"COMBAHEE RIVER RAID"

 COMBAHEE RIVER RAID”

Last week during our time at Tybee Island, we took time to visit the historical marker at the Combahee River, riding over the Harriet Tubman Memorial Bridge, to cross the River.  I posted photos and a short narrative about Harriet Tubman’s leading Union soldiers to make a raid on Confederate rice plantations and to free as many enslaved people as possible.  After that posting, several people thanked me for it and also expressed surprise about this raid.  In the raid, Tubman actually freed more enslaved people than she had in all her trips down South during the 1850’s.

In light of that surprise, I want to go into a bit more detail and encourage you to read more about it on your own.  It is one of the many sagas of Tubman’s life, a life filled with courage, risk, danger, and liberation.  The best version of the River Raid is Edda L. Fields-Black’s “Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War.”  It won the Pulitzer Prize last year.

After a decade of leading people to freedom in the decade of the 1850’s, Tubman signed up to work for the Union after the Civil War began.  She worked as a spy, scout, nurse, and cook, and then she was assigned to Port Royal, South Carolina in 1862 to work with people who had formerly been enslaved.  Port Royal was part of the Beaufort, South Carolina area, and it had been captured by Union troops in 1861.  The white planters had fled, leaving behind 10,000 newly freed people.  Tubman was assigned to work with them and begin to help them acclimate to life as free people.  All of this work was called the Port Royal Experiment, in which the Union wanted to see how easily formerly enslaved people could transfer into freedom.

The Union Army leaders quickly saw Tubman’s extraordinary abilities, even though she was illiterate.  They asked her if she would be willing to continue her role as a spy in enemy territory.  She agreed to do it, and she left the relative safe territory of Port Royal and went to islands and even inland to make contact with people still held in slavery, as well as to pick up information on the movements of the Confederate army.  Though she had some trouble understanding the language of the Gullah based people held in slavery there, her innate intelligence and skills soon helped her relate to those still held in slavery.

During this time, she came up with a plan that had several purposes:  a guerilla raid on the mainland to free enslaved people and to destroy the crops of the white planters, to give the Black Union soldiers experience in facing off with the Confederate army, and to be used as a weapon of terror for the Confederacy:  the Black Union soldiers were invading white territory and freeing enslaved people, while destroying crops and plantations.  The Union commanders were skeptical at first, but Tubman and Union colonel James Montgomery, who was trained in guerilla warfare, convinced the leaders to try it.  Montgomery would lead the 300 Black troops, while Tubman would provide the intelligence and guide the boats up the Combahee River.  Tubman then spent time as a spy in the area around the river, alerting the enslaved people that a possible escape was on the way – they should be ready to go on a moment’s notice.  The notice that it was time to go:  the steam whistles of the Union boats blowing several times.

On June 2, 1863, three Union boats went up the Combahee River and landed near the place where the ferry crossed the river.  The steam whistles blew, and in short order, enslaved people poured out of the woods, acting like the Hebrews leaving quickly from Egypt.  Tubman’s friend and first biographer Sarah Bradford recorded Tubman’s narrative in 1869, and here is part of it:

“I nebber see such a sight. We laughed, an' laughed, an' laughed. Here you'd see a woman wid a pail on her head, rice a smokin' in it jus' as she'd taken it from de fire, young one hangin' on behind, one han' roun' her forehead to hold on, t'other han' diggin' into de rice-pot, eatin' wid all its might; hold of her dress two or three more; down her back a bag with a pig in it. One woman brought two pigs, a white one an' a black one; we took 'em all on board; named de white pig named Beauregard and the black pig named Jeff Davis.  Sometimes de women would come wid twins hangin' roun' der necks; 'appears like I never see so many twins in my life; bags on der shoulders, baskets on der heads, and young ones taggin' behin', all loaded; pigs squealin', chickens screamin', young ones squallin'.”  Tubman later told another interviewer that it reminded her of the story of the children of Israel fleeing Egypt.

Tubman and the Union army freed at least 735 people that day – it was chaotic and dangerous and stunning.  Tubman had led a raid that stabbed at the heart of the Confederacy – freeing their enslaved people and destroying the rice plantations (which the Africans had taught the white people to grow).  Less than a month later, the Union Army drove the Confederates back at Gettysburg, and Grant captured Vicksburg (and my hometown of Helena), giving the Union control of most of the Mississippi River.  Tubman also put the idea of guerilla warfare into the minds of the Union generals.  Two years later General Sherman would employ much of the same tactics as he led the March to the Sea in Georgia.

Tubman was extraordinary in all that she did, and we should honor her and give thanks for her magnificent witness.  Yet, we dishonor her if we lift her so high that we lose sight of her ordinary beginnings as an illiterate, enslaved woman on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  She had cunning and courage for sure, but her story reminds us that we can do some of that too.  In these days of the sewage of the Trumpster flowing over the land, we will need to find ways to tap into that cunning and courage of Harriet Tubman.  May she be our North Star in these troubled days

"MORE HOPEFUL WORK"

 “MORE HOPEFUL WORK”

In these days when there are so many terrible and dispiriting events around us, I want to focus this week on some great work in a terrible place.  One of the unintended consequences of the Voting Rights Act and the end of neo-slavery was the mass incarceration that followed, including the huge uptick in the arrest, incarceration and conviction of Black people, especially Black men.  If we could not keep Black men down by preventing them from voting, we decided to keep them down by using the criminal legal system as a way to do it.  In 1965, the USA incarcerated 109 people per 100,000 population.  In 2024, that had increased to an astounding 580 per 100,000 – by far the highest rate in the world.  

When I was doing prison reform work for the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons in the early 1980’s, we operated on the premise that if we could demonstrate how much it cost to keep people incarcerated, then perhaps some of the conservative people who defended the incarceration system so strongly would change their minds and join us in seeking reform.  What we learned in that work, however, was that the white supremacy that undergirded the incarceration system was so deep that the cost of incarceration was not relevant to the issue.  That was a hard lesson, but it helped us to understand better how mass incarceration developed.

One of the people whom I met in that work in the 1980’s was John Cole Vodicka, who was then the Louisiana director for the Southern Coalition.  He remains one of the best organizers on incarceration issues whom I have ever met.  He and spouse Dee and Caroline and I became friends in those days, and we have remained friends ever since.  John and Dee have lived in Athens, Georgia, since 2018 to be near their children and grandchildren.  Since he has been in Athens, John and Steve Williams have started a Courtwatch and Bail Fund, in which they and other volunteers attend court in Athens to observe how defendants are treated.  In this work, they have helped their church to found the Oconee Street United Methodist (OSUMC) Bail Initiative, which seeks to help people to get out of jail while awaiting adjudication of their charges.  In his fine occasional blog called “Bearing Witness,” John shared this info about their bail program:  

“Typically, the OSUMC Community Bail Initiative tries to keep an eye out for pretrial prisoners who remain in our jail because they are without any monetary resources. Twenty-seven times now we've posted bonds as low as $1.  The highest bonds we've posted thus far were when I handed over $670 to the ACC sheriff's office to first spring Antonio C. from pretrial captivity in August 2022, then another $670 in January 2024 to get Louis P. out of jail.  In October 26, 2024, we posted $670 on behalf of Latif A., who until his bond was reduced to $500 spent 271 days of pretrial confinement in our jail. Since June 2021, we've gotten 157 men and women out of jail or off probation. We’ve also purchased 11 one-way bus tickets for people we’ve bailed out so they can leave Athens and return to family or friends elsewhere. Far more than half of those we’ve bailed out were homeless.  Many were essentially living hand-to-mouth, some with mental health diagnoses, others hounded by alcohol and/or drug-related issues.  Most were locked up after allegedly committing misdemeanor nuisance crimes or drug-related felony offenses.  As a result of their marginalization in our community, and their poverty, these women and men spent a combined 5,437 days in our jail before their cash bonds were posted or bus tickets purchased.”  

    John and his colleagues do such great work that the state of Georgia passed a law in 2024 that severely limited the ability of non-profit organizations to bail people out of jail.  SB 63 was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in May 2024, and the law took effect on July 1, 2024.  Among other things, SB 63 prohibited charitable organizations—including faith communities—from posting bonds for more than three persons per year.   John and Steve joined forces with Barred Business to sue in federal court to stop the law from being enforced in Georgia. They were able to obtain a preliminary injunction on July 12, 2024 from U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert.  The state appealed that decision to the Eleventh Circuit, and last week, a three-judge panel heard the case.  They should decide the case in the next few months, and if there is any justice at all, the Eleventh Circuit will strike down this unconstitutional law.

    So, I give thanks for John and Steve and their colleagues who do such fine and fundamental work.  If you would like to know more, contact John at johncvodicka@gmail.com. And, if you’d like to make a contribution towards their work, send it to John at 92 Brooklyn Rd., Athens, GA 30306, made out to “OSUMC Bail Fund.”  You’ll be glad that you did.  

"IS NEO-SLAVERY DEAD?"

 “IS NEO-SLAVERY DEAD?”

Last week I wrote about the Voting Rights Bill of 1965 finally bringing an end to neo-slavery, which had replaced slavery after 1880.  And, for 40 years, that end of neo-slavery looked to be the holding.  The Voting Rights Act (VRA) had strong support on both sides of the political aisle.  The “preclearance” clause of the VRA had to be renewed every five years, just in case the racism of the white South had suddenly disappeared.  It was renewed every 5 years, and indeed, in 2006 under a Republican-led Congress with Republican President George W. Bush, the VRA was extended for 25 years.  It looked good for the advancement of voting rights for all citizens.

In 2005, however, President George W. Bush appointed John Roberts to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing the retiring William Rehnquist.  One of Roberts’ specific goals was to strike down the VRA, because he felt that it was unconstitutional, especially the “preclearance” clause of  VRA.  This goal of Roberts’ came despite the fact that SCOTUS had ruled in favor of the VRA.  I’m grateful to my friend and colleague Joe Ingle for pointing out Jamelle Bouie’s excellent column on Roberts and his history with VRA in the August 6 New York Times.  I won’t repeat that column here, but it was very helpful background on this issue.  If you haven’t read it, check it out.  If you can’t find it and want access, let me know, and I’ll get it to you.

The election of Barack Obama as President in 2008 scared the clothes off of many white people in the country.  As valuable and powerful as it was to many of us, to many people classified as “white,” it was an abomination.  Remember Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the time saying that the main goal of Republicans  was to deny Barack Obama a second term as President?  That was not just a political statement.  It also welled up from that deep reservoir of white supremacy that courses through American history.  Then, in 2010, the Tea Party emerged in opposition to Obama and racial equity, and by the middle of the decade, it had morphed into MAGA, with Donald Trump as its standard bearer.  

In 2012, the perfect case for Roberts came along.  Shelby County, Alabama (not far from Birmingham), sued in federal court to strike the preclearance clause of the VRA, indicating that with the election of a Black president, that clause was no longer needed.  The federal judge who heard the case upheld the VRA, as did the federal appellate court, but then Shelby County appealed to SCOTUS.  In 2012, SCOTUS agreed to hear the case.  Roberts and his buddies on the court (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Anthony Kennedy) argued against the 2006 action of Congress to renew the VRA for 25 years.  They railed against the “preclearance” clause, especially because it was aimed only at particular states that had demonstrated racial bias in the past in their suppression of voting rights.  To no one’s surprise but to the chagrin of many of us, SCOTUS overturned the preclearance clause of VRA but left the rest of the VRA intact.  

That decision has caused many problems for voting rights in the country.  The current shenanigans of the Texas legislature would be virtually impossible with the “preclearance” clause still intact.  All of the voter purges in Georgia and other states would not be possible.  The strict laws on who can vote when and even on voter IDs would not be possible.

So, let’s be clear here – the purpose of MAGA and SCOTUS at this point is to get back as closely as possible to the pre-1965 days, when white supremacy had enough strength to make neo-slavery viable again.  As Bouie points out in his NYT column, SCOTUS has agreed to take another case for its next term:  Louisiana v. Callais, in which redistricting most Black voters into just one district (out of 6 districts) is in dispute.  Since SCOTUS ruled in 2019 that gerrymandering and redistricting is a legitimate political process, it seems clear that another pillar of the VRA will likely be struck down.  If that happens, the VRA is dead, and neo-slavery may be on the way back.  

How can we prevent this?  Well, the answer is both simple and complex:  register to vote, get others registered to vote, and then VOTE while we still can.  In the 2024 Presidential election won by Donald Trump over Kamala Harris, TEN MILLION people who voted Democratic in the 2020 election did not vote.  Two million of those may have voted for Trump in 2024, but there were eight million other voters who stayed home.  That staying home clearly cost Harris the Presidency and gave us the disaster that is the Trumpster.  If we do that again in 2026, democracy is lost and neo-slavery is back.  So, you know the answer.

"THE END OF NEO-SLAVERY"

 “THE END OF NEO-SLAVERY”

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the end of neo-slavery in the United States.  On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act, which effectively ended neo-slavery in the USA.  This law ratified the right to vote expressed in the 14th and 15th amendments, and it provided for federal oversight of all elections, and required federal preclearance for all changes in voting rights laws, especially in the South.  The political gymnastics being performed currently in the Texas legislature gerrymandering would have been greatly slowed down by the original wording of the Voting Rights Act, but some of its provisions were struck down by the current SCOTUS in 2012 and 2021 (more on that next week).

And, yes, the most litigated amendment to the Constitution is the 14th Amendment, which basically does four things:  guarantees citizenship to anyone born or naturalized in the US (Trump is litigating that now); forbids states from interfering with the citizenship rights guaranteed by the Constitution; provides for due process under the law; and provides for equal protection of all citizens under the law.  With all of this work accomplished in the 14th Amendment, it is easy to see why it is the most litigated amendment of all in the Constitution. In one of those July blessings that I mentioned last week, it was ratified on July 9, 1868.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 grew out of the 14th Amendment, and it sought to protect the voting rights of all citizens.  In that sense, it ended neo-slavery in the USA, especially in the South.  I say “neo-slavery” because that it is a much more accurate description of life in the South from 1875-1965 than “Jim Crow.”  The term “Jim Crow” mitigates the horror that Black people experienced growing up in the white-dominated South, and “neo-slavery” should replace it in the history books as a description of race history in that period. To use the term “Jim Crow” as a description of this period is to diminish the reality of the horrible repression and oppression of those years.

     I learned this term from Doug Blackmon’s fine book “Slavery by Another Name,” (which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009), in which he argues that neo-slavery ended in 1946 at the end of World War II.  I remember Doug coming to Oakhurst to talk with our Supper Club about his book, and he made a very powerful presentation about his thesis that the years 1875-1945 were just “slavery by another name,” hence the title of his book. Although I learned a lot from his book, I do have one disagreement with his timetable on “neo-slavery.” From my experience growing up in the neo-slavery South from 1946-1964, the power of neo-slavery was still so strong in those years that “neo-slavery” should remain as the description for the years up to 1965, not 1946.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had a profound effect on life in the South, as evidenced by the rapid increase of Black people elected to office.  It had a long and difficult history, and its importance was shown in the deep resistance of Southern white Democrats leading up to its passage.  Perhaps only a skilled white Southern politician like President Lyndon Johnson could get it passed, and even he was reluctant to bring it to the floor of the Senate, where it originated.  The civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery changed the directory of that arc bending towards justice.  The march on March 7, 1965, that ended in police violence at the Edmund Pettus Bridge exploded into the national consciousness (see Ava Duvernay’s movie “Selma” for more background on this).  A second march on March 21 drew great participation, and President Johnson scheduled it for a vote in the Senate, where his arm-twisting overcame a filibuster. There is a great photo of Johnson corralling his longtime friend Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, seeking to get his vote for the bill. Johnson was not successful with Russell, but he was successful with enough Senators that the bill passed and was sent to the House, where it passed overwhelmingly.  As Johnson noted, his embrace of the Voting Rights Act meant one other great change in the South – a switch of Southern white voters moving from the Democratic party to the Republican party.

The Voting Rights Act was one of the signal achievements of the Civil Rights movement and of American history.  Its effect was so deep and powerful that the resistance has been great since its passage, and indeed, SCOTUS has significantly weakened it over the last decade, seeking to allow white people to limit voting rights by people of color as severely as possible.  The Trumpster movement is built on this white resistance to the idea that “all people are created equal,” and his push to get Texas to gerrymander even further before the 2026 midterm elections is an indication that he wants to hold the white majority in the House in order to further return us to a time of white supremacy and maybe even neo-slavery.  As the history on the Voting Rights Act shows us, this repressive and oppressive stream runs deeply in us and through us.  We’ll look more closely at this history and its present status next week, but in the meantime, please re-train yourself to talk about “neo-slavery” rather than “Jim Crow.” And, take it out into the streets.

"THE STRUGGLE OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE"

 “THE STRUGGLE OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE”

As July comes to an end, it is emblematic of the struggle that is at the heart of the American experience.  The month begins with the July 4th celebrations, with the idea of independence lifted up.  But in the second paragraph is the emphasis on equality: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people {men} are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

Most of American history is the story of the struggle over this idea of  equality:  do we really mean “all people,” or just white men?  Two lynchings in my adopted home state of Georgia in 1946 (my birth year) remind all of us of this continuing struggle over the idea of equality.  I’m grateful to the Equal Justice Institute in Alabama for their daily reminders of this kind of history.

          On July 18, 1946, a white mob shot a 37-year-old Black veteran named Maceo Snipes at his home in Taylor County in southwest Georgia in Butler. A day earlier, Mr. Snipes had exercised his constitutional right to vote in the Georgia Democratic Primary, becoming the only Black man to vote in the election in Taylor County. For this he was targeted and lynched.  Mr. Snipes had served in the U.S. Army for two and a half years during World War II and, after receiving an honorable discharge, had returned home to Taylor County, Georgia, to work as a sharecropper with his mother. He had received threats from the Ku Klux Klan in the days leading up to the election, but he still bravely went to vote in the gubernatorial primary on July 17, 1946.

        White gubernatorial candidate Eugene Talmadge had campaigned on a promise to restore white primaries in the state. A staunch white supremacist, Mr. Talmadge had been previously elected governor of Georgia on three occasions with a segregationist platform and the open support of white terrorism groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. “The South loves the Negro in his place,” Mr. Talmadge had said in a 1942 campaign speech, “but his place is at the back door.”

        When the primary concluded, Mr. Talmadge had won the party’s nomination and received the most support in rural areas. When Taylor County votes were tallied, Mr. Talmadge had won all but one vote—and white community members believed that Mr. Snipes, known to be the only Black voter in the county, had cast that lone vote of opposition.  A day after the primary, a mob of white men, including a white veteran named Edward Williamson, arrived at Mr. Snipes’s grandfather’s house in a pickup truck and called out Mr. Snipes’s, who got up from the table where he was eating dinner with his mother and went outside to see who was there, only to be shot multiple times at his own front door. The truck of men then drove away. Two days later, on July 20, 1946, Mr. Snipes died.

     When local authorities investigated Mr. Snipes’s shooting, Edward Williamson admitted to killing him but claimed Mr. Snipes had pulled a knife on him when he went to the Snipes home to collect a debt. The coroner's jury ultimately ruled that the shooting had been in “self-defense,” and no one was ever held accountable for Mr. Snipes’s death.  I am grateful to my longtime friend John Cole Vodicka for his hard work in helping to revisit this case and helping to develop a memorial for Maceo Snipes.

A week later - after Maceo Snipes was shot down - on July 25, 1946, 100 miles northeast (near Athens), a white mob lynched two Black couples near Moore’s Ford Bridge in Walton County. The couples killed were George W. and Mae Murray Dorsey and Dorothy and Roger Malcolm. Mrs. Malcolm was seven months pregnant. Mr. Dorsey, a World War II veteran who had served in the Pacific for five years, had been home for only nine months.

     On July 11, Roger Malcom was arrested after allegedly stabbing a white farmer named Barnette Hester during a fight. Two weeks later, J. Loy Harrison, the white landowner for whom the Malcoms and the Dorseys sharecropped, drove Mrs. Malcom and the Dorseys to the jail to post a $600 bond. On their way back to the farm, the car was stopped by a mob of 30 armed, unmasked white men who seized Mr. Malcom and Mr. Dorsey and tied them to a large oak tree. Mrs. Malcom recognized members of the mob, and when she called on them by name to spare her husband, the mob seized her and Mrs. Dorsey. Mr. Harrison watched as the white men shot all four people 60 times at close range. He later claimed he could not identify any members of the mob.  The Moore’s Ford Bridge lynchings drew national attention, leading President Harry Truman to order a federal investigation and offer $12,500 for information leading to a conviction. A grand jury returned no indictments, and the perpetrators have never held accountable. 

These two stories remind us of the continuing struggle in American history over the idea of equality for all people.  These two lynchings in Georgia almost 80 years ago have never been legally solved – their intent was to intimidate Black people and to make them get back into their place “at the back door.” We are grateful to all those people who have fought and suffered and been witnesses to the truth of the July 4th ideal that all people are created equal, and to bring all people to the front door.  We are, of course, now engaged in another struggle with white supremacy as perpetrated by the Trump administration, and it is up to all of us who believe in the idea of equality to speak up and act out.  Next week, we’ll look at the anniversary of one of the constitutional amendments that is at the heart of this struggle.  It is the most litigated amendment in American history – if you know which amendment it is, let me know.

 

"YOUNG JOHN LEWIS"

 “YOUNG JOHN LEWIS”  

Last week marked the 5th anniversary of the death of John Lewis, and this is a time when we need his witness so much.  Caroline and I (and Al and Janet Solomon and Jennifer Kimball) saw the world premiere of the play “Young John Lewis” one and one-half times a couple of weeks ago at The Theatrical Outfit in downtown Atlanta.  I say “one and a half” because the first production was interrupted midway through the second act by what initially sounded like sirens.  The space in the play made us think at first that it was police sirens in the play, coming for the protestors.  Then the actors all left the stage, and again we thought that they were running from the police in the play.  I was struck, however, that the sirens were coming through the theater’s emergency exit system, and I thought to myself that was a confusing way to do it.   Then, there was silence and waiting for all of us.  At about the same time, all of us in the audience decided that the sirens were actually an emergency warning, telling us all to exit.  No one from the theater ever announced anything, which was very odd, but we all exited in an orderly fashion to the street outside.

As we waited there, a theater rep finally came out to tell us that there was a malfunction and that they were working to correct it, so that we could go back into the theater to finish the play.  We waited and waited, and as we waited, Jennifer Kimball (who is an excellent theater stage manager herself), told us: “They’re about to run into the ‘Broadway break rule’ soon, so I don’t know that we will get back into the theater for this performance.”  When we asked her about that, she indicated that since this was a matinee, the performers were guaranteed two hours between performances by union rules.  And sure enough, just a few minutes later, the theater rep came out to indicate that they would not be finishing the matinee performance.  They offered tickets to another performance, and we found one that we all could attend for a second time.

We returned in about a week for a fine performance of the story of the early part of John Lewis’ life, from his humble beginnings on a farm in Alabama, where he preached to the chickens, to his failed attempt to desegregate Troy State, to his entry into Fisk University in Nashville.  One of the driving forces in the play is the character of Emmett Till, who returns often to Lewis’ consciousness, asking for revenge.  Lewis is both scared and angered by the lynching of Till in 1955, and it motivates him to seek justice for all those who are oppressed. Another driving force was his hearing Martin Luther King, Jr., speak on the radio about the possibilities for freedom, justice, and equity, and he began to see a new vision for himself and for the entire nation.  The book and lyrics for the play were written by Psalmayene 24 and the music by Eugene H. Russell IV.

In Nashville he encountered Diane Nash in a class on non-violence taught by the Rev. Dr. James Lawson.  One of the positives of the play was the prominent place that the playwright gave to Diane Nash and Ella Baker, women who made a powerful difference in the Movement.  Indeed, when I was telling our group about Diane Nash’s prowess in the Movement, an influence so strong that Attorney General Robert Kennedy once blurted out “Who in the hell is Diane Nash?”, we all decided that a play needed to be written about her – I hope that someone is working on that now!  Our group decided that I should do it, but that is beyond my pay grade.

    Because of his involvement in the Nashville movement, Lewis began to see disciplined non-violence as a possibility for him and for the entire movement, while at the same time being a passionate fighter for justice.  He endured violence and persecution on his journey, from being beaten up on the Freedom Rides to being beaten up on the March from Selma.  The play took him up until 1968, when the terrible violence of that year almost killed the movement.  Yet, throughout his career, Lewis was a witness for justice, equity, and compassion.  We trust that his kind will be rising again among us, and the final song in the play was both a warning a clarion call to all of us in the audience – it is happening to us as it happened to Lewis – where will we find our place?  How will we find our voice?  How will we use our voice?  

“IDA B. WELLS – JUSTICE, EQUITY, AND LIFE-GIVNG COMMUNITY”

 “IDA B. WELLS – JUSTICE, EQUITY, AND LIFE-GIVNG COMMUNITY”

In 2019, Dr. Catherine Meeks and I co-authored a book about Ida Wells and her influence on our time.  It was entitled “Passionate for Justice:  Ida B. Wells as Prophet For Our Time.”  It won several awards, and I am thinking about it this week as Ida Wells’ 163rd birthday approaches on July 16.  It would be fascinating to hear Wells’ perspective on our time, and Catherine and I tried to speculate on some of that in our book.  If you haven’t read it, find it in your library or buy it somewhere (churchpublishing.org or bookshop.org are my suggestions).  Wells lived through a time similar to ours – when rights for Black people were being scaled back, and white supremacy was on the rise.

Stacey Abrams wrote the Foreword for our book, and in honor of the 163rd birthday of Ida Wells in Holly Springs, Mississippi, I want to share part of Stacey’s Foreword with you:

“The story of America has no finer an example of perseverance, brilliance, and accomplishment than Ida B. Wells.  She valiantly navigated a path of courage and strength and trumpeted the call to justice and equality, setting an example that continues to resonate for me and for millions of others.  Born into slavery in Mississippi, the state where I was raised, she saw the promise of Reconstruction and survived the scourge of white supremacy that followed.  Despite a nation that shunned her humanity and ignored her potential, she understood that her capacity stretched deeper and wider than the definitions of white supremacy and patriarchy.  Like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, she crafted her own narrative, and in so doing became a clarion for our soul’s deepest ambitions – justice.

A journalist, scholar, and activist, she wove together the ability to investigate and animate issues that robbed Blacks of full participation in the citizenship guaranteed by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.  In 1892, when white men lynched her good friend Tom Moss in Memphis, she confronted the racism that sought to legitimize murder by vigilantes.  She decried lynching and, moreover, demanded action from leaders who failed to protect their citizens.  So affecting were her calls to action, her newspaper offices in Memphis were blown up.  Though exiled from the South for more than twenty years, Wells became emboldened rather than silenced by the attack.  The tenacity, ferocity, and dedication to justice of this former slave girl from rural Mississippi challenged the moral core of America, and her strategic vision for change transformed the lives of millions.

From co-founding the NAACP to producing a compendium of investigations that shocked the conscience of leaders, she redefined what leadership could and should look like.  In particular, she furthered the role of women in the fight for justice, and she led without apology in an era when the words of women were not expected to be heard, and where Black women were summarily dismissed.  Ida B. Wells refused to be dismissed.”

If you don’t know much about Wells, go find the book that Catherine and I wrote.  Or look her up online – you will be amazed at her work and wisdom.  And, you will see how much we need her witness now, when we find the stream of white supremacy in our collective history seeking to become a tidal wave that overwhelms all of us.  Stacey closed her Foreword with these words, and I’ll close this way too:

“They honor the life of Ida B. Wells, a life carved out of the hardscrabble ground of slavery, white supremacy and oppression of women, especially Black women.  In Passionate for Justice, we find a compass that points us to the future, where we can each give voice and action to justice, equity, and life-giving community.  Ida B. Wells would have had it no other way.”  

So, on Wednesday, raise a glass to Ida Wells, give thanks for her witness and plan to find your place in her stunning and life-giving call for justice, equity, and life-giving community.