto a road leading north and, putting one foot firmly in front of the other, headed toward glory, guaranteed to reach the Promised Land.
The watery pastel colors and spare imagery of “Glory Bound” suggest an earnest reality. Black exodus from the South was and is a testament of faith, a persistent hope of Black America to move forward, even when the promise of a better life only amounts to a blush of hope before them.
The economic, social and political rewards of Black migration affirm faith in a God who makes “a way out of no way.” To tell the story, whether in words or art, is a witness and responsibility.
Like all great art, “Glory Bound” transcends historical occasion, in this case Black migration, and inspires any person or people who deeply long for a destiny beyond their present circumstance.
"From what we get we can make a living; from what we live we can make a life." -- Arthur Ashe
Susan Monroe is editor of Devotion. Contact her at getsignature@aol.com.
Susan Monroe
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