"INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY"

 “INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY”

Since we are currently in the overlap between the beginning phase of the Israeli ceasefire in attacking Gaza and between Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and since the Trumpster and the MAGA white supremacist movement have disavowed IPD and proclaimed it once again Columbus Day, I am reposting a blog from 2022, which touches on the same themes.

{The following are short excerpts from a much longer work of poetry and prose by Layli Long Soldier from her book “Whereas,” drawing on the official US government language of the Resolution and Apology.  She is a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Native Artist Fellowship, and a Whiting Award.  She lives in Santa Fe.  I was introduced to her work by one of her poems in worship at North Decatur Presbyterian Church.  As I write this, Israel and Hamas are at war, and I am thinking of the many parallels of the white treatment of Native Americans and the Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people.}

“WHEREAS” BY LAYLI LONG SOLDIER

“On Saturday, December 19, 2009, US President Barack Obama signed the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans.  No tribal leaders or official representatives were invited to witness and revive the Apology on behalf of tribal nations.  President Obama never read the Apology aloud, publicly – although, for the record, Senator Sam Brownback five months later read the Apology to a gathering of five tribal leaders, though there are more than 560 federally recognized tribes in the US.  The Apology was then folded into a larger, unrelated piece of legislation called the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act.

My response is directed to the Apology’s delivery, as well as the language, crafting, and arrangement of the written document.  I am a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation – and in this dual citizenship, I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly, I must live. 

Whereas at four years old I read the first chapter of the Bible aloud I was not a Christian

Whereas my hair unbraided ran the length of my spine I sometimes sat on it

Whereas at the table my legs dangled I could not balance peas on my fork

Whereas I used my fingers carefully I pushed the bright green onto silver tines

Whereas you eat like a pig the lady said setting my plate on the floor

Whereas she instructed me to finish on my hands and knees she took another bite

Whereas I watched folds of pale curtains inhale and exhale a summer dance

Whereas in the breath of the afternoon room each tick of the clock

Whereas I rose and placed my eyes and tongue on a shelf above the table first

Whereas I kneeled to my plate I kneeled to the greatest questions

Whereas that moment I knew who I was whereas the moment before I swallowed”

"WE MUST HOLD"

 “WE MUST HOLD”

When our son David was in elementary school, he played on a local soccer team.  In his first year, most of the soccer games looked like a scrum in rugby – all the players surrounded the ball and sought to kick it free.  Somewhere in one of those years, his coach had to be away for one of the games, and since I came to every game anyway, the coach asked me to sub for him as coach for that one game.  I said “Yes,” but the problem was that I knew very little about soccer.  When I gathered the players to get ready for the game, it was obvious that they knew more than I did about soccer.  Caroline took a photo of my “coach’s” meeting with the team before the game began, and David can be seen rolling his eyes at my instructions.  And, his response was accurate – I hardly knew what I was talking about.

I felt that sense of lostness for our country this past week as I watched some of the news coverage of the Trumpster’s and Hegseth’s talks to the leadership of the world’s most powerful military, generals and admirals who had been dragged from all over the world to hear speeches from men who had never served in the military, speeches designed to tell them to do something unconstitutional – send the national military into mostly Democratic cities, ostensibly to deal with the “crime” problem.  Though they did not roll their eyes (as David did), their stony silence rang loudly – who are these guys?

And, that is the question for us as we face up to the fact that the Trumpster seems hell-bent on ending our democracy and establishing an oligarchy, an authoritarian government run by rich people.  Whether he will act decisively to reduce the government during the shutdown, as he has said so often that he will do, his intent to shrink the depth and breadth of the federal government sees clear.  In order to do this, he is eviscerating both the legislative and the judicial branches of government, a hollowing out that we must seek to prevent at all costs.  Our resistance must be deep and strong.  What can we do?  Here are several suggestions, and I would welcome more from you.

We must speak up and act out.  Wherever we encounter Trumpism, we must stand against it.  We must resist with our words and our actions.  Caroline and I have been to many protests around the metro Atlanta area, and we must continue those.  Write letters to the editors, organize your friends and acquaintances (and call them out if necessary).  There is no longer room for compromise or deals, hoping that Trump will stand down or dilute his work.  His henchmen Russell Vought and Stephen Miller are feeling the vibe, and they intend to take it as far as they can.  We must speak and act against these, wherever we are and whenever we are.

Second, none of us will survive this onslaught alone, so find like-minded friends and acquaintances and build communities of resistance.  There are many groups out there who are already working on this, so join one or more of those. We will survive only by building cohesive and active communities of solidarity and resistance.

Third, register yourself to vote and make sure that all of your acquaintances are registered to vote.  Though this seems simple, it is absolutely essential.  We mounted a huge campaign to elect Barack Obama as president in 2008, and we must repeat that energy level again – our constitutional democracy depends upon it.  This may sound dire or even trite, but Trump 2.0 has proved much more aggressive and destructive than he was in his first term.  He must be stopped, first at the mid-terms and then in 2028.

Fourth, don’t forget the power of art to move hearts, minds and souls.  Go to plays about this (or write one yourself); go to movies about this; write poetry about it (yes, we all are poets), share laments with others (as long as those laments do not paralyze you).  Use the power of language to speak the truth and to call out the Trumpsters.  It is no coincidence that Trump is seeking to curtail opposition speech and actions, because he knows how powerful speech can be as a tool of resistance.

And, finally (for now), be bold in your witness.  Now is not the time to be timid or unsure about this.  The Trumpster is on a mission to destroy us as a democratic people, whether he is alive to see the transition or not.  We will not be able to count on the unseen hand of democracy to prevail.  It is now up to us to speak out and act up.  Order your steps and get going!

"THE MESSY WEEK"

 “THE MESSY WEEK”

Trump seems to have been emboldened by the death of Charlie Kirk, so much so that at a dinner this past week, some friends and I were musing over whether Tyler Robinson had actually been the shooter, or whether something else was afoot.  I was one of the people who are skeptical that Robinson is the shooter.  When I first heard what had happened - that someone had killed Kirk with a single shot from several hundred yards at a very difficult angle – I felt then that the shooter was a trained sniper, perhaps a military person.  Some of the friends last week with hunting experience felt that Robinson could have made the shot, but that if he did, he was very lucky.  There was much speculation over what had actually happened, and I am usually not a conspiracy theorist, but on this one, there is definitely more than meets the eye.

Trump seems to have taken the killing of Kirk as an opportunity to quickly advance his and shadow-president Stephen Miller’s agenda.  Four events stand out from last week:  the canceling of the Kimmel Show, the rambling speech at the UN, the ridiculous claim that acetaminophen causes autism, and the indictment of James Comey.  All of these seem to be steps that seek to solidify Trump’s claim that he is our only Savior.  Though Brendan Carr was careful to say that he had not forced Disney to cancel Kimmel, it was clear that he was acting like a Mafia warden, as even Ted Cruz pointed out.  The Kimmel firing caused such a ruckus that ABC and Disney had to bring him back, to a huge ratings boost.  It was one of the few hopeful signs this week.

Trump’s rambling, spiteful, attacking monologue at the UN seems to be straight out of King George III’s diatribes – I half expected Lin Manuel-Miranda, Leslie Odoms, Jr., and Alicia Philippa to pop out from “Hamilton” to sing about the coming revolution.  Not only was Trump irreverent and disrespectful, he just seemed out of it, unaware of where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.  It is one thing to tell the United Nations that it is irrelevant – it is another thing to deeply disrespect the UN and seek to show them that the powerful monarch of the USA is in charge.  We don’t what the long-term ramifications of Trump’s insulting and condescending speech will be, but we can rest assured that they will be deep and long-lasting.

It was sad (and maddening) to watch the spectacle at the HHS news conference where Trump and mini-RFK made the alleged connection between acetaminophen and autism.  Trump emphasized “Tylenol” because he clearly could not pronounce “acetaminophen,” and I’m sure he has no idea what it is.  I felt like I was back in the 1800’s, as Trump emphasized over and over again that pregnant women should just bite the bullet, take the pain, endure the hardships (and dangers) of fever – as if he had ever been pregnant or had the willpower to “just take the pain.”  No evidence presented, just opinions from old white men telling women and everyone else that old white men know best.  The biggest problem, of course, is that this pronouncement comes with the back-up of what used to be one of the most respected public health agencies in the world.  Now, in Trump’s and mini-RFK’s hands, CDC is devolving into just another PAC for Trump, leaving the rest of us to wonder where we can get good public health advice.  

And, finally the indictment of James Comey.  Let me be clear that I am no fan of Comey’s.  Had he handled things correctly in 2016 in regard to Hilary Clinton’s emails, she would have won the 2016 presidential election, and Trump would have slumped back to his golden tower on Fifth Avenue.  I don’t think that you can be indicted for incompetence – if so, we would have many more indictments.  The issue is that this is the first stop on Trump’s “vengeance tour,” and that is the frightening part.  His next step is a shot at Fani Willis, who also demonstrated incompetence when she got involved with staffer Nathan Wade.  We don’t know who will be next, but they are coming.

All of this is to say that Trump is feeling his Geritol and whatever drugs they are giving him to stay awake, waiting for Stephen Miller’s next executive order to come down for him to sign.  Big events coming this week also, especially on Tuesday – the potential government shutdown and the military command gathering on the same day.  In some ways, it feels like Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming,” which begins with these lines:

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,"

Yet, we must hold – more on that next week.

“MES NACIONAL DE LA HEFRENCIA LATINX/HISPANA”

 “MES NACIONAL DE LA HEFRENCIA LATINX/HISPANA”

             Last week began the month of celebrating the heritage of the diaspora of people from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean, who are now in the USA.  Some have been here for centuries, predating the Anglo arrival, some arrived as recently as today.  The month is sandwiched between famous battles for independence by LatinX or Hispanic peoples from European colonial powers, and the dates are September 15-October 15. 

             The recognition began under President Johnson and was originally called Hispanic Heritage Week.  It has expanded into a month, and in line with the arbitrary nature of the American system of race, it is ever evolving.  “Hispanic” was the earliest term because it is a word derived from the Latin word for the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal (Hispana).  

            The word “Hispanic” began to fall out of favor, however, because it does not cover all the language groups in the brown Americas.  “Latino” has begun to develop as an alternative, and it is a strange term because no one speaks Latin in the brown Americas except priests and some scholars.  Vice-Presidential candidate Dan Quayle infamously noted that he would have to learn “Latin” before he visited Latin America.  Why did a word referring to a “dead” language from Italy become the definer for people from the brown Americas?  Because Latin is the basis for what were called the “Romance” languages when I was growing up:  Spanish, Portuguese, and French, which became the dominant European languages in the brown Americas.  “Latin X” has begun to replace the masculine “Latino” as a word of choice to include all people. 

             Whether one prefers “Hispanic” or “Latino” or “Latina” or “Latinx,” all of them still define people from the brown Americas by the history of the European domination of the region in the colonial era.  This crunching of experience is further squeezed by the American system of race, which demands to know who should be classified as “white” and who should not.  This demand, born out of the struggle between slavery and equality in American history, means that everyone must be assigned their place in the system of race, obliterating cultural and language differences, so that those classified as “white” may know where to assign the goodies of American racial capitalism.  One of the great things about “MES NACIONAL DE LA HEFRENCIA LATINX/HISPANA” is that we hope that it will lead to peoples of the Americas helping to break down the oppressive system of race.  We will be hoping and looking for more accurate and just terms and descriptions to emerge.

Currently, those hopes are being dashed on the Trumpian/MAGA plan to re-establish white supremacy as strongly as possible.  The mass deportations by the Trumpster are targeted mainly at people who are classified as “Hispanic.”  Indeed, SCOTUS recently approved racial profiling of Hispanic people by ICE agents, looking to deport more and more people classified as ”Hispanic.”  From SCOTUS’ point of view, racial profiling is out for college admissions but not for immigration issues.  Indeed, the main headline for Saturday’s AJC was a story indicating that Metropolitan Savannah Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce had canceled the annual Hispanic Heritage Parade there because of a surge in anti-Hispanic rhetoric and racial profiling by law enforcement.  

The profiling of brown people is just the beginning of the Trumpian manifesto to firmly re-establish white males as superior to all others.  The mass deportations are a direct attack on people of color, but it is not the ending of the MAGA movement.  It is rather the thematic prelude to attacking and marginalizing all individuals and groups who stand for the American ideals of justice, equity, and liberty.  In these days, let us remember who we are and where we have been.  Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller put it best during the Nazi takeover of Germany in the 1940’s:  

First they came for the Communists 

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

So, let us remember this lesson in history in at least two ways this month.  Let us join our brown siblings in recognizing and celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.  And second, let us speak out against the racial profiling of people of Hispanic heritage.  It is time to both speak out and act up.  

'SEWAGE SPILLING OUT"

 “SEWAGE SPILLING OUT”

In my 30+ years as pastor at Oakhurst Presbyterian, I unfortunately encountered many episodes of sewage spilling up from stopped up pipes at the church.  It was bad enough when one toilet would get stopped up, but we often had whole pipelines stopped up.  On those occasions, the sewage would overflow from a cleanout pipe in the floor somewhere – near the clothes closet, in the nursery, and in the day care center.  Caroline and I and many other people would often spend hours mopping or vacuuming up raw sewage.  I remember Fred Kuhstoss and I spending all one day cleaning up a sewage overflow from a toilet in the Phoenix day care center.  The remarkable Dave Hess heroically pulled up some stairs and worked under them to re-pipe one place where the stoppage was developing, but the main culprit was a long drain pipe outside, going UP a hill.  Finally in 2006-2007, we raised enough money to pay a contractor to take care of the problem.  

I thought of this process as I heard of the assassination of Charlie Kirk last week.  It is a sign of my white, male privilege that I did not know who he was until he was killed. The Black people with whom I talked all knew who he was because he was a throwback to the old racist tropes.  Though he was killed with a single shot, it reminded me of the continuing sewage spill of our love of, and indeed worship of, guns.  Kirk was one of those who advocated for the necessity of guns, and in no small irony, it was that belief in guns that took his life.  Let no one hear that I am applauding his death – it was abhorrent.  Yet, as we seem to be learning, his assassin was not a radical left advocate, as the President so inelegantly and prejudicially said.  Rather his killer seemed to be an adherent of an even harder right stand.

The hurling of epithets from the President and the right-wing commentators so reminded me of the sewage spills at Oakhurst.  They just keep on coming, and only strong actions will stop the sewage spills – strong actions like the banning of assault weapons (we did it from 1994-2004, until the Republican Congress let the ban expire); strong actions like stemming white supremacy, which is definitely on the rise;  strong actions like the assertion of the fundamental dignity and equality of every person.

And, like the many sewage pipes at Oakhurst, the sewage just continues to come at us from so many directions.  President Trump, instead of seeking to calm us down, fanned the flames of violence, as Hitler did in 1933 with the Reichstag fire.  SCOTUS last week agreed to racial profiling in the ICE raids, even though they had previously made such a big to-do against using racial classification as a factor in college admissions.  

I wish I could blame Donald Trump for all of this, but he is more the voice and the face of the sewage spills in American culture.  It began centuries ago in the idea of white supremacy, but its most recent manifestation came in the reaction to the election of Barack Obama as President.  Since then, so many people classified as “white” in our country have made it their mission to push people of color back as far as possible.  It began with the Tea Party movement in 2008, which produced such astonishing victories in the 2010 mid-terms, then morphed into Trumpism in 2015-2016.  

I wish I could say that it was only “race” that is the problem – that would be hard enough to solve, but economic factors play a big part too.  The Clinton/Gingrich partnership that gave us NAFTA, shifting many jobs overseas, also gave us this resentment from white people who lost their jobs in the process.  Race and economic factors have combined to make so many sewage spills flowing out of the pipes of our individual and collective mindsets, so much so that we are killing one another with our beloved guns.

I remember those dreary days of cleaning up sewage spills at Oakhurst.  It always helped to have others step in to assist, and I think that is a clue to our finding ways out of the current cultural mess.  As Pastor David Lewicki put it in his fine sermon yesterday at North Decatur Presbyterian, God is speaking to us just as She spoke to Abraham and Sarah.  God’s first word to them was not who She was but was rather: “Go.”  Go on a journey to help people find a new definition.  Let us do that too – let us take the first step, to reach out on a journey to proclaim dignity, equity, and justice.  It’s the only way to stop the sewage spills.

"SUSAN STROUPE!"

 “SUSAN STROUPE!”

Susan’s 43rd birthday is this Friday, September 12.  She was born in Nashville but lived there only 5 months before we accepted the call to Oakhurst Presbyterian Church and moved to Decatur.  She grew up in the multicultural church there, having many aunts and grandmas who helped to raise her.  We are grateful to the community of Oakhurst, which gave her such nourishment and gifts.

Today I’m remembering her sophomore/junior year of high school.  When she turned 16 and was just beginning her sophomore year, she got her learner’s permit to start learning to drive.  She indicated that Caroline did too much front seat driving, so I was elected to teach her to drive.  David had not yet gotten his driver’s license.  We practiced in the old DeVry parking lot not far from Dekalb hospital (that lot is now the VA), because it was usually deserted in the evenings and on weekends.  I also taught her how to parallel park in the lower parking lot of Oakhurst Presbyterian.  We would put two large garbage cans some feet apart, to simulate cars.  Susan was a fast learner, and it only took her a few lessons to get the parallel parking down.  

    In August of 1999, right before the start of her junior year in high school, she took the driver’s test.  Those were the days when the state of Georgia did not require applicants to drive on an actual road.  They had set up a driving course in the middle of the parking lot, where applicants took their driving tests.  We had an old Camry at that point, and it had many eccentricities.  One of them was that if you were using the air conditioning and cut the front wheels sharply to the left, the motor would shut off.  We knew that would not be acceptable to the driver’s license officials, so I advised her to roll down all the windows and tell the tester that the ac was broken.  It was one of those hot August days, and I watched as Susan began to take the test.  She did fine on it, and indeed she aced the parallel parking.  We had watched other youth take the test before it was Susan’s turn, and after the parallel parking part, there were still several parts of the test.  After Susan aced the parallel parking, the instructor told her to take the car back to the beginning.  When I saw that, I thought that Susan had failed miserably, and so did Susan.  When they got back to the beginning, the instructor told her:  “You’ve shown me enough – you made a 93 on the test, but I’ve just got to get out of this car.  I am just so damned hot in here.”

    I used the Camry as my ministerial car, and after Susan got her driver’s license, we worked out a deal on sharing the car.  She would take the Camry to school and leave it in the parking lot.  I would walk over in the morning, or Caroline would bring me over, to get the car for the day, and then bring it back to the school parking lot for Susan.  When she first started driving to school, she had a minor fender bumper accident, while she was creeping up in morning traffic on South Candler Street.  She looked down to get something and barely tapped the car ahead of her.  There was no visible damage to the other person’s car, but the other driver wanted to call the police to get an official report because it was her husband’s car.  The Decatur police came and ascertained no damage to the cars and no injuries to either driver.  The good part about this accident is that it was a relatively harmless lesson for Susan to learn that she must always keep her eyes on the road.  She also got another lesson in human relations on the road.  Later that week, the husband called to say that his wife was injured in the wreck, and that we should personally pay for her medical care so that our car insurance would not go up.  We were having none of it, and we called our insurance company to let them know what was going on.  They asked for a copy of the accident report from the police, so we went and got it and faxed (remember that ancient activity?) it to the insurance company.  We never heard anymore from anyone, but Susan had learned some good lessons early on.

    Ever since then, Susan has been an excellent driver, driving in all kinds of places – Minneapolis, Albuquerque, upstate New York, across the country when she was a puppeteer intern, and in crazy Baltimore. She also gave David some good advice on taking the driver’s test.  He was anxious about the test and put it off until he was a college student.  He saw that Susan had passed her driving test well, and I had also taught him how to drive.  Susan gave him a big and humorous boost.  She said: “David, think of the stupidest person you know who has a driver’s license.  They passed the test!”  That convinced him, and he went and passed the test, using some of the same strategy with the Camry that Susan had used.  

    We are so grateful for both of our children, but in this birthday week of Susan’s, we give thanks for her and for all her gifts to us and to so many others.  Thank you, Susan!!!!  Raise a glass to her on Friday!

"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.  

"A BIT OF GOOD NEWS IN A DEPRESSING TIME"

 “A BIT OF GOOD NEWS IN A DEPRESSING TIME”

It felt sad and ironic to celebrate the 4th of July when Donald Trump is president, a man who cares little for the country and who cares only for himself and enriching himself at our expense.  I must admit, however, that the has had a disturbing run the last few weeks – the bombing of Iran and the passage of the “Big, Bad, Awful” (BBA) bill.  I will hold Lisa Murkowski responsible for the latter – though I was never a big fan of John McCain, I admired his courage in Trump’s first term when Trump tried to gut Obamacare.  McCain walked down to the well of the Senate floor and turned his thumb down to defeat the proposal.  Now that Trump is beginning the unraveling of Obamacare in the BBA, how I wish that Senator Murkowski had done the same as John McCain did.  It was not to be, however, and she and all the rest of us will be the worst for it.

In the midst of this depressing time, I want to acknowledge a note of hope on the local level.  On June 18, Caroline and I attended the ribbon cutting for new affordable housing located in Decatur’s Legacy Park.  Sixty-six units were dedicated for housing for people who make 30-80% of a living wage.  It is a partnership between the city of Decatur, the Decatur Housing Authority, Dekalb County, and the federal government.  At the same time, there was a ground-breaking ceremony for 66 more units, making a total of 132 units of affordable housing.  A bit of background is needed to understand this good news.

Legacy Park is the new name of what used to be the United Methodist Children’s Home, located on 77 acres of land on Columbia Drive across from Columbia Seminary.  The Home was started by the Methodists in 1877 as an orphanage for children after the Civil War, and it remained a home for orphans and children from broken or troubled families until 2017.  At that point, the Methodists decided to shift their focus from younger children to young adults who had aged out of the various public and private systems.  They did this with good reason – our state representative Mary Margaret Oliver noted at the ceremony that more than 40% of the young people who age out of foster care at age 18 will be homeless within 18 months.  The Methodists put the land up for sale, hoping to finance their new ventures with the money from the sale.  And, valuable land it is – 77 acres of undeveloped prime land.  When we heard that the land was up for sale, we knew that the developers were licking their lips in anticipation.

Many of us went to the Decatur City Council, urging them to consider a purchase of this land for public use and benefit, rather than allowing it to once again be gobbled up by private developers.  The city of Decatur has not always been receptive to the need for affordable housing, but this time the leadership, as well as numerous residents, felt the need to seek to keep this property as a good for public use.  Partnering with several governmental entities that I named above, they developed a $40 million package to offer the United Methodists for the property.  This was undoubtedly below the market value, but it also appealed to the goodwill of the Methodists.  It was an amount that would adequately fund the new ventures of the Methodists, and they accepted the offer.  The city of Decatur now owns those 77 acres and has developed a plan for its use to benefit the citizens of Decatur.

The next struggle came over what would be housed on the property.  While that is still a work in progress, many people, including our friend Mary Gould, attended many meetings to help the city of Decatur see the need and the possibility of using part of the property for affordable housing.  By this time, the city was open to the message, but it did not hurt that so many people turned out to support it.  There was also significant opposition, but the idea of affordable housing prevailed, and we give thanks for that.  

The opposition did not roll over, however.  After the environmental study indicated that the building of affordable housing would not be a further detriment to the environment, several residents asked for a second study in order to delay the beginning of construction of the affordable housing.  We attended the city council meeting last November and spoke our piece about the need for beginning the project.  One of the residents who opposed the project spoke and indicated that they had filed an ethics complaint against the council for what they took to be dishonesty and a lack of integrity on this process.  African-American Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Tony Powers responded with an unusually frank answer, something like this:  “I hear your complaint, and I can guarantee you that we have approached this project with integrity, honesty, and transparency.  I will also add that I believe that your opposition to this project is not about trees or transparency but rather about your dis-ease with the possibility that Black people will be living in some of these housing units. I’m tired of hearing that, and I’m tired of white people masking their racial concerns by using other reasons.  So, we have been transparent about the need to use some of this land for affordable housing, and we intend to do just that.”  The city council then proceeded to vote unanimously to approve the environmental report and to authorize the construction of the first set of housing units.

It was noted at the June 18 ribbon-cutting that this project is just a drop in the bucket, but that it was a beginning.  Congressman Hank Johnson spoke, and other speakers included Housing Authority Director Larry Padilla, state senator Elena Parent, Columbia Seminary President Victor Aloyo, state rep Mary Margaret Oliver, and many others.  In a time of a torrent of bad news, it was good to be together and to celebrate a bit of good news.  Let us build on that and see if we can revitalize this sense of civic duty and responsibility for the common good.

"CAROLINE LEACH!!!"

 “CAROLINE LEACH!!!”

Trump has had quite a week – bombing of Iran and the SCOTUS partial victory on the nationwide injunctions.  Yet, I’m currently tired of Trump and will write about him another time (unfortunately, more than once, I’m afraid).  So, I’m going to write on a much more pleasant subject – Caroline’s birthday is July 3 of this week.

I first met Caroline at a political rally for George McGovern in Atlanta in 1972.  I was visiting my friend Ed Loring, and I went with him to the rally, and Caroline was there.  She struck me as very interesting, but I was in a committed relationship with a woman in Nashville, where I was doing my alternative service as a conscientious objector (CO) to the Vietnam War.  I paid more attention when I met her the second time, at Robin and Linda Williams’ wedding in Nashville in early summer 1973.  Caroline had come up to the wedding with her housemate Murphy Davis, who was Robin’s cousin.  I was now living at the house where Robin and Linda got married.  I had broken off the romantic relationship with my fiancé; I had finished my CO; and I was seeking discernment for the future.  Ed, who was on the faculty of Columbia Seminary in Atlanta, was urging me to pick up my seminary career there – I had dropped out of Vanderbilt Divinity School to apply for the CO.  

By the time that we re-met in 1973, I was much more interested in getting to know Caroline better.  She was now a Columbia Seminary grad and was Associate Campus Minister at Georgia tech.  We spent a considerable amount of time together at the wedding. After that, Atlanta (and Columbia Seminary) began to look a whole lot better.  I moved to the Decatur part of Atlanta in August of 1973, and Caroline and I began to date almost immediately.  We were young adults in our mid-20’s, but we had seen enough of the world to know what we wanted.  By the end of 1973, we were in a relationship and had decided to get married.

This groundedness of Caroline was instantly appealing to me.  I’m a man, so I also noticed her looks, which were and are fine.  An article about her as a woman minister in the Knoxville Sentinel in 1973 put it this way: “The locks are long, brown, and wavy.   The figure curvy.  Marital status, single.  Sex FEMALE.  The name, Caroline Leach. “If you are a woman,” says Ms. Leach, who was in Knoxville recently for a visit, “you cannot fill the bill.  No matter how dynamic your sermons may be, how well you did in divinity school, how willing you are to work long, hard hours, how close you stand to God…..You don’t fit!”  

Caroline was describing her struggle to find her way as a woman in seminary in 1969-1972.  Her home church in Chattanooga would not sponsor her as a ministerial candidate because she was a woman – even though she had grown up in the church, taught Sunday school, played piano and organ in worship.  She just was FEMALE as the Knoxville Sentinel put it.  She was one of five women students when she went to Columbia, and she remembers how many men students came up to her, reading from the Bible, telling her that she could not be a minister because she was FEMALE, that God would not permit it.  We were talking about this terrible experience this past week, and we were laughing at God’s sense of humor and God’s working in mysterious ways.  When she came to Columbia, Caroline’s intention was to become a Christian educator, but all the “NO’S” and “CAN’TS” convinced her that God was calling her to become an ordained minister.  So, all these negative men helped her to become a minister, as well some of the faculty who had been very supportive of her.

It was an arduous journey – she had to find a new home church who would sponsor her as a candidate (yay for Rev. Randy Taylor and the Session of Central Presbyterian in Atlanta).  Atlanta Presbytery did not want to ordain her or any other women, but the competence and calling of Caroline and other women dragged the Presbytery kicking and screaming into the late 20th century.  No churches would interview her for a pastoral position, but God led her to Rev. Woody McKay, who was Campus Minister at Georgia Tech.  He had reserved a small salary, and the number of women students at Georgia Tech was growing.  So, he offered the position to Caroline, and she was able to get ordained at Georgia Tech and become the 21st woman minister in the former Southern Presbyterian Church.

When we went to get our marriage license from Dekalb County in early spring of 1974, Caroline indicated that she was not going to change her name when we got married.  The female clerk was highly offended and refused to issue a marriage license. We had to threaten to sue in order to get it.  We got married in May, 1974, and after I finished my classes at Columbia in December, 1975, we accepted a call to be co-pastors at St. Columba Presbyterian Church.  Caroline continued her pioneering ministry – we were the first clergy couple in a local church in the PCUS.  We’ve been partners in ministry and marriage ever since.  Indeed, we are working on a book now on our trailblazing ministry – if you have stories or thoughts, please let us know!

Caroline has been a pioneer most of her life, and though she would not say this, I will.  She is one of the giants upon whose shoulders the church and especially women pastors now stand.  When I’ve asked Caroline how she came to have the courage and determination to push through all the barriers and obstacles that she faced in the patriarchal structures of the church and the world, she cites her parents, her youth leaders in her church (the same church who denied her care), and most of all, the Girl Scouts.  She was a Girl Scout through high school, and there she learned that she was competent and even skilled as a woman, that she would need to be determined and resolute in a male world, and that SHE COULD DO IT.  I’m glad that she did – glad that she got the message, glad that she pushed on through all the barriers, of course, personally, glad that she graced me with love and marriage and David and Susan for these 51 years.  So, lift a glass to Caroline this week – contact her too and wish her a happy birthday!

"TRUMP MAKES HIS MOVE"

 “TRUMP MAKES HIS MOVE”

When Trump made the decision to bomb Iran on Saturday evening, he told only Republican legislators, leaving the Democrats out of the process until after the bombing was done.  We don’t yet know the extent of the damage, and we don’t yet know what Iran’s response will be, though I am guessing that the Iranians had contingency plans in place, which are likely being put into action as I write.  We all tremble as this step for US involvement in attacking yet another Middle East country is underway. We also await the response of Russia and China.

I watched Trump’s short press statement on Saturday night, with his lackeys Vance, Hegseth and Rubio close at hand.  He worked hard to project an image as the almighty leader, the one who is in control not only of the United States, but of the world as well.  It is the image that he has always cultivated, the image that drove him to seek the presidency in the first place.  And now, thanks to Israel’s Nazi-like approach to the Palestinians, Trump has been given the opportunity to make his mark as the leader of the world.  For the time being, he has control of the United States, with the Supreme Court virtually turning him loose with its presidential immunity rulings.  The Congress is exceedingly weak, with the slim Republican majority currently holding together, though Thomas Harris and even Marjorie Taylor Greene withholding support on this latest foray.  

Trump has been driven to prove that his father was wrong about him, that he is not a weakling who must be sent to military school to be toughened up.  I wonder if Trump has a shrine to his father in his White House bedroom, a shrine in which he counts up the evidence daily to demonstrate to his father that he is indeed the strong son.  He has now made his move to show that he is invincible, that he is indeed the most powerful man in the world – the Supreme Court cannot stop him, the Congress cannot stop him, the American people cannot stop him.  And now, the bad, old Iranians have felt his wrath.  Meanwhile, his ICE officers now wear masks to demonstrate the powerful, unstoppable, unknowable force that can arrest U.S. Senators, City of New York Comptrollers, and whoever else might dare to get in his way.

It is a daunting situation for us in the USA who believe in peace, justice, and equity.  Yet, the “No Kings” marches revealed a deeper truth:  millions upon millions marched against Trump in over 1500 towns and cities across the country on June 14, while only a few thousand showed up for Trump’s birthday parade in DC.  The opposition is deep and powerful to Trump and his policies, and we must be vigilant and active in expressing that opposition, pointing toward a Democratic takeover of Congress in the 2026 elections.

I’m also remembering another Republican president who attacked a country in the Middle East – the invasion of Iraq by George Bush and the “coalition of the willing” in March, 2002, because Sadaam Hussein and his buddies in Iraq had WMD’s, the weapons of mass destruction.  I remember seeing President Bush land on the USS Abraham Lincoln in his aviator jacket, declaring “mission accomplished.” And, of course, no WMD’s ever found in Iraq.  The war in Iraq would prove long and costly, with Barack Obama pulling most US troops out of Iraq in 2011, with no regime change, no real changes made.  Iraq is now mainly controlled by militias, including some loyal to Iran.  

We should note that Iran in 2025 is not Iraq in 2002, but the similarities in American arrogance in both cases is striking.  None of us knows where the Saturday night massacre will lead, but right now it is both scary and sobering.  The dictatorship of Donald Trump has begun – he has made his move.  Currently there seem to be no forces capable of checking him, but his foray into the Middle East will prove more difficult than he or his puppets can imagine.  In that unpredictability may lie our greatest hope for restoration at home.  Bush was immensely popular when he invaded Iraq, but by the time that he left office, he and his Republican party were so unpopular that white people in America were willing to vote for a Black man for president.  Trump is currently underwater in popularity, and I don’t think that will change any time soon.  The Joker has made his move, and it is now up to us to counter that move with force, dedication, love, justice, and actions in the street.  As Bob Dylan put it in the ending to his famous apocalyptic song “All Along the Watchtower”:

Outside, in the distance

A wildcat did growl

Two riders were approaching

The wind began to howl

"JUNTEENTH"

  “JUNETEENTH”

    In 2021, Juneteenth was made a national holiday, thanks to the efforts of many people.  This week many folk will celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation on “Juneteenth,” the name given to the event in Texas, where news of the Proclamation  and the Union defeat of the Confederacy did not reach African-Americans held in slavery in Texas until June 19, 1865.  At that time, U.S. General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with 2,000 federal troops and made this General Order #3:

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

            Juneteenth has become the most recognized national celebration of the end of legal slavery in the country.  Many other dates could qualify, and some are celebrated:  watch night services in African-American churches on December 31 of each year, similar  to the ones in 1862, right before the Proclamation took effect;  January 31, when the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery passed Congress;  December 6, when the states ratified the 13th Amendment. Yet, Juneteenth has held on for many reasons.  

            Perhaps the biggest reason that Juneteenth has held on is that it expresses both celebration and ambivalence.  Celebration that there was finally some recognition of the humanity and equality of people of African descent.  Ambivalence because there was so much reluctance to get this news to the people of Texas.  The racism that would eviscerate the Union victory over the next 40 years, after the Civil War,  could be seen in the last sentence of Order #3 – though African-Americans had built the wealth of much of America, they were still seen as being “in idleness.”  The order arrived over 2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.  As WEB Dubois put it:  “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”

The recognition of Juneteenth is a reminder of two of the most powerful forces in American history, forces that are opposed to one another.  One is the idea of equality, and the other is the idea of slavery (and the white supremacy that undergirds it).  These have been warring ideas in American history.  The idea of equality – the vision that all human beings are created with equal dignity – is a powerful one in American history.  It was born in Europe, but it found its deepest expression in the colonies of America.  This idea of equality is one of the great and unexpected gifts of the American experience.  It is a revolutionary idea, and it calls out to all structures -  class structures, racial categories,  gender categories – that their time is winding down, that a new way of looking sat ourselves and at one another is emerging in the world.  That way is the idea of equality, the idea that we are all created with equal dignity.  That way is the idea that the institutional and structural foundations of society should be reformed to reflect this radical idea.

Yet, as we all are well aware, this powerful gift of equality is always banging against the idea of white supremacy, which seeks to tell us that those of us classified as “white” that we are meant to be in control.  We saw that struggle this past weekend, as the Trumpster gathered his tanks and soldiers and a few people in DC, while millions marched and protested in cities and towns across the country against the white supremacy that is the base root of the MAGA movement.

            It is now time to step up, speak up, and act out.  So, on June 19,  find a way to celebrate the great American vision of the fundamental equality of all people.  Find a way to acknowledge how deeply white supremacy still has a hold on our hearts and vision.  Find a way to work against that captivity, as did Frederick Douglass and Abby Kelley and William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Tubman and Ida Wells and Anne Braden and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker and many others have done.  Let us join in that parade of witnesses. 

"FIFTY YEARS AS A MINISTER!!"

 “FIFTY YEARS AS A MINISTER!”

Last year was Caroline and my 50th wedding anniversary, and this year  marks the 50th anniversary of my ordination as a minister in the Presbyterian Church.  Caroline was ordained as a pastor in 1973 by Atlanta Presbytery, the 21st woman to be ordained as a pastor by the former Southern Presbyterian Church.  So, she is the senior pastor in our family.

I was ordained by Norfolk Presbytery (now Eastern Virginia Presbytery) as co-pastor with Caroline of St. Columba Presbyterian Church on Sunday afternoon, June 8 at St. Columba Church in Norfolk.  Caroline and I were the first clergy couple to serve in a local church in the former Southern Presbyterian Church (the Presbyterian denominations reunited in 1983 after the Southern church split off at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, so that it could support slavery).  We came to St. Columba from Atlanta, where I was finishing up seminary at Columbia, and Caroline was a campus minister at Georgia Tech.  Though no one had ever tried it in the Southern church, we wanted to try it, and we were young enough to still have that pioneering spirit.  St. Columba was a small missionary church, located in a private 1500 unit low income housing project, with many Navy families.  Norfolk Presbytery was funding the work, and we later received the Presbyterian Women’s Birthday Offering to put St. Columba Ministries on solid financial ground.  

I grew up in First Presbyterian Church in Helena, Arkansas, and though its members included wealthy planters, First Pres was largely a working-class Presbyterian church.  My mother was a dedicated church member, so we were at the church all the time, and I drank in the atmosphere of hearing that God loved me.  This was especially important to me because my father had abandoned my mother and me when I was an infant. It was especially important to hear that definition rather than feeling that I was defined as child abandoned by my father.  I loved the church, and it loved me, and because of that, many people in the church indicated that I would make a great minister.  

Though I loved talking about and thinking about God and religion, I resisted the idea of becoming a minister for a long time.  Part of my resistance came from my sense of not being worthy, of not being good enough.  Ministers lead public lives, and I had enough internal impulses and feelings that made me feel that I could never live up to the call.  Second, southern white culture sought to emasculate most male ministers, so that the liberating power of the Gospel would be mitigated as much as possible.  How could white people who were Christians hold people in slavery and in neo-slavery?  By splitting out the Gospel from justice issues – God only cared about what happened to people when they died.  Though I could not articulate this as a teenage boy, I intuited this idea that I would have to give up some of my humanity and my masculinity and my passion if I were to become a minister.

The Reverend Harold Jackson was my pastor in my teenage years, and he helped to mitigate some of my resistance to becoming a minister.  He was fully a man; he was a passionate and good preacher; and he believed in weaving the Gospel with life in the world.  In 1963, he led my youth group in a staged reading of the play “A Cup of Trembling,” about the life and death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  It only occurred to me later that in that same spring of 1963, MLK was leading the Birmingham campaign.  I am certain that Harold had this revolution in mind as he led us in the reading and discussion of this play.  He was helping us to see the necessity of living the Gospel faith out in the world, that God cared about not only what happened to us when we died, but what happened to us when we were living as well.

After college, I went to Vanderbilt Divinity School with the intention of getting a PhD in philosophy and religion, but mainly I wanted to be near my fiancé, who was still a student at Rhodes College.  While at Vandy, I met Ed Loring, who was getting his PhD in American church history, and he was an ordained Presbyterian minister.  He was articulate, manly, intelligent, and he was passionate about the need to weave the Gospel message in with the life of the world.  He encouraged me to move towards ordination, and so I did.  

I have served three Presbyterian churches as pastor:  St. Columba in Norfolk; Second in Nashville, and our long pastorate at Oakhurst Presbyterian in Decatur.  I discovered that I loved to preach and that I loved to be a pastor to people – to hear their faith stories and struggles, to help them hear about God’s love, as I was helped to hear about God’s love.  It is a sacred walk to be invited by people into their deepest journeys and feelings, and it has been a great privilege to do so.  And the preaching!  I preached yesterday at North Decatur Presbyterian Church on Pentecost Sunday, and I loved putting together the sermon which noted how afraid the first disciples were and how afraid we are in these crazy days.  

Though I did not want to become a pastor, I have leaned in to in a way that has astonished me and has enriched me in ways that I could not have imagined.  And, I have been privileged to walk in this space as a pastor.  These fifty years have not gone by quickly, but in many ways, it seems just the twinkling of an eye since that Sunday afternoon when I said “yes” fifty years ago in Norfolk.  I give thanks to God, to Caroline, to my mother, and to all those who have nurtured me along this way.