What happens to a dream, deferred?

The year of 1963 marked a monumental moment for America when the Civil Rights Movement launched non-violent protest against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama led by the young Black preacher and scholar, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From the prison cell in Birmingham where King was arrested for his resistance efforts, King penned the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to confront white Alabama clergymen who claimed the efforts of the protestors were “unwise” and “untimely.” Later that year, in his famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King spoke of the “fierce of urgency of now” and why Black Americans could no longer wait for justice and equality with the refrain “Now is the Time.” King proclaimed,

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all God’s children.[i]

King’s prophetic charge influenced the book Why We Can’t Wait (1964) that recounted the pivotal year while reflecting on the legal maxim “justice delayed is justice denied.”

On April 4, 1968, a 39-year-old dreamer was killed at the hand of a lethal concoction: white supremacist rage and gun violence. At the time of his death, King was marked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the “most dangerous man in America” and likely regarded as the “most hated man in America” especially by white Americans. For the last 30 years because of the persistence of the late Coretta Scott King, many Americans and over 100 countries remember and commemorate the life, ministry, and public witness of King each year. Today, Martin Luther King, Jr. is the only non-President and person of color whose memorial “The Stone of Hope” stands on the National Mall steps away from where he delivered his famous speech.

I have struggled to write this week about the enduring legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the age of a Government Shutdown that significantly impacts not just 800,000 federal employees, but mostly Black and Brown lives who are required to return to work with no pay. While King is praised largely for his civil rights efforts, King also linked racial justice to economic justice.

Though 2019 marks 51 years since King’s assassination, the struggle for equality with equal citizenship and equal pay is far from over. King went to Memphis over 50 years ago to rally the city, lead the Sanitation Workers Strike, and advocate for hardworking Black men earning less than a livable wage (making a measly $1.80/hr.) with no benefits or days off. In his last speech the night before his assassination in Memphis entitled “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” King lamented about not knowing how long he would live but understood his call to remain committed to “staying in the struggle until the end.”

I’ve been to the Civil Rights Museum, saw his dried blood that still settles in the cracks of the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, walked the suites where King and his comrades stayed, stood in the same place where he was shot dead. And I am still convinced that the struggle continues.

According to a recently released 2019 report by the Institute for Policy Studies entitled “Dreams Deferred: How Enriching the 1% Widens the Racial Wealth Divide?,” the wealth of white median families today is $146,984 which marks a 30% increase in the last 30 years. On the other hand, Latinx and Black median household wealth persists at the poverty level. The wealth of Black median families has fared the worst in the last 33 years from a record high of $12,000 in 1995 to a plummeting drop to $1,700 in 2013 and $3,400 in 2016. Such a reality situates Black median families on the path to zero wealth by 2082.[ii]

How convenient that America praises King now but still denies his quest for social change and revokes his call to “redeem the soul of America.”

Just this past Sunday, January 20, 2019, Vice President Mike Pence while appearing on CBS “Face the Nation” quoted King’s words “Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy” in efforts to compare President Trump and King’s efforts as synonymous, encourage Congress to come together for legislative action, and rally support for securing the wall at the Southern border.[iii] In the words of Childish Gambino, “This is America!” A nation that continues to serve the rest of us “a bad check” from a morally bankrupt economy of justice.

I have the same holy question that Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes asked in his 1951 classic poem “Harlem,” What happens to a dream, deferred?

How do we write and teach and learn and live in the wake of freedom?

How do we #staywoke and avoid daydreaming (or being lulled into some false sense that a past or future time was/is better suited for justice-seeking)?

How do we call out the twisting of King’s words to secure the border and call in the demonstration of King’s witness toward equal citizenship for all those who continue to receive separate and unequal status in America?

[i] Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have A Dream,” African American Theological Ethics: A Reader, ed. Peter J. Paris and Julius Crump (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 157.

[ii] Collins, Chuck, Dedrick Asante-Muhammed, Josh Hoxie, and Sabrina Terry. “Report: Dreams Deferred.” Institute for Policy Studies. January 15, 2019. Accessed January 21, 2019. https://ips-dc.org/racial-wealth-divide-2019/.

[iii] “Transcript: Vice President Mike Pence on “Face the Nation,” January 20, 2019.” CBS News. January 20, 2019. Accessed January 21, 2019. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-vice-president-mike-pence-on-face-the-nation-january-20-2019/.

A Eulogy for Aretha Franklin
I first heard your voice. An indelible voice that needs no introduction. A voice that had the ability to sustain social movements. A voice that mattered more than any song. Then, I heard your story. A story, quite like mine, of a Southern-rooted, Midwest-raised church girl, a preacher’s daughter to be exact, who lived through turbulent times and had her own gospel to bear.

You gave us embodied SOUL. A sense of soul music that could embrace our bodily passions, ranges of emotions, and erotic desires wholly and holy. You gave us rhythm and blues. Music that stirred our hearts and swayed our hips. Your music rejected rigid distinctions between the sacred and the secular and helped us to find the Spirit in the dark. You gave us a Black woman’s consciousness. Recorded on February 14, 1967, “RESPECT” will always be a Black woman’s anthem for those of us who have known home as a dangerous place and all of us living in a hostile world that often denies our human dignity and worth. As sure as the meaning of your name “Aretha,” you gave us beauty. Whether adorned in big hair, bright sequin dresses, or brazen fur coats, you were not afraid to showcase your sense of style and taught women everywhere how to take up space unashamedly and unapologetically.

You are one of the greatest entertainers of not only the 20th and 21st centuries, but of all time! You earned the legendary Diva title as one of the most decorated Black female entertainers blazing trails for generations to follow with 18 GRAMMY Awards, distinction as the first African American woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and recipient of the highest civilian honor, U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. No award or accolade can explain what you meant to families listening to your records during Saturday morning chores, girls who donned your style and impersonated your fiery roar at neighborhood talent shows, or whole communities who danced after dark to your greatest hits at countless family reunions and block parties.

Next to many of our Bibles was an Aretha album. Despite the critics, you never left the Church; you carried the Church with you into the world. You gave us your heart. You didn’t back down from sharing your loves and troubles. You blurred the lines between the public and private which shifted the personal to the political and the popular. You made natural lovin’ and bodies coming together feel godly and good again. For your many offerings and contributions to this world, may your name always be remembered. May your children forever call you blessed. May you be celebrated as a musical genius and goddess. May generations to come hear your voice and music. May your story never be forgotten or erased. May you rest in GLORY and be invested with a majestic crown fit for a Queen. Long Live the Queen!

Rev. Melanie C. Jones

Exactly one month before Sandra Bland’s death, I got a call to preach a Women’s Day Luncheon at DuPage AME Church (the church home of Sandra Bland) in Lisle, IL. As most Women’s Day events, I approached this invitation with great excitement because this day is one of the most celebrated events in the life of the congregation and I awaited a wonderful time of gathering with one of the largest AME churches in the Chicago metropolitan area. What was peculiar about this preaching assignment was that it was just three days after the shooting of the Charleston Nine in 2015, which shifted my entire sermon. I preached the Luke 18 narrative of the persistent widow or wise woman who petitioned the unrighteous judge incessantly with the plea “Grant me justice against my opponent” (Luke 18:3, NRSV).

The title of that sermon “We Who Believe, We Keep Coming” reminds me of the persistence of the faithful. With every odd stacked against her, this wise woman kept coming to the judge to petition for justice. This woman was not going, but she kept coming. Coming indicates an arrival in the flow of movement or progress. In the Spirt of Ella Baker, my petition to the multitude of grieving and justice-seeking women present was “we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”

Exactly one month later, I got the news that a 28-year old young woman named Sandra Bland from Chicago was violated by a police officer in Texas, arrested without just cause, taken to jail and found hung in a jail cell.

Bland’s story arrested me in ways no other narrative of police brutality had done before. The degrees of separation narrowed for me.

Sandra was 28. I was 28 in the summer of 2015.

Sandra was from Chicago. I am a native Chicagoan.

Sandra graduated from an HBCU. I am an HBCU graduate.

Sandra was a sorority girl active in Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Incorporated. I, too, belong to a Black Greek letter sorority.

Sandra was a millennial and a justice seeker of our time. I occupy space as a millennial preacher and intellectual activist.

Sandra was a woman of faith, a member of DuPage AME Church and we happened to be in the same room at that Women’s Day Luncheon a month before her death struggling with our response as “thinking women of faith” to activate amid the terrors of our time.

As we #SayHerName and remember the legacy of Sandra Bland I share this story for three reasons.

First, we do not always know who is in the room. But there is POWER in our midst. As we realize our individual voices, we make space for the collective sharing of power. It is possible that when and where we enter somebody has just what we need to continue the journey.

Second, the work of Justice is ongoing. It is not a one-time act or a one-person effort. Justice seekers today are here because of the countless freedom fighters who paved the way. Warrior women, like the Luke 18 woman and Sandra Bland, know the significance of our justice efforts may extend beyond our lifetime. The question is still, will the Lord find us faithful to the pursuit of justice?!?! I sure hope so. This is my prayer and the enduring challenge of my call.

Third, as a new Texas transplant by way of Chicago, Sandra Bland’s narrative comes back to me often as I walk, drive, and live in the deep South. All across our world there is meaningful work to do toward dismantling oppression at the crossways of race, gender, sexuality, class, and so forth. Often, the most liberative strategy of resistance for justice seekers is showing up. Keep believing and keep coming!

Check out this sermon audio “We Who Believe, We Keep Coming” here!