The History They Stripped Away

The History They Stripped Away

I learned about the Moors late. Too late.

US history stripped away the achievements of the Moors. Washed them right out of the textbooks. You could go K-12 and never know that Black and Arab Muslims ruled parts of Spain for 700 years. That they brought algebra, medicine, libraries, streetlights, and running water while Europe was still throwing sewage in the street.

They didn’t want us to know. Because if you knew the Moors were scholars and kings and architects, you couldn’t sell the lie that we were only ever slaves.

Then there was the white Jesus.

Whites depicted Jesus as white. Blue eyes. Blond hair. Like some surfer from California. And we hung that picture in our churches. In our homes. Right above the TV. We prayed to a man who looked like the same people who told us to sit at the back of the bus.

So then Blacks depicted Jesus as Black. Dreadlocks. Dark skin. Because if they could make Him in their image, we could make Him in ours.

But the truth is: He had Middle Eastern features. He wasn’t from Oslo and He wasn’t from Oakland. He was from Nazareth. Brown skin. Wooly hair maybe. Hooked nose maybe. A man who would’ve been “randomly selected” at the airport today.

And yet Black people claim Africa when Jesus was from the Middle East. We reach for Egypt like it’s the whole continent, like it erases the rest. We want a piece of the story so bad we’ll redraw the map. I get it. When your history gets stolen, you start grabbing at whatever looks like you.

Years ago when I was running the Global Teen Club, we brought in two historians. One white, one Black. Same topic. Same dates.

The accounts were so different they might as well have been talking about two different planets.

The white historian talked about “explorers” and “settlers.” The Black historian talked about “invaders” and “stolen land.” The white historian called it “civilization.” The Black historian called it “genocide with a hymn.”

That day wrecked me. Because I knew which version I got in school. And I knew which version was missing.

The Moors were missing. The real Jesus was missing. The Africa that wasn’t just pyramids and slavery was missing. The truth about who built this country, who bled for it, who was erased from it — missing.

So now I teach myself. I read. I question. Please don’t trust a single picture of Jesus. Don’t trust a single textbook. Don’t trust a history that starts in 1776 like nothing existed before a white man wrote it down.

God is bigger than a European painting. Bigger than a Kente cloth poster. Bigger than America.

And the truth doesn’t need a filter. It just needs to be told.

Even if it makes people uncomfortable.

Especially if it makes people uncomfortable.

Because healing doesn’t start with a lie.

And neither does freedom.

*cathryn m harris