Reflections: We Rest on Their Shoulders

My family has been by my side from the beginning– from the earliest days of our childhood when my father first started telling us the amazing things about Africa, our original home, and Africa’s importance to the world, the place of man and womankind’s – humanity’s origination. He told us of the great empires of Africa, and their contributions to science, mathematics, architecture, medicine, and so much more.

He and my mother told us that we had no excuse for failure because our ancestors had done the things that we dream of; they had done all this before, and we rest on their shoulders. We were educated first by our parents “that we can accomplish anything if we put in the hard work and time into the pursuit.”

My sister Myrna became invaluable to the museum creation in that she helped in creating our educational program to put voice to the artifacts. She is an educational professional, a former Principal in the NYC public school system, and a linguistic speech specialist. She also created the logo for the museum.

My brother, Milton, conducts the technical art educational programming for school children and seniors. He is a trained commercial artist and musician.

We are all driven in “knowing thyself,” loving and caring for our neighbors and family, sharing our knowledge, and raising, in all ways possible, our underprivileged people, children, and all ethnicities in educational sharing for mutual understanding and respect, which is part of the African values system with the realization that we are all connected from our common origination from Africa. They have stuck by me in trying to make the world a better place and making our children great citizens through the museum’s collection. I must add that Edith, my soulmate is by my side always and seems to know just when to pitch in at any level.

-Eric Edwards, Curator, Cultural Museum of African Arts, The Eric Edwards Collection