"BRAVE SPACE"

 “BRAVE SPACE”

"BRAVE SPACE"

Caroline and I walked towards the tall, clear glass doors of King Chapel at Morehouse College late Friday afternoon.  The doors were opened for us by impressive Morehouse men, young Black men dressed in dark coats and ties, handing out masks and programs.  The programs described “The Presidential Ceremony,” in which some 60 people would be recognized as 2022 President Joe Biden Award Winners for Lifetime Service.”  Our friend and colleague, Dr. Catherine Meeks, was one of those honorees.

Because of Covid, we had not been in King Chapel in almost three years, although prior to that we had been there many times, especially for the Spelman-Morehouse Christmas concerts.  We have also heard fine lectures there, and I myself was once on that stage when I was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. College of Preachers and Scholars in 2007.  Whenever I enter King Chapel, it is always a powerful experience, because of its namesake and his attending Morehouse, and because it is such powerful Black space.  

On this Friday evening, we gathered with hundreds of others to celebrate and honor those witnesses who have blazed all kinds of trails of justice and equity.  Providentially we sat in the audience with Gary Moore and Joe McDaniel, who had been our hosts in a workshop on race in the Episcopal Diocese in Pensacola in early March, 2020 – our last trip before Covid shut everything down.  They were also there to celebrate and honor Dr. Catherine Meeks.  Sitting in front of us were friends of Catherine’s from her days in Macon, so it was a Catherine Meeks celebration in our section.

Catherine had many dignitaries on stage with her – other recipients included Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr., Rev. Dr. Ben Chavis, Jr., Claudette Colvin, Dr. David Satcher, Dr. Clarissa Myrick-Harris, Mayor Shirley Franklin, Dr. Anne Winbush Watts, Melba Moore, and many others.  We were given rousing charges especially by Rev. Dr. Moss (at 87 years old), reminding us to find our own voices and continue to forge the path blazed by the honorees on stage with him.  He also put it starkly when he said that we should use our economic power to support Black businesses – when we did not, we only supported life on the plantation, or forced labor camps.  Dr. Ben Chavis – in a powerful 2 minute speech – reminded us that no matter whether we had economic power or not, we did have the power to vote in the upcoming elections.  He noted that there had been a low voter turnout in Black precincts in the 2022 primaries, and he emphasized how many people had fought and been jailed and bled and died so that the idea of equality could be demonstrated in the right to vote.

Catherine often reminds us in her work of the necessity of being a little bit braver each day in our work for justice and equity.  She calls it “Brave Space,” and I am grateful to her for her work and ministry.  Growing up in the same time that I did in Arkansas, she could have accepted the white, male supremacist Kool-Aid that we were dispensing.  Her parents were poor and Black in rural Arkansas, but through them and through many others, she heard a different song, a different definition of herself.  She talks about some of her journey in the award-winning book that we wrote together in 2019: “Passionate for Justice: Ida B. Wells as Prophet for Our Time.”  She has been a trailblazer and a witness God’s dream for us, and she describes some of that journey in a video for acceptance of the Presidential Award – here’s the link to it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTSYrl_sPEc.  She also has a new book coming out this fall from Church Publishing “The Night Is Long But Light Comes in the Morning.”  Check out these sources, but for now, join me in giving thanks for the life and continuing life and brave space of Dr. Catherine Meeks!