By Lewis Brogdon
Last year, I served as a guest editor for a special edition of Christian Ethics Today. The issue focused on the work of The Angela Project, giving focused attention to the topics of privilege and reparations. I am thankful to God and Dr. Patrick Anderson for the opportunity to bring the issue to print. I am also thankful for Dr. Kevin Cosby’s vision of the Angela Project, the leaders in EmpowerWest, and the denominational leaders in three major Baptist bodies for the prophetic witness they model during a time many Christian churches have been co-opted by the American civic and cultural empire and bowed their knees to Caesar.
Since then, I have sought to find the best way to follow up that series of essays and to identify the appropriate tone to strike so readers can move from understanding to action. I pose these questions because I want to strike a balance. It is important to give a sober and honest assessment of the impact of this history and its manifold manifestations today. Doing this honors the humanity and suffering many have experienced and reflects Christian values like neighbor love and compassion. In addition to these values, I draw on the Christian belief in hope that is ultimately rooted in God and not ourselves as an important resource in addressing systemic issues that are centuries old.
Hope is important because we mortals are easily overwhelmed by the negativity of our shared history, and so balance is essential. Yes, readers need their eyes and minds opened in a way that invites them to see the painful history and present injustice. Readers are also invited to join God’s work of doing justice and showing compassion to the vulnerable. This is the work we are called to take up – some maybe for the first time in their life and others to continue.
To encourage next steps, I want to share other aspects of work being done by The Angela Project to make a difference. Much of this important work is taken up by EmpowerWest, in the city of Louisville. A group of black and white clergy, under the leadership of Dr. Kevin Cosby, meet on the campus of a Christian Historic Black College and University (HBCU) to address injustice and to empower the west end of Louisville. EmpowerWest brings two great resources together to do justice work – Christian faith and educational space. The synergy between church leaders and educational institutions is unique and has resulted in many impactful educational programs and advocacy opportunities that change thinking and challenge systems at work in a deeply segregated city. The EmpowerWest model has been celebrated and emulated in other cities and for that we give thanks to God. This model of bringing church leaders together in an educational institution to think intentionally about ways to correct the history of racism really spoke to me so I decided to emulate this model in my position as a dean and college professor at Bluefield College in Virginia last year.
During the spring semester, I focused on the work and more importantly, the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. My focus resulted in two major initiatives: a special one-day program for the community to engage King’s thought and a special topics class on the Life and Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr. Both the community event and class were held at Bluefield College, a small Baptist liberal arts college in a small town less than four hours from Jamestown Virginia – where black’s history in this country began. A community worship service and panel discussion was held in January to hear Dr. Johnny Hill lecture on King’s idea of the beloved community. We also discussed King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. This event was covered by the local news media.
The college offered a special topics class that I taught. Part of my rationale for focusing on King is my belief he is not only America’s greatest theologian, he is arguably the greatest Baptist theologian. As I have worked to advance the aims and message of The Angela Project for the past three years, I thought that a class that gives students and the local community an opportunity to study the writings of King, a leader who knew that slavery and segregation impacted America nearly a century after the Civil War in the fifties and sixties, would provide one way to advance the educational aspects of this project and also provide space for God to bring transformation in a small way.
Focusing on King made sense because he often made explicit references to slavery and its impact on the African American community and America in his writings and speeches. Some key quotes here illustrate his deep belief that slavery and racism’s effect was real:
The first Negroes landed on the shores of this nation in 1619, one year ahead of the Pilgrim Fathers. They were brought here from Africa and, unlike the Pilgrims, they were brought against their will, as slaves. Throughout the era of slavery the Negro was treated in inhuman fashion. He was considered a thing to be used, not a person to be respected. He was merely a depersonalized cog in a vast planation machine. The famous Dred Scott decision of 1857 well illustrates his status during slavery. In this decision the Supreme Court of the United States said, in substance, that the Negro is not a citizen of the United States; he is merely property subject to the dictates of the owner. After his emancipation in 1863, the Negro still confronted oppression and inequality. It is true that for a time, while the army of occupation remained in the South and Reconstruction ruled, he had a brief period of eminence and political power. But he was quickly overwhelmed by the white majority. Then in 1896, through Plessy v. Ferguson decision, a new kind of slavery came into being. In this decision the Supreme Court of the nation established the doctrine of “separate but equal,” without the slightest intention to abide by the “equal.” So the Plessy doctrine ended up plunging the Negro into the abyss of exploitation where he experienced the bleakness of nagging injustice (Nonviolence and Racial Justice 1957).
It is true that many white Americans struggle to attain security. It is also a hard fact that none had the experience of Negroes. No one else endured chattel slavery on American soil. No one else suffered discrimination so intensely or so long as the Negroes. In one or two generations the conditions of life for white Americans altered radically. For Negroes, after three centuries, wretchedness and misery still afflict the majority…Despite new laws, little has changed in his life in the ghettos. The Negro is still the poorest American – walled in by color and poverty. The law pronounces him equal, abstractly, but his conditions of life are still far from equal to those of other Americans…The tragedy of the present is that many newly prosperous Americans contemplate that the unemployable Negro shall live out his life in rural and urban slums, silently and apathetically (Negroes Are Not Moving Too Fast 1964).
Fivescore years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro is not free; one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination; one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in a vast ocean of material prosperity; one hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. (I Have a Dream 1963).
There is an Old Testament prophecy of the “sins of the Fathers being visited upon the third and fourth generations.” Nothing could be more applicable to our situation. America is reaping the harvest of hate and shame planted through generations of educational denial, political disenfranchisement and economic exploitation of its black population. Now, almost a century removed from slavery, we find the heritage of oppression and racism erupting in our cities, with volcanic lava of bitterness and frustration pouring down our avenues…In spite of years of national progress, the plight of the poor is worsening…White America has allowed itself to be indifferent to race prejudice and economic denial. It has treated them as superficial blemishes, but now awakes to the horrifying reality of a potentially fatal disease. The urban outbreaks are “a fire bell in the night,” clamorously warning that seams of our entire social order are weakening under strains of neglect. The American people are infected with racism – that is the peril…But they do not have a millennium to make changes. (Showdown for Nonviolence 1968, written earlier)
King’s emphasis on the material effects of slavery and racism and the Baptist connection between him and the three Baptist bodies committed to this work align with The Angela Project in a special way. More importantly, this special topics class, using the EmpowerWest model, provided educational space for a serious study and deep thinking about the impact of slavery on America during the 1950s and 1960s.
I want you to read the pieces of writing that came out of my work on Martin Luther King, Jr. at Bluefield College because they reinforce the important truth that God is already at work in this project and using it to make a difference in this country and the witness of Christianity. The writing from four student’s final reflection papers on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. provide powerful examples of the small difference The Angela Project is making in the world. The students are not seminary students or religious scholars but members of a local community who came to a college class to learn and be impacted by King’s work and thought. Some of the student writings are found on the website version of this article, at www.christianethistoday.com The students’ writings will educate but also inspire us all to see a hopeful way to look ahead. Read now by clicking here.
Final Word on the Angela Project at Work
It is evident here that in small ways the work we all set out to do three years ago is taking root and growing in small yet powerful ways. Conferences are being organized and attended by hundreds of people. Educational forums and panels with top scholars and leaders are being convened to deconstruct this complex history and manifold ways it impacts and impairs our world. News agencies are covering these events. Insightful books and journal articles are being written and read. Classes on college campuses are being taught and students are both unlearning and learning this history in ways that challenge them to see things differently. I hope you are inspired to emulate this work where you live and serve. What we have done in Louisville and Bluefield can be replicated. In a sense, what I hope to inspire you to do is follow a simple yet profound principle Paul taught the Corinthians. One event plants; another one provides water. But God brings growth and change. That is how we take up work we hope will set a new trajectory for the next four hundred years.
There are signs of change around us. We have not done anything substantial to date but it is important to lift up change and impact. May we draw on it in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead to repair the damage done to African Americans and the Christian witness, amen. All quotes taken from James M. Washington, ed. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), 5-6, 36, 71, 176-77.
— Dr. Lewis Brogdon is a Visiting Professor of Preaching and Black Church Studies at the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky in Louisville Kentucky.
