Seeking Social Justice

Feb. 12, 2009,  Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, the NAACP turned 100 years old — just a few weeks after Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States.  In the Spring of 2000 another milestone was celebrated with the publication of the book, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, edited by Julian Bond, Chairman of the Board of the NAACP and Sondra Kathryn Wilson, the executor of James Weldon Johnson’s literary estate in celebration of the 100^th birthday of the song of the same name.   The book is a collection of over 100 essays by prominent African Americans offering their thoughts about the songs’ impact on them.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”, adopted by the NAACP as “The Negro National Anthem” in 1919, was originally written as a poem.  It was publicly performed in 1900 by 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, FL where James Weldon Johnson — poet, songwriter, and lawyer — was the Principal.  The school was celebrating Lincoln’s birthday and Johnson wrote the words to introduce their honored guest speaker, Booker T. Washington.  Five years later, the poem was set to music by John Rosamond Johnson, James’ brother, and it became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their courage, patriotism, and hope for the future.

James Weldon Johnson’s face was very familiar  at the NY Headquarters of the NAACP in the 1920’s when he was the Executive Secretary.  He worked alongside other well-known African Americans:  W.E.B. DuBois, the editor of the organizations’ Crisis magazine and Langston Hughes, who wrote the first history of the NAACP.  Julian Bond, as a young student, was also a member of the NAACP and led the activist Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.   He returned to the organization in 1998 as the Chairman of the board.

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Sojourners - February 22, 2009

Questions: What does the election of Barack Obama mean to you personally, and how does it challenge our work in racial justice at Sojourners? Are we too “comfortable” at Sojourners, given the fact that we “love’ everybody?

The election of Barack Obama means this to me personally.

HOPE. One of the best-loved campaign pictures, and my favorite, is the one in black and red on which is written, “HOPE.”

Hope for many things-but especially hope for change for the injustices and inequalities experienced by African-Americans since they were first brought here in chains.

As a little girl in racist Alabama, I wondered why we called our maid, “Susie”, instead of Mrs. Kemp. All polite southern children referred to anyone older than they as Mr., Mrs. or Miss.

I wondered why my dad rebuked me for saying, “Yes, Sir” to an elderly dignified man riding by our country home on a mule. Dad said, “Never call an N—– sir.” 

I wondered why my black playmate called me Miss Dell but I referred to her without the “Miss”.

When I went to college in Chicago, I often wrote Susie, and I always addressed the envelopes, “Mrs. Susie Kemp.” Perhaps with the hope that someday she would be treated with the respect of her white peers.

 You can imagine my thrill at being able to say “President Barack Obama” to a partly African-American.

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This poem was read by Allison Linney at Sojourners United Church of Christ on Sunday, February 22^nd.  It was written by her brother, the Reverend George E. Linney, III on January 21, 2009, a day after a watershed moment in our history, the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44^th President of the United States of America.

 A plea to 44 and me

Some said your inaugural words were condescending
I say prophetic
Your words were a call to service
A call to take responsibility
Critics said there was no memorable line,
like
Ask not what your country…
or
We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

But you encapsulated both JFK and FDR when you charged me to fight poverty
I heard you charge me to educate the poor 
Who are the poor?

In my world
they are children
they are boys of color
and while everyone around me wonders when will I arrive
When will George take a Church of his own?  Why?

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Rev. Marcus R. Ingram
February 22, 2009
Sojourners United Church of Christ

Does the election of Barack Obama usher in a new era of race relations, and how is it related to our faith?

The headlines around the world have been stunning - “Change Has Come,” “A New Dawn,” “Obama cambio la historia,” “A Dream Fulfilled,” and “Danke, Mr. President.” Without doubt, the candidacy and election of President Barack Obama has elevated American political consciousness in ways that most of us have never seen in our lifetimes. Our President’s international heritage and Kenyan ancestry invites a larger community into conversation unlike any other leader of the United States.

While history will likely tell the story of a little-known community activist who transferred his organizing skill onto a national political stage, the narrative will be incomplete if it does not chronicle the ways in which our racial consciousness has been unmasked, unnerved, and unsettled. From critiques in the African American community that inquire, “Is this Ivy-League educated, multi-racial politician ‘Black enough’?” to the fear-inducing “You know his pastor is a radical, anti-American Liberation Theologian,” President Barack Obama has at least kindled a discourse on race that has enlightened some, enraged others, and, I believe, enthralled us all.

Never once has our new President referred to himself as the “Black candidate,” yet even the most “progressive” of us have seen him as such. In the same breath that many of us want to celebrate the election of the first African American President of the United States of America, we also want to make this historic election an example of how race has been transcended. While I am not resistant to a “both-and” perspective, this seeming contradiction potentially points to a tendency in American (and Western) culture to be both reductionist and revisionist. It is remarkable to imagine what generations after us will think when they scroll through the photos of our country’s presidents and arrive at the early twenty first century. Astute historians will certainly speak about the powerful intersection of technology with grassroots activism that transitioned from being mocked, to a, if not, the defining factor in the victory of President Obama. But, many more will posture about what it meant for America to elect its first non-white president.

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