Become A Good Ancestor with Layla Saad
Ep002: This Here Flesh with Cole Arthur Riley

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Featured Curator: Courtney Napier

Courtney Napier is a writer, journalist, gatherer, and liberation coach from Raleigh, North Carolina. She has written for national outlets like NewsOne and The Appeal, as well as regional and local publications such as Scalawag Magazine, WALTER Magazine, The Carolinian, and INDY Week. She is also the founder of Black Oak Society, a collective of Black creatives in the greater Raleigh area. Their flagship publication, BOS Magazine, is a literary magazine focused on giving Black Raleigh her flowers now. Finally, Courtney has coached individuals and organizations as they seek to lead and live in a way that undermines white supremacy and honors the humanity of all people. She loves to love her spouse, David, of ten years, and her two little humans who are endless hilarious meme reels.

“It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”
By Andre Henry

Bless up di whole a di people dem weh seek truth and justice
hope’ and power wi a deal wit
Fi mashup Babylon system
Dem cya’ conquer wi
Yuh done know

Five hundred sneakers stomp on the pavement
All of their fists clenched tight in the air
Cardboard and banners wavin’
Hear the sirens wailin’
Five hundred voices shouting for change
Sayin’

If all lives to matter to us
Tell me why some
Sleep on the street at night
If all lives to matter
Why do the bombs fly (Why?)
If everyone has their worth
And love is what we deserve
Why do they keep their knee on our necks?
All I gotta’ say is…

It doesn’t have to be this way
it doesn’t have to be (No)
It doesn’t have to be (No, no)
I know! We have the power to change it
It doesn’t have to be (No)
Doesn’t have to be (No)

We are like gods and don’t even know it
Whatever we do becomes history
They may have the guns but we got the poets
The future will be whatever we sing

And we refuse to accept
Whatever’s left after the 1% eats
Di worl’ belong to wi
As much as anyone else
Everyone has their worth
And love is what we deserve
You bout to get your knee off my neck
All I gotta’ say is…

It doesn’t have to be this way
it doesn’t have to be (No)
It doesn’t have to be (No, no)
I know! We have the power to change it
It doesn’t have to be (No)
Doesn’t have to be (No)

from It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way (Deluxe Single), released June 19, 2021
Lyrics, Track, and Production by Andre Henry
Mixed by Ryan Lipman
Mastered by Pete Lyman
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Undersong: To be free from unhelpful conclusions and verdicts

Zen Shorts
by Jon Muth
Excerpt: The Farmer’s Luck

There was once an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day, his horse ran away. “Such bad luck!” his neighbors said. “Maybe,” replied the farmer. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it two other wild horses. “Such good luck!” his neighbors said. “Maybe,” replied the farmer. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the wild horses, was thrown off, and broke his leg. “Such bad luck!” his neighbors said. “Maybe,” replied the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army to fight in a war. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. “Such good luck!” his neighbors said. “Maybe,” replied the farmer.

Really Becoming America
By North Carolina Black Alliance staff

A NATION ON THE VERGE OF BECOMING

Increased attacks on voting rights, ramped up gerrymandering, the January 6th insurrection, and the endless stream of videos of unarmed Black and Brown men and women killed in unjustified police shootings make us question who and what America is.

A common sentiment is that these assaults are merely an unmasking of the systemic racism and oppression that has always existed beneath our nation’s surface.

The North Carolina Black Alliance views these upheavals not simply as the unmasking of the real America, but as yet another cycle in the struggle that has existed since the genesis of the movement for Black freedom and equality. It is the struggle to determine whether our nation will be one that is inclusive with the same rights applied to all its people, or one that is exclusionary with a privileged group having all the rights, and others tiered below.

This battle to determine our nation’s character is evident in that historically every advance that African Americans have made in the fight towards full and equal representation in the land of our birth, has been followed by a well-orchestrated and virulent rebuke of that advance.

The current Congress’ failure to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (JLVRAA) and the Freedom to Vote Act (FVA) is the latest iteration in that struggle.

The JLVRAA would undo the gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that occurred under the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Decision. That decision removed key voting rights protections applied to seven southern states with a history of voting rights discrimination.

As a result of the Shelby Decision, according to And Still I Vote, “As of July 22, 2021, state lawmakers have introduced more than 400 bills and enacted 30 laws that create barriers to voters’ freedom to vote in 48 states.”

The Freedom to Vote Act would legislate even further voting rights protections. It would: make Election Day a national holiday; allow all states to have early voting for two weeks before Election Day, including nights and weekends; allow ‘No Excuses needed’ voting by mail, and same day voter registration; and outlaw partisan gerrymandering.

A VICIOUS CYCLE

The protections afforded by both measures are what one would expect in a democracy. Failure to pass them reinforces the belief that our nation will never advance beyond its legacy of slavery, inequity, and discrimination. The cumulative weight of these obstructions is disheartening, but the North Carolina Black Alliance is mindful of the fact that the wave of white nationalism sweeping the country, and the efforts to dismantle voting rights, like previous discriminatory measures, can, and will be, defeated.

For before the current proposed voting rights legislations and the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act there was the 15th Amendment of 1870 that gave African American men the right to vote—though very few were able to exercise it given the racism of the times—and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that prohibited discrimination in public places. (Women did not yet have the vote.)

These laws—passed during a brief period (1865-1877) following slavery when African Americans were afforded some measure of protection under federal law—were soon subject to a forceful pushback. For just as African Americans began to make inroads 
into American society a wave of Jim Crow laws swept the country, with the rapid implementation of practices designed to intimidate and prevent them from exercising their rights as citizens.

Laws like the October 1883 U.S. Supreme Court ruling decreed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, while 1896’s Plessy versus Ferguson established the practice of ‘Separate but Equal.”

These Jim Crow-isms would continue their surge well into the 1960s and the birth of the Civil Rights movement. And with their growth, so too did the Civil Rights Movement become more vocal, and its use of mass protest more visible. (Jim Crow was a racial slur applied to Blacks and its laws segregated Blacks from Whites. The Jim Crow period lasted from 1877-1968.)

CIVIL RIGHTS & THE 1960s

The Sixties produced landmark civil rights legislation—namely the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1964, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act (FHA) of 1968—but it is also responsible for mass agitation on a scale previously unseen, and some of the bloodiest moments in America. The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers in 1963; the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four young African American girls; the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom in New York; and the 1968 assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, some two months apart, mark this period.

The CRA outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; the VRA expanded the voting rights protections of the 15th Amendment and prohibited racially discriminatory voting practices like the poll tax and literacy tests; and the FHA made it “unlawful to refuse to sell, rent, or negotiate with any person because of that person’s background.”

These acts opened the doors of equality, but their passage was preceded by massive nonviolent social protest, including marches, sit-ins, and boycotts. The protests were in turn met by violent Jim Crow terror tactics bent on subjugating African Americans.

MASS AGITATION AND RESULTS

What has linked every civil right gain through the years, and enabled us to overcome racist practices and discrimination, has been strategic, organized movement led by African Americans and formed through collaborations of community activists, interdenominational faith leaders, and ordinary Americans of every race and background. This extends from the early Civil Rights Movement with Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and the Abolitionists, to Dr. King, Fannie Lou Hamer, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

BLACK LIVES MATTER

The most recent example of this is in the impact of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement on building global awareness of police brutality against Black and Brown people and the disparate treatment accorded White Americans and People of Color.

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rashard Brooks, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Walter Scott, Jordan Edwards, Botham Jean, Adam Toledo, Daunte Wright.

These names form a tapestry of death and would register as anonymous individuals had it not been for the Black Lives Matter Movement creating massive social protests demanding police accountability.

BLM engaged individuals of all races, genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds. As television had broadcast the attack dogs, fire hoses, and baton wielding police to the world during the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties, so BLM used social media and images from cell phone videos and police cams to highlight the reality of Black lives.

The result? More police officers have been held accountable for the shooting and killing of unarmed individuals of color

THE NORTH CAROLINA BLACK ALLIANCE

The North Carolina Black Alliance is grounded in this history. We recognize that the cycle of progress and regress has been here for as long as the fight for African American equality has existed. We know, too, that the barriers to justice can be overcome with the strategic organization of resources, partnerships, and community.

Our Alliance was formed 22 years ago by a coalition of Black state legislators, county commissioners, school board members, and municipal elected officials working to address inequity and injustice and empower communities of color. Our mission is to create systemic change by strengthening the network of elected officials representing communities of color throughout the state and collaborating with progressive, grassroot networks on intersecting issues. These issues include voting rights, gerrymandering, criminal justice reform, environmental justice, health and wellness, economic development, and education.

Led by Executive Director Courtney Crowder, NCBA exists to combat systemic violence against communities of color, whether that violence takes the form of police brutality, the suppression of voting rights, or the disproportionate location of environmentally hazardous facilities in low-income areas and communities of color. Advance North Carolina, led by Executive Director Marcus Bass, is our voter education and mobilization arm.

OUR PRIORITIES RIGHT NOW

COVID-19 – A PERFECT STORM OF OPPRESSION:

COVID-19 laid bare the deep inequities in our nation. Early on the pandemic revealed the glaring disparities in healthcare, education, wages, and access to technology. Black and Brown people got sicker and died at higher rates than our White neighbors. More children of color lacked access to the internet, high speed connections, and other educational supports; and individuals of color were over-represented in high-exposure service industry jobs, more prone to getting ill, and more likely to suffer income and employment losses. It is what we refer to as a perfect storm of oppression.

Gen Z:

Young Advance North Carolina members staying safe with COVID-19 masks while getting our the vote in 2020.
Since March 2020, NCBA has taken proactive steps to educate our community about vaccine safety, testing locations, and overall safety measures aimed at stopping the spread of the virus.
COVID-19 has shown that we cannot afford any more losses of our political power. In real world terms, lack of representation leaves us defenseless, making us the last to get access to vaccinations, proper healthcare, sufficient doctors, and hospital beds.

RACIAL GERRYMANDERING AND THE ELIMINATION OF BLACK DISTRICTS

Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled the latest congressional maps unconstitutional. The ruling required the state legislature to redraw and submit new maps by February 18th, 2022. NCBA has been active in calling for a redrawing and will continue to work with our partners to ensure that the final maps are truly representative of North Carolina’s Black and Brown communities.

Analysis has shown that the maps were racially gerrymandered to eliminate retiring Rep. G.K. Butterfield’s district and dilute the voting power of North Carolina’s Black and Brown communities. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, using the discredited map Republicans could have captured 11 of the 14 existing seats, leaving Democrats with only three. Republicans currently have 8 seats to Democrats 5.

A January 2022 report by the Center, titled Redistricting: A Mid-Cycle Assessment, found that “The map, moreover, achieves its partisan skew with a shocking targeting of Black political power, making the seat of one of the two Black members of the state’s congressional delegation much less likely to elect a minority-preferred candidate. As a result, a state that is one-fifth Black could have only a single Black member of the U.S. House come next January.”

With the approaching mid-term election the stakes are extraordinarily high. An additional congressional district would create an opportunity to expand representation and combat the increasing threat posed by a Republican party that is ultra-conservative, racially motivated and committed to manipulating voting maps to obstruct the electoral power of a growing Black and Brown populous.

THE URGENCY OF THIS MOMENT

NCBA recognizes the urgent need in this moment to prevent the dismantling of Representative Butterfield’s district and protect Black and Brown political power.
We have answered this challenge. Through our Code Red Redistricting program, in addition to voter education, we are employing our resources to attack this threat from multiple angles, including providing our communities with PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for voting, encouraging absentee balloting, and assisting students at North Carolina’s ten Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to register and vote.

INJUSTICE IN OUR WATER

Environmental Justice is a priority issue for NCBA and earlier this month, joining with five other organizations, we resumed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requiring that more testing be done on the health effects of PFAs (Per -and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances) that have been dumped in the Cape Fear River for decades. The river provides drinking water to the homes of two hundred fifty thousand North Carolinians, many of them Black, Brown, and low-income, and there is concern about how they may have been affected. Environmental justice is fundamental to good health, the ability to work, and the capacity to learn and grow. Despite this we know that often our communities are exhausted from fighting too many battles individually. The cumulative weight of oppression is one of its most effective tools for preventing change. NCBA understands this. And it is why we know that the collective strength of our collaborations is where our community’s power lies. Working together with our partner networks we will continue the fight to protect our community and ensure it has clean water.

NCBA is on the ground in our communities 365 days a year. We know how they are being impacted. It is because of this that we utilize policy and activism to ensure the protection of fundamental rights, but we also help individuals access resources through our network of attorneys, elected officials, and community and faith leaders.

‘OTHERING’ – ‘AND AIN’T I AMERICAN?’

 “The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American 
voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”
 — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

Alleged lapses in speech and other attempts at ‘othering’ African Americans cannot separate us from our citizenship. Stigmatizing Mexican immigrants as rapists and Black and Brown skin as innately threatening does not erase the history of our contribution to building this country. Our blood, sweat and tears have been laid in the foundation of this nation. It traverses its railroads, highways, and interstates. Our labor created the industries that power this land. It is the price we have paid for full citizenship and inclusion

A WIN FOR ONE, A WIN FOR ALL

The advancement of equality and justice for Black and Brown people is not a zero-sum game. When communities of color advance, it does not mean that someone else loses. Throughout the history of the Civil Rights movement, legislation that has strengthened equal rights and fought discrimination in education, housing, employment, criminal justice, and healthcare, has benefitted all Americans.

Many of the issues confronting African Americans and other People of Color are economic and affect low-income White Americans as well. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to this commonality of interest shortly before his death during his planning for the Poor People’s Campaign. During sessions with the SCLC, he spoke of “the beginning of a new cooperation, understanding, and a determination by poor people of all colors and backgrounds to assert and win their right to a decent life and respect for their culture and dignity.” 

The efforts aimed at cementing racial animus and furthering divisions among Black, Brown, and White Americans are calculated to prevent the recognition of our common interests and the collective power that could result from joining forces.

It is why the North Carolina Black Alliance remains committed to doing the work necessary to move our community and our nation forward. The tumult of the past several years is about really becoming America. It is about the struggle to create America in the image of all its citizens, one that is inclusive, and guarantees equal rights for all, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religious belief.

This article was originally published by Philanthropy Journal.

Minding the Gap
By Yuri Yamamoto

“Yuri began crying and said in a sorrowful voice, ‘I don’t want stereo. I want terebi.’ She sounded so miserable that my spirit sunk… I wonder if not having a TV makes it hard at preschool. What is the point of being so proud about ‘not buying a TV’ if it makes her feel like that?”—from my father’s journal, dated June 20, 1964

I grew up without a TV and still don’t have one today. My parents made the choice, and this has been my normal as far as I could remember. When I read my father’s journal, however, a flood of memories came back. 1964 was the year of the Tokyo Olympics. In anticipation for the big event, every family seemed to have bought their first TV. Soon, a TV sat at the head of the dinner table in every typical Japanese household.

The hardest part for me was the conversation with classmates. They always talked about what they had watched on the TV the night before, and I tried hard to pretend as though I had seen them. If I ever had a chance to watch a show at a friend’s house, I would remember the details so that I could talk about them.

As I grew up, I picked up my parents’ attitude that there was not much to learn from popular culture. I carried this attitude with me to the United States. When, nineteen years after I came to this country, I began working at a Unitarian Universalist congregation as a music leader, I was still relatively unscathed by—or ignorant about—American pop culture.

I had the skills required for the job: a classically-trained pianist. Yet I painfully felt my deficit in the knowledge of the dominant culture of the congregation. Not having a TV was definitely a part of the problem. But generational and cultural gaps due to living across the globe during my formative years were far greater. I felt deeply ashamed of myself and I reverted back to my younger self, from decades ago, to fit in.

Today, I know that I’m not the only one in my community who doesn’t live by the norms of predominantly white, upper middle class, economically secure, highly educated, politically liberal people. The assumption that all people remember the same set of events, or enjoy the same set of things, puts enormous burdens of assimilation onto members of marginalized communities. If we want our congregations to become more multicultural, members of the dominant culture have to do better: learning from others’ experiences; and being willing to listen, follow, and change.
Prayer
Dear God, help us see the beauty in each person: not only the part we like but also the part we don’t know or are afraid of. Give us strength and courage to face the challenges of unknown so that we can create the beloved community that nobody has ever experienced before. Amen.

This piece was originally published for Braver/Wiser: A Weekly Message of Courage and Compassion.

Living On:
An Obituary for WiLL Wise

Are you ready for your life to change?

WiLL asked this question to thousands of students on the first day he met them over the years. If your answer was “no”, he was happy to show you the door. Most people might ease into a question like that. WiLL’s shocking directness was one of his many gifts to the planet.

Now it’s our turn to be direct: William Samuel Wise has died.

He passed early in the morning on November 12, 2021, at home with his loving and loyal wife, Heather House, asleep on the floor next to him. Before he died, they caught the last episode of Ted Lasso and (much) more importantly one final, deep hug where Heather felt WiLL say—not in words—”the way that we love each other is all that matters.” He is finally at peace. And achieving peace was one of his life’s deepest desires.

And as WiLL would remind us:

“You are what your deepest desire is.

As is your desire, so is your intention.

As is your intention, so is your will.

As is your will, so is your deed.

As is your deed, so is your destiny.”

It’s not possible to capture who WiLL was using the English language. His dyslexia would probably agree. But the real reason that words won’t be nearly enough is because he focused much of his effort on who he was being—and less on what he was doing. No matter the circumstance, he was adamant about being present. Being happy. Being the best listener most of us ever met. And being curious. Whether you were a student, a friend, son, daughter, or wife to WiLL, you experienced him being curious. He’d want his being to continue.

Just before bed on the night WiLL passed away, his son Sylvan made a beautiful observation of how their daddy’s being will continue to live on. Sylvan noted that “Cypress got dad’s curiosity, Fern got daddy’s ability to love, and I got daddy’s playfulness.”

Continuing the impossible attempt of capturing who he was, below are three of his favorite questions.

And continuing his life’s work of asking powerful questions and creating conversations that matter, we—and he—would encourage you to spend at least 60 seconds of silence with each of the questions below.

What brings you joy?

[Enjoy your 60 seconds of silence with this question before you read on.]

WiLL saw this question as a gateway to creating your future. On the day WiLL died, his oldest son, Cypress, pulled out a fortune cookie out of a box that Will kept on his desk to remind people to create their future rather than leaving it up to a cookie. Cypress’s fortune read something like, “every moment is a golden one to the person who recognizes it.” Cypress then looked out at a small group of family and friends and said, “Dad realized this. He truly did.”

Being a master of turning each moment into one worth remembering, WiLL was known for pulling a bouncy ball—seemingly out of thin air—and tossing it out to an unsuspecting recipient. At the beginning of a class or in the middle of the mall, he’d reach into his pocket—the true permanent home of the bouncy ball—and infuse play into the space. Play was WiLL’s greatest teacher. He was committed to it and the joy and learnings that came along with it. Even in pain, he would find a way to play. He would love for you to move toward joy in each choice you make.

Second question…

What is this moment teaching you right now?

[Silence was one of WiLL’s favorite ingredients to a conversation that matters. That means that it is time to pause again.]

While WiLL was one of the best teachers, he knew that he was no match for Experience, the ultimate teacher. Right up until his last days even while he was struggling to utter each word, he was trying to share how to approach life even while you are dying. He used to say that “the moment you stop learning is the moment you start dying.”

Please, on WiLL’s behalf, keep learning. Keep living.

And the final of WiLL’s favorite three questions…

What is a crossroads you are at?

The outdoor educator and nontraditional school principal in WiLL, loved seeing lessons in nature. Climbing rocks was just a meeting with Fear. Canoeing down the river was a one-to-one mentoring session with Control. Traveling into a cave was your chance to go stare Darkness head on in order to understand your light more clearly.

WiLL understood that in each moment he had a choice. Listen to understand or listen to win. Openness or the need to be right. Learning or knowing. Exploring possibilities or making assumptions.

Perhaps the crossroads that WiLL most commonly encountered was the choice to be driven by fear or living to love. He often faced fear, but rarely—if ever—did he ever choose it.

In fact, he chose expansive love.

Over and over again.

And you can too. He’d like it if you did.

Celebration of Life

In addition to his wife of 11 years, Will leaves behind three children, Cypress (10), Sylvan (8) and Fern (8). He is survived by his mother, Linda, and brothers, Ken (aka “Joe”) and Donny Wise. We held what Cypress dubbed a “departing party” for close family and friends on the day of his passing.

Fern specifically asked, “Can we still celebrate dad’s birthday?” Yes! On May 14, 2022, there will be a celebration of life. Mark your calendars. More details to follow.

In lieu of flowers, consider making a donation to The Ronald McDonald House in Danville: https://rmhdanville.org/ or simply walk outside and hug a tree.

This obituary was originally published by the Central Pennsylvania Cremation Society

Dangerous Spirituality
By Vincent Harding

In their different and sometimes similar ways, Howard Thurman and Martin King represented a spirituality deeply, solidly based in one place, among one people, about which they had no doubts at all. Just as Jesus of Nazareth represented a spirituality based in one place, among one people, about whom he had no doubts at all. At the same moment, both King and Thurman reached out far, far beyond that ground and that base and saw no contradictions in being grounded and reaching out as part of one motion of spirit and life.

Thurman was — and this was a deep part of his spirituality — a seeker. Thurman was never satisfied with the truth that he had achieved, knowing always that there was more to come, and that he must never think that he had found it all. And so in 1935, Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman — her name must be connected to his and his to hers, because they were a magnificent team and she was as powerful a figure as you could think of — went to India.

They went to India and what is now Sri Lanka and traveled a great deal. Thurman had to understand who were these people who were not Christians but who, from the deepest part of his being, he knew were God’s children. He began asking in profound ways, What is the relationship of God’s various children to each other, though they go by different names? And he went to sit with one of the greatest of God’s children, that Hindu saint, Mohandas K. Gandhi. Gandhi asked him questions about what it meant to be black in America. Thurman asked Gandhi questions about the possible relevance of the nonviolent struggle that was going on in India for what might go on in the United States.

Thurman’s faith was not a door that closed in on him as something to be kept, protected, and guarded. It was an opening door that opened out into the spirit, faith, dreams, and seekings of others. We cannot know the spirituality of Howard Thurman unless we know the spirituality of the open door.

What was he seeking? Why did he go to Gandhi? The center of his seeking was, “Mr. Gandhi, we are in deep trouble in my country. Millions of people are in deep trouble. Some of them know it, and some of those who are causing the trouble don’t know it. But we are all in trouble in my country, Mr. Gandhi. What do you have to say to us from what you have learned about the nonviolent struggle to deal with the troubles of the Indian people?”

You see, this is not a 1990s New Age seeker who goes around the world looking for answers only to personal issues. The spirituality of Howard Thurman was that of the seeker who sought for the healing of his people and of his nation. Therefore, Howard Thurman must be understood as a man of spirit who understood what roots are for. Thurman saw that his roots were not to be worshiped, that his roots were to provide him with tree-like strength to reach out, to explore new possibilities for his life. But even more, to explore new possibilities for the life of his people and his nation. Roots for growth, not for self-admiration. Roots for power, not to control, but to share.

I want to read to you from Thurman’s The Luminous Darkness. In it he tells us a great deal about those roots and about that spirituality and about where he was going.

The fact that the first 23 years of my life were spent in Florida and in Georgia has left its scars deep in my spirit and has rendered me terribly sensitive to the churning abyss separating white from black. Living outside of the region, I am aware of the national span of racial prejudice and the virus of segregation that undermines the vitality of American life.

So he says, “I know the story. I know the story of racism and segregation in my bones. No one has to tell me about it.” And then he says:

Nevertheless, knowing all of that, experiencing all of that, nevertheless a strange necessity has been laid upon me to devote my life to the central concern that transcends the walls that divide and would achieve in literal fact what is experienced as literal truth: human life is one and all men [and women] are members one of another.

Thurman’s spirituality was grounded not only in the beauties of the black experience, but grounded as well in the terrors of the black experience, as only someone living in Florida and Georgia could know them in 1915 and 1920 and 1930. At the same time, it was a spirituality that says: “And knowing all that, I also know that all human beings are one.”
This kind of strange combination of spiritual truth with hard political social truth led one young man in the 1930s to say this about Howard Thurman: “I’m disappointed in him. We thought we had found our Moses. And he turns out to be a mystic.” That’s the spirituality that gets people all riled up.

Understand this about Thurman, and about King: Here are men who at no point in their life would ever deny the terrors of what it was in those days to be black in America. At no point in their life would they deny the terrorism of so much of being white in America; at the same time they would never deny the oneness of all. That’s a tough spirituality. That’s not any kind of sweet-by-and-by spirituality. That’s a spirituality that takes on the world as it is and says, “I’m gonna figure this out one way or another.” The mystic and the Moses.

It is important to realize that King and Thurman were deeply connected to each other. The legend is that Martin carried around a copy of Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited wherever he went. He was certainly a practitioner of what Thurman was trying to deal with in that book. Thurman was saying, If you are living the spirit of Jesus, then you cannot live in the spirit of fear, you cannot live in the spirit of deception, even for good causes; you cannot live in the spirit of hatred. None of those is the way of Jesus.

The spirituality of Martin King, in an even more active, militant way than Thurman, was the spirituality of wrestling with the angels, the angels within and the angels around. The demonic angels and the divine angels. No spirituality without wrestling — that’s where King was coming from. That spirituality came directly out of the gospel of Luke: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me.” And what is the spirit upon me for? So I can jump and scream and shout and sing? Yes, maybe that. But right then, in Montgomery, Alabama, the spirituality began, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me” so that I can go and stand with the poor, with the messed up, with the beaten up, with the downtrodden.

That was King’s spirituality. A spirituality that makes it impossible for you to avoid the folks in trouble. A spirituality to work with the poor, to be with the prisoners, to stay close to the brokenhearted, and to know what Thurman knew: Even though God was so good to black folks in such hard times, their God could never be captured by black folks. Black folks were simply one of God’s beloved people. Like Thurman, King had to figure out what you do with all of the other beloved people. Especially the messed-up beloved people. Especially the beloved people that don’t know they’re beloved.

So this was King’s spirituality, that sent him into Albany, Georgia; into Birmingham; into St. Augustine — present, present, constantly present with those in trouble. That’s where he was coming from when he came here to Washington, D.C., in 1963. Don’t forget that, please. He didn’t come down and say “I have a dream” and disappear. He came out of hard struggles that were guided by his spirituality. Tough, dangerous, death-defiant struggles. And yet, at the same moment, he could speak to the whole nation and say, “You aren’t what you should be, nation. And I’m not just cursing you out, I am entreating you in love to be what God meant for you to be, for me to be, for us to be.” King was offering an entire nation the opportunity to be free at last if we’re willing to work, if we’re willing to struggle, if we’re willing to face our bondage.

This spirituality took him back to Birmingham to mourn with the mourning mothers and fathers of those bombed-out children. But it also led him to challenge the white supremacy of that Alabama countryside and say, “No, I’m not going to give into this, because this is contrary to the Spirit. White people are not supreme. And every time they think they are, they are killing their spirit and every spirit.” This spirituality led him to Selma, to challenge the terrible voting discrimination there and throughout the South. His spirituality led him to call thousands of us to risk our lives, to join the struggle for the expansion of democracy.

Martin Luther King’s spirituality did not stop with marching from Selma to Montgomery. Martin was saying some very, very powerfully spiritual things to black people and white people and everybody else who would listen. Here is how, in 1966, he expressed his spirituality. This man must have certainly gotten things mixed up. Because this is what he thought spirituality was about:

I choose to identify with the underprivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to live for and with those who find themselves seeing life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit signs. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way. If it means sacrificing, I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way. Because I heard the voice saying: do something for others.

That was his spirituality. I’m not absolutely sure why you would want to know about it, but that was it.

Of course, before many months were over, King also said, “I identify with those people you call gooks and enemies and Viet Congs and those who must be burned to death. I identify with them; they are my sisters and brothers. Those are my children running aflame.” That was his spirituality. It’s not just praying “Our Father,” but finding his sisters and brothers and then acting it out in public challenges to the U.S. government. Acting out his commitment to the poor by trying to organize the poor. Not just to give nice things to them, but to organize the poor so that they can gain what they needed for their own lives.

That is the spirituality that we see him going to the end of his life with. His final saying was, “America, listen to me, please. You are being burdened down by some terrible commitments. Any nation that chooses to spend more on armaments than on social reform is a nation in trouble.” He said, “America, I would not say these things to you if I did not love you. But you are in danger of giving in to militarism, to materialism, as well as to racism.”

The tricky matter is that when Martin said these things it had already become very clear that he was not just talking to white people. The very process of desegregation was already beginning to suck us in so deeply into the ways of life and thought of the nation that he could not speak to the nation about its situation without speaking to his own black people. That was a spirituality that got lots of people very uncomfortable. That’s what spirituality does. It gets people uncomfortable.

Howard Thurman once offered a wonderful statement from the great social gospeler, Walter Rauschenbusch. He said that Rauschenbusch claimed that there are many, many good people around, but very few who are good enough to disturb the peace of the devil. King became a disturber of the peace without any question, speaking to us.

I want to close now by coming back to King’s father, to my father, to your father — Howard Thurman — and to listen to these words that Thurman wrote about life in this country and what kind of spirituality is required to live it. This again is from The Luminous Darkness (please forgive Father Howard’s sexist language).

The burden of being black and the burden of being white is so heavy that it is rare in our society to experience oneself as a human being. It may be, I don’t know, that to experience oneself as a human being is one with experiencing one’s fellows as human beings. It means that the individual must have a sense of kinship to life that transcends and goes beyond the immediate kinship of family or the organic kinship that binds him [or her] ethnically or “racially” or nationally. He has a sense of being an essential part of the structural relationship that exists between him and all other men [and women], and between him, all other men [and women], and the total external environment. As a human being, then, he belongs to life and the whole kingdom of life that includes all that lives and perhaps, also, all that has ever lived. In other words, he sees himself as a part of a continuing, breathing, living existence. To be a human being, then, is to be essentially alive in a living world.

What more could one ask from a spirituality? To show us the way to be alive with God’s life in God’s world. That’s what the father was about. That’s what the brother was about.

This article was originally published by On Being.

How I Learned That Jesus Is Black
By Danté Stewart

For years, I made my home with white people in white churches. I knew how to run and to hide and to move my body in ways that made white people feel more safe and less racist and more godly and less violent. Whether on the football field or in the pulpit, my performance gave them what they never deserved: confidence that the world was OK.

It started in college at Clemson University, where I played on the nationally ranked football team. Many young Black athletes like me left home and quickly found ourselves around white Christians because they were the ones who had greatest access to us. Between Bible studies and church outings, our worlds became white, our Jesus became a blond-haired and blue-eyed savior. This Jesus cared about touchdowns and Bible verses written in white letters underneath our eyes over the black paint.

As the weeks and months and years went by, I found myself closer and closer to white people. After graduating from college, I joined a white evangelical church and entered seminary in the hopes of becoming a pastor there. In my pursuit to be a better person and a better athlete and a better Christian, I viewed Black sermons and Black songs and Black buildings and Black shouting and Black loving with skepticism and white sermons and white songs and white buildings and white clapping with sacredness.

But before long, images of Black people dying started appearing all over our televisions and newspapers and newsfeeds. And too many of the nice white people around me just didn’t seem to care. And I knew: I had to find a way to get free and survive.

July 5, 2016: I remember my hands holding my phone, my stomach sweating, my eyes beholding Alton Sterling, lifeless. I saw in him the face of every Black boy and man who couldn’t be protected. I was cold, empty, afraid. I didn’t know what to do with what I saw or what I felt.

The very next day, another Black death: Philando Castile. I heard him pant. His breaths were heavy, weak, patterned. I remember hearing his girlfriend, Diamond, frantic and crying. “Stay with me,” she told him. “Please, Jesus,” she cried. There were no answers to such a prayer.

I remember what the white Christians around me said, how they blamed Mr. Sterling and Mr. Castile for their own deaths and how they struggled to see the value of our lives.

I remember not being a hero or an activist or a preacher with enough courage to tell myself or my wife or the people around me how I felt. I remember how the comfort and safety of being around white people quickly turned into rocky ground. I remember the question that I couldn’t shake from my soul or my mind or my body: How do I be Black and Christian and American?

In desperation and sadness, trying to find words of faith in the face of Black death, I picked up the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” I devoured it.

I remember Dr. King quoting James Baldwin. It was the first time I had heard of Mr. Baldwin. In “A Letter to My Nephew,” he wrote, “Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority, but to their inhumanity and fear.”

I had always been afraid of what other people thought of me, what they would do to me, what they would make of me. Mr. Baldwin’s words hit me with a sort of mercy, a grace, as if almighty God was speaking, reaching down to touch my wounded flesh with his words.

I started to read the Rev. Dr. James Cone — “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” “The Spir­ituals and the Blues” and “Black Theology and Black Power.” I read J. Deotis Roberts’s “Liberation and Reconcilia­tion.” I read Stacey Floyd-Thomas’s “Deeper Shades of Purple.” I read Black poetry. I listened to Black songs. I looked at Black art. I couldn’t find a way out of the dark struggle except by reading Black theology along­side the Book of Lamentations and the stories of the prophets and Jesus. If Isaiah’s and Nehemiah’s lives can be inherited as revelations of the divine, then I knew that the book of Baldwin and the book of Morrison awaited my opening.

The more I read these works, the more I let them teach me how to love. Not the type of love that must perform to be accepted — the type that would allow us to embrace our humanity and never allow ourselves to believe that proving what could never be proved was the best we had to offer. The type of love that Toni Morrison writes of in “Paradise”: “That Jesus had been freed from white religion and he wanted these kids to know that they did not have to beg for respect; it was already in them, and they needed only to display it.”

I saw why they insisted on saying Jesus is Black. They were not talking about his skin color during his earthly ministry, though it definitely wasn’t white. They were talking about his experience, about how Jesus knows what it means to live in an occupied territory, knows what it means to be from an oppressed people.

Dr. Cone, a central figure in the development of Black liberation theology, particularly spoke to me. It was not so much that he had all the an­swers but for the first time, I was reading a theolo­gian who looked like me, felt like me, talked like me, loved Jesus like me, who knew the comfort of being around white folk like me, who knew the failures of white folk like me and who knew he had to leave what W.E.B Du Bois called “the world of the white man” like me.

I entered a majority-white seminary in the fall of 2016, just months after the deaths of Mr. Sterling and Mr. Castile and just weeks after I heard someone who worshiped where I worshiped praising the name Donald J. Trump. I was excited to be learning theology and about church history and preparing myself to become a minister. But by the time I started reading Dr. Cone and others, I knew I had to leave the white places that had become less familiar and less worthy of my presence: the seminary where I’d been studying and the white evangelical church I’d attended for so many years.

I had met great people at these places. But, sadly, they never really took seriously the life of the Black body in America. So I decided to return to the Black people and Black worlds that made me and loved me. I was, as Ms. Morrison writes, growing up Black again.

If the white people I worshiped with and went to school with and had dinner with had the imagination to see C.S. Lewis’s Aslan the lion in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” as Jesus, then I knew there should have been no problem when Black people said Jesus was Black and Jesus loved Black people and Jesus wanted to see Black people free. But I found out that many could see the symbol of divine goodness and love in an animal before they could ever see the symbol of divine goodness and love in Blackness.

My world changed when I stopped sitting at the feet of white Jesus and began becoming a disciple of Black Jesus. I didn’t have to hate myself or my people or our creativity or our beauty to be human or to be Christian.

When I left, many white Christians around me thought I had betrayed them. They didn’t understand that I was leaving white supremacy behind. They saw it as leaving Jesus. What a terrible, terrible thing.

I have given up faith in the belief that things will eventually get better, a sort of triumphal note that takes one’s mind away from such inhumane violence, a faith that doesn’t take Black flesh seriously.

“I am black alive and looking back at you,” the poet June Jordan wrote.

I remember the first time I became an alive Black body. I remember it all. I remember what I told myself and tell myself and try to tell others in so many creatively Black ways:

We do not just die.
We do not just suffer.
We do not just fail.
We do not just grieve.
We live.
We dance.
We love.
We shout.

This essay was published by the New York Times and is an excerpt of Danté Stewart’s book, Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle.