SETTING THE WHITE MAN FREE: THOUGHTS ON A LIFETIME OF LIBERATION WORK"

“SETTING THE WHITE MAN FREE: THOUGHTS ON A LIFETIME OF LIBERATION WORK”

Caroline and I have been up in Cloudland Canyon this weekend doing a wedding there, and my long-time friend David Billings kindly consented to write this week’s blog.   If you have not yet read his 2016 book “Deep Denial,” please get it somewhere and read it – it is one of the best books on the continuing power of racism and the white denial of it.  His blog is below.

Title: Setting The White Man Free: Thoughts on a Lifetime of Liberation Work by David Billings,  Author of Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life (2016)

When Nibs asked me to write something for his blog, my first thought was "Do I write something from our shared childhood or something about the current state

of things in our nation?"  "How about both?"

Nibs is undoubtedly, in my mind, one of the great theologians of our day or any day for that matter. This is in spite of his not being as well-known as he should be and amid the rapid secularization in the society. At least among predominantly well-educated, middle class white and black people, Oakhurst is now an oasis for persons across the many national divides, not all of whom are Christians.

Nibs Stroupe has been an outstanding pastor along with his co-pastor, the Rev. Caroline Leach for close to 40 years, until they retired -- three years ago for Caroline and last year for Nibs. They led Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Ga. for nearly four decades and modeled for the 21st century what a church committed to tearing down the walls of white supremacy and white male dominance looks like.  Oakhurst was slated for extinction when they arrived in 1983; they bequeathed to the community new leadership a healthy and vibrant congregation.

Why do I say Stroupe is one of the great theologians of our day? Because in our race-constructed nation where everything is about race and everything is impacted by race, Stroupe always brings it up. He doesn't just speak about race and racism when that is his subject, but he speaks to race because in our nation nothing is race-neutral. There are racial dynamics in every happenstance of life, public and personal. His ability to see and name how racism pervades our everyday events, activities, and thoughts is rare. There are a growing number of white people who are striving to understand white supremacy, but few of us name racism if it is not our subject or focus. But Stroupe does and that makes him unique, certainly among white Christian pastors.

Nibs is also relentless in calling out sexism and misogyny. Heavily influenced and tutored by Caroline Leach in this, he is again intent on bringing it up even when society is loathe to do so.

It is this twin approach to liberation ministry that recently led the two to be recognized by the Presbyterian Church, USA with their Human Rights Award for their Lifetime service to the church.

What their ministry teaches us is when we emulate people like Nibs and Caroline, and when we identify the everyday racism and misogyny all around us, we will be ready to transform ourselves, our churches and the other institutions to which we give our allegiance. 

But, I mentioned in my opening paragraph that Nibs and I grew up together.  We lived in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, in Helena, Arkansas. We both pursued a ministry that focused on a Christ-centered, anti-racist theology and methodology. Both of us preached liberation, understanding the complicity of the church in others' oppression and our role in it. Nibs and I -- full of hubris, but also passion -- sought redemption through scripture.  That led us to action that was about breaking the taboos of race and gender we were brought up with and nurtured by. We didn't always succeed in this, but we persevered nonetheless.

When we were entering our teens, Nibs and I thought of ourselves as budding theologians. We went to our local pastors asking them to tell us when did Jesus first realized that he was destined to be the Messiah. (I mentioned hubris, didn't I?). They suggested we should pursue more normal teenage interests such as baseball or comic books. Instead, we rowed out onto Moon Lake (between Helena and the Mississippi River) to continue our quest on determining the “Messianic Consciousness of Jesus.”  I don’t think that we ever answered that one!

A short time later, Nibs introduced me to the concept of "house church" and invited me to join him at a meeting of laity (Episcopalian in this instance) who were discussing The Late Liz, a book about the conversion of a former prostitute now turned Christian. In one of these share groups, I offered my definition of  "grace." The next week, I learned that when Nibs' mother, Mary Stroupe, heard someone quote my definition in her beauty salon, she burst out laughing.  Mrs. Stroupe did not suffer fools.  Her response provoked a mini-crisis of faith in both of us. I can still hear her laugh.

I could tell more. I like to think these adventures led Nibs to be the person he is today.  I also hope someone out there writes his story and gives him his due. Maybe a history that gives Caroline and Nibs their deserved place in our history.

"DAYS OF MY LIFE"

“THE DAYS OF MY LIFE”

            Last week I wrote brief synopses of what Caroline and Fahed Abu-Akel shared of their journeys at the Church Women United Luncheon where we all were honored with their Human Rights Award on September 8.  I noted that their perspective came from those who are oppressed – Caroline as a woman, Fahed as an Arab Christian.  Today I’ll share part of what I shared of my story at the CWU Luncheon.  I come from the perspective of the white male, of the oppressor.  While they had neighbors and interventionists help them recognize their captivity to internalized oppression, God sent similar folks to me to help me recognize my internalized superiority.  This is some of what I shared.

            I grew up in the white, segregated South – segregated schools, segregated churches, segregated everything.  I was taught the love and grace of God by wonderful white people, including my spectacular mom, who raised me as a single, working, poor mother.  All of these white people also taught me captivity to what the Bible calls “the Powers,” systemic things like racism and sexism and materialism and homophobia and militarism.  [At this point, I got many more “Amens” from the mostly black women CWU gathering than I wanted!!!}  I believed that white people were superior, that men should dominate women, that money brings life, that LGBTQ people were not human like me, and that redemptive violence brought peace.  They taught me well – it wasn’t that I believed in equality and was in rebellion – I believed that white supremacy was true, was God’s will.

            Fortunately for me, I was blessed to have God send people to be neighbors to me, to intervene in my life and to reveal my captivity to me, so that I could begin to see this whole new world that God is calling into being.  There are too many of those people to name, but some of them are in this room today, and I thank you!

            It reminds me of the passage in Matt 15:21-28, where Jesus encounters a Palestinian woman.  Now, I’m no Jesus, but I understand this story very well.  Jesus is tired, and he’s a Jewish man, and this Palestinian woman is not in his circle.  But she bugs him and begs him to heal her daughter.  But, Jesus ends up calling her a dog and telling her that she is not worthy of being with the Jews.  She then stuns Jesus by saying: “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table.”  She reminds Jesus that she’s in the house!  Though Jesus doesn’t think so, she BELONGS to the household of God.

            God sent this woman as neighbor to Jesus, to let him know that his mission was deeper and wider than even He thought it was – AND, it worked!  By the end of Matthew’s Gospel, when the Resurrected Jesus sends out his disciples before he leaves, he doesn’t tell them to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Rather, he tells them to go to everybody, to go to the entire world to proclaim this widening, inclusive, justice-seeking, love-bearing Beloved Community of God.

            And that’s how it works – we’re asked to be neighbors and interventionists with one another.  AND to listen when God sends neighbors to intervene in our lives.  To speak up and act up for justice, to seek equity and equality, and to remain humble in our approach, because we all have captivity to the powers in us – there are no exceptions.  We need people to intervene in our lives.

            I thank Church Women United for being some of those neighbors, some of those interventionists, for your continuing witness over these years.  I thank all of the neighbors God has sent to intervene in my life and who God will continue to send.  We are called to share with one another, bear with one another, love one another, challenge one another, support one another – that’s who we are, and that’s what brings us together today.  Thank you!

            So, let us reflect on this need for neighbors and interventionists in our lives.  Let us give thanks for our journeys and for those who have nurtured in us the idea that we are children of God, rather than children of the Powers of the world.  And let us resolve to be witnesses to one another in that way.  Speaking of that kind of witness, here’s a reminder of how the Powers work when we are not able to do what we need to do as neighbors and interventionists.  This past Saturday, September 15, was the 55^th anniversary of Birmingham Sunday, when white men planted dynamite in Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and when it exploded, 4 little girls going to Sunday school were killed.  Rhiannon Giddens has a great cover of the song that Richard Farina wrote about that killing, and here’s the link to it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_T5KlTpvoM&feature=youtu.be

"THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES"

“THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES”

            Caroline and I were blessed to join former PCUSA Moderator, the Reverend Fahed Abu-Akel,  as recipients of the Atlanta Church Women United’s Human Rights Award for 2018.  The luncheon was Saturday, and we were graced to see old friends and witnesses, especially a great turnout from Oakhurst Presbyterian Church.  We were asked to reflect on our life’s journey and on the people who had brought us to this place – all in 5 minutes!  An impossible task, obviously, but it was a time to think about all of those people who had brought us to where we are today.  For that opportunity, we were all grateful.

            We three came at the task from different perspectives.  Fahed and Caroline came from the perspective of those who experienced oppression and injustice in many forms.  Their reflections named those people who had helped them move away from the definitions of internalized oppression and towards the definition that they were children of God.  My reflections came from the perspective of the oppressor, the white male, and my stories named people who had intervened in my life, who had helped me by being neighbors to me, who had challenged me and deepened me.  These neighbors helped me to hear that my internalized oppression of superiority was harmful to me and to others.  I’ll share more of my journey on that in the next blog.  Today, I want to share Fahed’s and Caroline’s perspectives and encourage us all to think about our own journeys and about the witnesses in our lives.

            Both of their stories are always powerful.  Fahed was a young boy, living in his Palestinian, Christian home in 1948 when the “Nakba” struck, when Israel, backed by Western allies, forced over 700,000 Palestinians to abandon their homes and their lands so that Israel could establish itself as a nation after the Holocaust of World War II.  The 70^th anniversary of al-Nakba, the Arab word for “catastrophe,” was May 15 of this year.  Fahed and his family were among those forced to leave and  to live a marginalized existence in a mountain refugee camp, with no compensation for their home or their land.  Eventually he made it to the USA as a young adult, and through the generosity of many people, he went to college and then to Columbia Seminary.  All through that time, he astonished people when they discovered that he was Christian, not Muslim.  He was elected as the first Arab-American Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 2002.  He recalled being part of the program for the annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Celebration in the next year, and he was introduced as a Muslim minister.  With his Arabic name, no one could believe that he was Christian.  He reminded us all of the powerful witnesses in his life, including his mother, who helped him to hear that while the West told him that he was a Muslim terrorist, his definition was much deeper and broader – he is a child of God.  He continues to speak out against the injustice of Israel and the West toward his Palestinian people.

            Caroline was the 21^st woman ordained to the pastoral ministry in the former southern Presbyterian church.  She shared her journey of the obstacles that she had faced and of those who helped her to hear that her primary definition was not property of men but rather daughter of God.  She grew up in Central Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, where her mother had grown up.  She and her family were faithful and loyal members, and Caroline did so many duties in the church.  When she decided to go to seminary and went to the church board (known as The Session in the Presbyterian Church) to receive their blessing as a seminary student, they turned her down because they did not believe that women should be ministers.   She joined another “Central” Church, this one in Atlanta under the leadership of Randy Taylor, and they welcomed her as a candidate for the ministry with open arms.  When she arrived at Columbia Seminary as one of five women students, many male students met her and read passages from the Bible, telling her that she could not become a pastor.  When she graduated from seminary, no churches would consider calling her as a pastor, but she gave thanks that Woody McKay called her as associate campus minister at Georgia Tech.  So many obstacles, but so many women and men who helped her get over those obstacles!

            Our perspective obviously makes a difference –next week I’ll look a bit at mine as white male.  For now, be thinking about your journey, about whether you have internalized superiority or have internalized inferiority.  And, be remembering and giving thanks for all those who helped you (and continue to help you) find your true self.

"THE ERA!!!"

“THE ERA!!!”

            Caroline, Susan, and I visited DC last week as part of our Baltimore/Shenandoah Valley/DC tour, which ended with Caroline and I doing a dialogue sermon on the Palestinian woman challenging Jesus in Matthew 15:21-28.  In our sermon we had referred to her as a Gentile woman (see my previous blog), and I am grateful for my long-time friend Ed Loring offering the suggestion to see her as Palestinian in these days, which she was.

            Though I have grown cynical and jaded in my old age (especially in these days of the Trumpster), I still do get a thrill by being on the Mall in DC.  Although we are so far short of the central idea of “equality” that is part of the heart of the American experiment, I still have some hope in the possibilities.  I have this hope because so many people, who were intended by the framers to be shut out of the circle of equality, have heard their names called and have responded, refusing to be defined by the white male heritage that continues to seek to shut them out.

            One of those places of equality, just off the Mall in DC, is the Belmont-Paul National Women’s Monument.  It is actually a house which commemorates and notes the work of the women and men who enabled the 19^th Amendment to pass in 1920.  Yesterday was the 98^th anniversary of the adoption of that amendment, and we give thanks for a legion of women who led the way.  It started almost from the European beginnings of this nation, and it was kick-started by the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.  We had the blessing of visiting Seneca Falls in 2009, while Susan was living in Westfield, NY.  From Lucretia Mott to Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony to Alice Paul to Ida Wells to Carrie Catt to Mary Church Terrell and many others, the Belmont-Paul house is a story of perseverance, ingenuity, and endurance in seeking to expand the idea of equality to include more than propertied white men.

            We were also reminded at the Belmont-Paul house that we are now just one state short of ratifying the ERA.  I thought that was over and done with (and defeated), but most scholars believe that, with Nevada and Illinois recently ratifying the ERA, there is just one state left.  Thirteen states have yet to ratify, and to no one’s surprise, nine of those states are in the old Confederate States of America (only Tennessee has ratified it out of the Confederacy, and they later rescinded it, but that doesn’t seem to count!)  The other four are Missouri (a slave state), Oklahoma, Utah and Arizona.  Of the states left to ratify the ERA, 77% of them held slaves, and it doesn’t take a Rhodes scholar to see the intersection between holding people as slaves and oppressing women.   So, if you are like me and live in non-ratifying state, let’s get to work!  We hope that Stacey Abrams will be elected governor of Georgia, and that will be a help to many things, including the ratification of the ERA. 

            There were other signs of hope for us in these difficult days.  One was our visit with my “adoptive” father Gay Wilmore in DC. He will be 97 in December, and  he was sharp in our visit.  He was remembering many of the struggles to break the hold of neo-slavery in the old Confederacy and to obtain the right to vote for those of African descent in the USA.   That right is always under peril, as we saw last week in the attempt to close polling places in majority-black Randolph County in my state of Georgia.  We white men see the demographics coming, and we are taking measures to blunt them, with all kinds of schemes to limit the voting power of people of color.  We talked with Gay about that, and it was good to hear him urge us to work and stay strong, even in and especially these days where we have a President who wants to be king. 

            It’s on us now, and I’ll share more of our tour from the National Postal Museum to the National Portrait Gallery to the Museum of the American Indian to Charles Town but for now, be certain that you are registered to vote and that your friends, colleagues and neighbors do the same.  These monuments remind us of how difficult it is to break into the circle of equality and of how many white men are working to kick so many people out of that circle.  Let our lives be a litany of widening the circle, not shrinking it.

"SCARIER THAN THE WALKING DEAD: JESUS AS A HUMAN BEING!"

“SCARIER THAN THE WALKING DEAD:  JESUS AS A HUMAN BEING!”

            Those of us in the church spend a lot of energy seeking to deny the reality and the importance of the life of Jesus.  The idea of Jesus being a real, live human being frightens us deeply.  We prefer the Crucified and even the Resurrected Jesus to the living Jesus.  To paraphrase Clarence Jordan, one of the principal founders of Koinonia Community in south Georgia, we have thoroughly de-humanized Jesus.  In so doing we have done a much better job of getting rid of him and his message than the Crucifixion did. 

            There are two main reasons for our dismissing the humanity and the ministry of Jesus.  First, if the importance of Jesus is to be found in his Crucifixion and Resurrection, then we don’t have to worry about the ministry of his life or about his teachings and message.  Most especially we don’t have to worry about our lives and our actions.  It is the reason that attorney general Jeff Sessions, while claiming to be a Christian, could order the kidnapping of children from their parents.  He quoted the Bible on this, but he did not quote Jesus, because he could not justify his actions if he looked at the life and ministry of Jesus.  It is the reason that people can exploit others for greed while claiming to be Christians.  It is the reason that people claiming to be Christians could hold other people as slaves.  We so prefer that Jesus be the walking dead rather than being the walking live.  

            There is a second reason that we prefer to diminish or even deny the humanity of Jesus.   We don’t want Jesus to be a human being like us – we don’t want to believe in the idea of the incarnation, the idea that God and humanity are fused in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  We will go to just about any depth to prevent our having to consider that Jesus was a human being like us.  Caroline and I are doing a dialogue sermon this Sunday at Susan’s church in Baltimore, and we are using Matthew 15:21-28, where Jesus learns something about being a neighbor from a Gentile woman.  In this story, Jesus calls this woman a dog (wasn’t that image used again this week in the White House?).   This Gentile woman refuses to yield to this image, and in her engagement with Jesus, he learns more about her humanity and about his own.  When he begins the dialogue with her, he tells her that he can’t help her because he was sent only to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  But, she teaches him that they are neighbors, and that they belong in the same house.  By the end of the gospel of Matthew, he sends his disciples out, telling them to go to all people, not just to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I’d like to think that he learned this from the Gentile woman.

            When I preached on this passage at a Presbytery meeting in 1998, one church Session charged me with heresy because I indicated that Jesus was a human being by participating in the cultural prejudices that he received as a child.  There was shock and a big outcry over the idea that Jesus might really be a human being.   The heresy charge did not go very far because it became clear that those attacking me were actually committing heresy themselves by saying that Jesus had no humanity, that he was never prejudiced. 

            Who cares about all this theological turnings?  Those who are oppressed and dominated and marginalized – they care.  They care because the life and ministry of Jesus took him to the margins and indicated that God has a preference for those who are oppressed and exploited.   It’s why folk often talk about the black Jesus, using the term that indicates in American culture that Jesus was black.   “Blackness” here doesn’t refer to his skin color but rather to his economic status.  He was marginalized and oppressed, and his life and ministry were based there.  This theme runs all through his life – born out of wedlock on the streets, chased by government soldiers to be executed, fleeing as a refugee to Egypt (we’re glad that Sessions was not in power then), having no income, associating with people at the margins, challenging rich people to stop worshipping their money, and finally executed as a revolutionary.  Taking these themes seriously in our individual and communal lives would radically change everything, and it is why the living, human being Jesus scares the daylights out of us – we prefer him as the walking dead.

"DID JESUS REALLY LIVE?"

“DID JESUS REALLY LIVE?”

            For centuries, scholars have debated whether Jesus of Nazareth really lived.  There are very few sources outside the Biblical and extra-Biblical books that even name Jesus.  Some claim that the followers who lifted up his life and name actually made him up.  We can imagine that process happening in the internet world, but it seems highly unlikely in the pre-literate world.  Also, it seems unlikely that those who gave their lives for his name would have done so for a human creation.  So, it seems clear that Jesus of Nazareth lived and fired and inspired people with a vision of what it means to live in the vision of the Beloved Community of God.   There is much debate over the historical nature of his life and the “historical” truth of the Gospel accounts of his life and ministry.   Yet, the power of his life and ministry seem evident.

            The bigger threat to the meaning of the life and ministry of Jesus has not been the secular scholars but rather the theological tradition of the church, which has largely denied the meaning of the life and ministry of Jesus.  We have tended to emphasize the Crucifixion and the Resurrection over the life and ministry of Jesus.  Indeed, we have tended to emphasize the Cross over everything.  I have always been intrigued that the central symbol that church buildings emphasize to the world is not an empty tomb or a bowl for feeding the hungry, but rather the Cross, the Roman symbol for the death penalty.  Part of that emphasis is that the Cross turns that symbol upside down;  part of it is that the suffering of God in the Cross creates a solidarity with all those who are marginalized and oppressed and executed by the inhuman worldly systems.  Part of it is that the Roman Emperor Constantine melded the sword and the Cross into the symbol of the church. 

            The biggest theological reason for emphasizing the Cross and Resurrection is that it enables us to minimize the importance of human life and human history.   The Cross and Resurrection become guarantors of life after death, and that guarantee becomes the meaning of our lives.  The importance of human life becomes negligible if the meaning of life is to get into heaven when we die.  It is what enabled people who held other people as slaves to believe that we were following God’s will.  It is what enabled Jeff Sessions and so many other white, evangelical Christians to design and approve of the policy that separated children from their families at the borders.  It is what enables us to waste so much food while 20,000+ children die every day of starvation and malnutrition.  If the life and ministry of Jesus are not particularly important, then neither is human life and human history – it is all just part of the grand parade to the Second Coming, when the REAL Jesus will show up, the one brandishing the sword to destroy the evildoers.

            Part of the source of this issue is Paul’s letters, in which he rarely ever refers to the life and ministry of Jesus.  A larger part of it, however, is the continuing difficulties of the human heart – we want to have divine blessing for our inhumane ways and institutions.  So, in this week when we shudder to remember that we dropped two bombs in Japan in 1945 that killed over 100,000 people in an instant and many thousands more in a short amount of time, let us remember this cheapening of human life and its consequences. 

            And, let us work on seeking to recover the life and ministry of Jesus.  His life and ministry fired people up and gave them a new vision of what it meant to be alive.  Some of them left their jobs and sought to live in this new vision.  Some of the others shared what they had with others in need.  Some refused to believe in redemptive violence.  All began to hear that the center of life was not Rome or even the Temple but rather the God who was calling them into new vision in the life and ministry of Jesus.  Jesus was no educated seminary preacher, and he was not a member of the Roman Senate or even a Roman citizen.  He was a worker, and he was at the margins of life, oppressed by the Roman empire.  His life and ministry were not designed to help people get along in life, but rather a way to find life in the midst of violence, domination, and death.  As our friend Dr. Brian Wren once put it in one of his songs that he wrote for Oakhurst, “Jesus came to live!”  Let us find that life also!

"150 YEARS OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT"

“150 YEARS OF THE 14^TH AMENDMENT”

            I’m sending out my weekly blog a couple of days early because today is the 150^th anniversary of the adoption of the 14^th amendment to the Constitution.  It was ratified on July 9, 1868, and on July 29, Secretary of State William Seward declared that it was officially ratified and now part of the Constitution. 

            This amendment is one of the most litigated of the parts of the Constitution because it did four important things.  First, it established the right of citizens to due process in relationship to the government.  Second, it provided equal protection to all citizens.  Third, it established the idea of “birthright” of citizenship – if you are born “here” in USA or our territories, you are automatically an American citizen.  Fourth, it indicated for the first time that state and local governments were subject to these three steps. 

            This 14^th Amendment has had a difficult time in American history.    Even while it was being ratified, white Southerners were working to undercut it, and indeed we did undercut it through a reign of terror and legislative manipulation.  It would take almost 100 years before it would gain even a minimal force of law through the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Acts of 1964-65.   In a terrible but not surprising decision in 2013, the US Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act by taking out its “special” enforcement status for those states whose history indicated an unwillingness to adhere to the 14^th Amendment.  It should be no surprise that decision (Shelby v. U.S.) came out of the state of Alabama, a state as Martin Luther King, Jr., said in his 1963 speech: “with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification.”

            This struggle over the 14^th Amendment is so great because, in many ways, it is the crux on which American history and indeed the idea of constitutional government hinges – it always seems to be hanging in the balance.  Do we believe in the idea of equality or not?  Our history says “no,” for the most part, but the 14^th Amendment is among our better angels, urging us to say “yes.”  Many of our leaders have understood the importance and the meaning of this Amendment.  Thurgood Marshall was one who understood it, and he put it this way in his Bicentenial speech in 1987:  “While the Union survived the Civil War, the Constitution did not.  In its place arose a new, more promising basis for justice and equality, the 14^th Amendment….guaranteeing equal protection of the laws.”

            Marshall correctly understood that the intent of the Constitution in its beginning was to keep power in the hands of white men of property, and so there was no mention of the full humanity of women or of people of African descent or Native Americans.  Yet, the idea of equality was so powerful and so electric, that the white men of property could not confine it to themselves.  Women heard their names called.  African-Americans heard their names called.  Native Americans heard their names called.  Latinx Americans heard their names called.  Asian-Americans heard their names called.  Poor people heard their names called.  LGBTQ people heard their names called.  The power of the 14^th Amendment is to speak to all of us:  the power of the idea of equality is calling to us all.  That is one of the great things that we should remember as we celebrate this powerful amendment to the Constitution.

            It is not just progressives who have understood the meaning of this 14^th Amendment.  Regressives have understood it too.  That’s why the fight over the 14^th Amendment continues.  Those who speak of being “originalists” over the authority of the Constitution are seeking to take us back to the days of the origins of the Constitution, when white men of property were seen as those entitled to power.   There is a lot of talk these days about the changing demographics in America, with young people and people of color becoming the majority in the USA sooner than many of us realize.   Some progressives have hopes in this demographic change, and I have hopes too.  Yet, we should realize that old white men (and women, it seems, since the majority of them voted for Trump) will not yield this power easily, if we yield it at all.  Limits on voting rights, purging voter rolls, overt gerrymandering – all designed to take us back to the original Constitution.  And, now the Supreme Court seems to taking a hard turn towards this regressive status, so perhaps a Dred Scott decision or a Plessy decision awaits us in the near future.

            So, let us give thanks for those who worked so hard for this amendment and others to follow.  Take time this week to read the 14^th Amendment – our very lives as a nation may depend on our ability to believe and to live it.  Then, while you still can, make sure that you are registered to vote and that all your friends, neighbors and colleagues are registered to vote – these November elections will tell us if we are moving with the 14^th Amendment or against it.