Man, one of my favorite authors, I mean, I just want to be blunt with you. Every time I see you on Meet the Press, Eddie, I’m always like, he is dead on about something. I don’t know where it comes from. So where were you when you said to yourself, “Self, I need to write a book [like] We Are The Leaders that We’ve been Looking For?”
Dr. Glaude
You know, this book is based on a set of lectures I delivered like in 2011. And I was so angry at that moment. Everybody was excited about the Obama presidency. And I was angry in some ways, doc, that people were reading Obama’s presidency as the fulfillment of the black freedom struggle. That that’s what the object of all that sacrifice was for, was to get a black man in the White House. And I just thought, that’s not true. What happened to love, what happened to justice, what happened to the moral dimension of the movement? I wanted to think through that. I wanted to figure out what were we relinquishing, what were we giving up in that moment. And then fast forward, all these years later, I returned to those lectures. And I returned to them because in some ways I had lost my footing. I was trying to figure things out because COVID had disrupted so much, I had lost two partners. I felt like I was unmoored, untethered as it were. And I knew these lectures were a moment when I was trying to usher in a new way of being for myself, a new way of thinking for myself, a new way of writing for myself. So I wanted to go back to that moment. And lo and behold, I saw what I was trying to do differently. So all of this happened in the summer of 2023. And I got to work. And then I submitted the manuscript to the editor at Harvard University Press and they were like, OMG, let’s get this out as soon as we can.
Maina
What would you say to people who feel the disillusionment of people who are going, “I don’t want to be the leader?”
Dr. Glaude
I think part of what I’m trying to argue is that when we outsource our responsibility for the house [of this country], when we say, well, I don’t want to pay the mortgage then we know what’s going to happen. And so we cannot outsource our responsibility for democracy any longer to so called prophets, to so called heroes, to politicians. We have to understand this is where Ella Baker, Miss Baker, is so important that we are our salvation in this instanc. Of course, that that doesn’t disregard one’s faith claims, but it’s what we do.And there’s a somewhat cliche at the heart of the book. And that is that if we are the leaders we’ve been looking for, then we got to become better people. We got to reach for higher forms of excellence. James Baldwin used to put it this way, the messiness of the world is often a reflection of the messiness of our interior lives. So if we don’t begin to do that hard work on becoming better people, then we can’t be the source of significant change. But I also should say this, doing the hard work of becoming a better human being must take place alongside of [and] within our ongoing effort to make a more just world. Because the world as it currently is organized gets in the way of us becoming better people. It’s almost like you’re rewarded to be selfish, you’re rewarded to be greedy, you’re rewarded to be mean spirited, you’re rewarded to be self-regarded. You’re not rewarded if you’re other regarded, if you’re not regarded if you have an I, thou relationship [with others as non-objects], you’re not regarded if you’re committed to justice, if you’re committed to the least of these, you see what I mean? If you’re maladjusted to an unjust world, you’re not rewarded. So we got to do the hard work of self-cultivation in pursuit of a more just world. That’s the heart of the book.
Maina
Which one of these people did you fall in love with the most? You’re taking some of the very, very best and you’re dropping them right in front of us and there are nuggets right in front of us. Which one did you go, “I am more in line with this leader.”
Dr. Glaude
It depends on what age you ask me. So when I was a young kid growing up in Mississippi, Dr. King meant everything. I remember checking out the album, show you how old I am. It was the vinyl of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It was the March on Washington. And I remember stopping it and learning it by memory from Mrs. Mitchell’s eighth grade history class. And Dr. King was so important to how I imagined myself. When I got to Morehouse, you’re baptized in King’s thought. You got the statue of him looking at you. And so King was so important for me at a young age. But then when I got to Morehouse, Malcolm became my guy. And I have my goatee to this day. I will never cut it off as kind of testimony from my first conversion experience, reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. So here I am excited to be at King’s Alma Mater and my freshman year, this guy walks up to me and said, “You’re like a hand without a thumb. You don’t know who you are.” And he gave me Malcolm X’s autobiography. And I read it that night. And I found the language for my father’s anger. I found the language for how to imagine myself as a man, given the fact that I was so afraid because my father scared me to death. Malcolm became this hero of mine that I cut my political teeth on. And now here I am in my fifties. And Miss Baker is all up in me. It’s a more mature voice, I suppose, but we wouldn’t have a black freedom struggle of the 20th century if it wasn’t for her. And the way in which she has that wonderful line, “A strong people doesn’t need a strong leader.” And I said this once, I was speaking, I think it was in Chicago. I was like, “What happens when you have fans in the pews and a celebrity in the pulpit?” The church is dead. It’s done. I think we’re seeing a lot of that right now. What happens when you outsource your faith journey to someone else? And so part of what I’ve been trying to do is to live Miss Baker’s edict. Because the title of the book comes from her. We are the leaders we have been looking for. She says, “We have to convince people that their salvation is in their hands.” What we choose to do. Not what the preacher chooses to do, not what the politician chooses to do. So not what Malcolm inspired me to do, not what King leads me to do, but what’s coming from inside of my heart in light of the exemplars of excellence and love that inform and shape my own voice as I understand it. And that’s what I’m writing towards in the book.
Maina
You keep talking to me. So last question. Sure. Your spiritual faith journey, did that come into play in this book at all?
Dr. Glaude
It’s at work in all of my texts. To be honest with you, it’s me trying to understand what does it what does it mean to be decent and loving? What does it mean to exemplify the ministry of Jesus without it being overlaid with dogma and an institutional constraint. So when I call for a coalition of the decent, animated by the power of love, that is the exacting power of love. That is that is at the heart of my religious Christian witness, as it were. And there’s a moment in the book near the end where I’m going to invoke Jimmy Baldwin again. He has this extraordinary essay that is published after his after his death is entitled “To Crush A Serpent.” And in this in this essay, he is relentless in his critique of the Fallwells and the moral majority and the like. But he talks about what salvation involves, what it entails. And it’s an echo of an earlier essay, a talk that he gave at Kalamazoo in 1961, entitled “In Search For A Majority.” And he says salvation is found in effect in “the going towards.” Salvation is found in the going towards in some ways. And I want to suggest that salvation is found in the going towards and love is its carriage. So the short answer to the question is, is yes, me trying to figure all of this out, indebted to the Christian tradition, but not limited by it. Those lectures produced an uncommon faith. So the short answer is yes, all my books are or attempts to make sense of this complex journey that I’m making in terms of my faith.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
These words are among the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. It is a bold declaration, and one that we as a nation should in every era strive towards. However, the reality is that we have yet to attain this ideal. These words written should remind each of us that we are made in the Imago Dei – the image of God. We are entitled to inalienable rights. What is an inalienable right you might wonder? It is a right to freedom; a right to have your voice heard; a right to have clean air, water, food and housing. These rights were given to us by our Creator and therefore, no government should be able to deny them. Again, we have had to strive in many ways to live up to this standard. The horrific legacy of treatment towards indigenous people, race-based chattel-slavery, lynching, black codes, Jim Crow, Voter Suppression, Red-Lining, and Mass Incarceration are indicators to us that we are still on the journey to living up to what was written in our Declaration. Within each generation there is a remnant of people of good faith who must decide to call out the present injustice and reject evil and wrongdoing at every angle.
Sojourner Truth Memorial in Florence, Massachusetts. Lynne Graves, CC BY-ND
During the Abolition Movement, Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth were among abolition leaders who were led by their deep Christian faith to push for the abolition of race-based chattel slavery. They looked to the Declaration of Independence as a document that applied the moral laws of creation to our newly formed nation and how all people ought to be treated. The use of the declaration was much a part of the argument for abolition, and rightfully so. The argument was to highlight blatant hypocrisies that were being ignored for the benefit of the planter class. The same argument was used during America’s 2nd Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-60s. Our country is much familiar with the name of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. How many of us truly know what was said in that speech besides “I have a dream”? The correct title of the speech that King delivered, was “Normalcy, Never Again.” Within this speech King is quoted saying, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men – yes, black men as well as white men – would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” King was appealing to our nation’s better angels and trying to reveal to us the reality that we had not been true to what we wrote on paper. In his final speech, titled “I’ve been to the Mountaintop”, delivered before a Memphis crowd on April 3rd, 1968 the day before he was assassinated, King said “All we say to America is to be true to what you said on Paper”. King was referring back to our Declaration and the bold promises of liberty and justice for all we continue to tout to this very day.
I raise the example of King, Truth, and Douglas, as they were each Christian leaders who gave themselves to the plight of justice in their respective eras. The lives of these American Christians among many others give us a glimpse into how we as Christians can engage in the movement for justice from a biblical worldview in our society today. We must ask ourselves as Christians, how can we aid in helping our nation truly live up to its highest ideals of liberty and justice for all? How can we progress our nation towards valuing everybody as image bearers in and throughout our systems?
First we have to look back at the scriptures and principles of God’s Word. Jesus shares the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10:25-37, for good reason. He is breaking down cultural barriers and helping those of his day to see one another as fellow image bearers. Earlier in the chapter Jesus effectively answers a religious law expert’s question regarding the greatest commandments (v. 27). Jesus essentially had the man answer his own question! The passage is as follows: “He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ‘You have answered correctly,’ Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” This is when Jesus shares the famous Good Samaritan story with him and how he was the only one of three people to stop and help the person who had just been beaten and robbed on the side of the road. The exchange between the two continues. In verses 36-37, Jesus asks him, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
This passage is timeless. It provides a view into God’s heart towards all of humanity, how Jesus came as the rendering of God’s mercy towards us, and how he requires us to show mercy to others. In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus makes his own opening declaration as he begins his three-and-a-half-year world-changing ministry. He says, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
We who carry on the Great Commission, who have a duty to spread the Gospel to all, must recognize we have to fulfill this duty in word and deed. The early church in the Book of Acts spread the Gospel and they also initiated humanitarian help to those in need. There are so many issues in our modern world today, that we as the body of Christ have the capability to impact in a positive way. From helping the unhoused, resolving food insecurity in entire communities, to pushing our policy makers to make healthcare more affordable, and taking numerous policy actions that will uplift all people. We are to be a voice for the voiceless. There is no greater place of refuge and strength for the weary, the broken and the hurting than the church today. We must live the Gospel through our actions and that includes standing up for the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed of society.
Reverend Edward Ford Jr. is a Former Elected Official in Connecticut, a Community Advocate, Organizer, Healthcare Administrator, and Public Theologian. He is currently studying for a Master’s Degree in Divinity at Yale University in New Haven, CT.
All week long, African Americans have been celebrating Kwanzaa across the U.S.
Perhaps you may attend a Kwanzaa celebration at your church or even participate in Kwanzaa in the comforts of your own home, but do you really know why? What is Kwanzaa and why do so many African Americans choose to celebrate the holiday?
Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga created and developed Kwanzaa in 1966. Dr. Karenga is an author, professor, and scholar-activist who is passionate about sustaining Pan-African culture in America with an emphasis on celebrating the family and the community.
There are three main ideas that are foundational to sustaining Kwanzaa tradition. The first idea is to reinstate rootedness in African culture. The second is to serve as a consistent, annual, public celebration to strengthen and confirm the bonds between people of the African diaspora. And finally, Kwanzaa is to familiarize and support the “Nguzo Saba,” also known as the “Seven Principles,” which are each celebrated during the seven days following Christmas.
These seven principles represent the values of African communication. They include the following:
Umoja or Unity
Kujichagulia or Self-Determination
Ujima or Collective Work and Responsibility
Ujamaa or Cooperative Economics
Nia or Purpose
Kuumba or Creativity
Imani or Faith.
People celebrate Kwanzaa in numerous ways and have different practices that have been incorporated into their celebrations.
Symbolic Decor
Are you unsure as to how you and your family can participate in a Kwanzaa celebration? A good way to start is to decorate your home or living quarters with the symbols of Kwanzaa.
First start by putting a green tablecloth over a table that is centrally based in the space in the space you intend to decorate. Then, place the Mkeka, a woven mat or straw that represents the factual cornerstone of African descent, on top of the tablecloth.
Place the Mazao, the fruit or crops placed in a bowl, on top of the Mkeka symbolizing the culture’s productivity. Next, place the Kinara, a seven-pronged candle holder, on the tablecloth. The Kinara should include the Mishumaa Saba, seven candles that represent the seven central principles of Kwanzaa.
The three candles placed on the left are red, symbolizing struggle, the three candles to the right are green, symbolizing hope, and one candle placed in the center is black, symbolizing those who draw their heritage from Africa or simply just the African American people. The candles are lit each day in a certain order, and the black candle is always first.
Next, include the Muhindi, or ears of corn, used to symbolize each child. However, if there are no children present, place two ears to represent the children within the community.
Also, include Zawadi, gifts for the children, on the table. And finally, don’t forget the Kikombe cha Umoja, a cup to symbolize family and unity within the community.
Pan-African Creativity
You may also choose to decorate the rest of your home with Kwanzaa flags, called Bendera, and posters focusing on the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Some children usually take pleasure in making these flags or they may be purchased instead. African national and tribal flags can also be created to symbolize the seven principles.
Other ways to celebrate may include learning Kwanzaa greetings, such as “Habari Gani,” which is a traditional Swahili greeting for “What is the news?”
Other activities for celebrating Kwanzaa is to have a ceremony, which may include lighting the candles, musical selections played on the drums, readings of the African Pledge and the Principles of Blackness, reflections on the Pan-African colors, discussing African principles for that day and/or reciting chapters in African heritage. Be creative!
Have you and your family been participating in your own Kwanzaa traditions? Share them below.
In Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America’s First Black Generals, author Doug Melville tells the incredible true story of the 1st and 2nd Black Generals in the United States, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. & Benjamin O. Davis Jr. They were his extended family and were a father and son who changed our country and yet their history has rarely been told. Ben Sr. established the Tuskegee Airmen, integrated the Armed Services, and served in the Air Force for decades. Ben Jr. was the first Black 4 star General, established the TSA, and shaped the Transportation Administration. As we honor our former soldiers this Veterans Day, let us learn about these Invisible Generals who changed our nation. The edited interview is above, more about the book is below.
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In Invisible Generals, Melville shares his quest to rediscover his family’s story across five generations, from post-Civil War America to modern day Asia and Europe. In life, the Davises were denied the recognition and compensation they’d earned, but through his journey, Melville uncovers something greater: that dedication and self-sacrifice can move proverbial mountains—even in a world determined to make you invisible.
Invisible Generals recounts the lives of a father and his son who always maintained their belief in the American dream. As the inheritor of their legacy, Melville retraces their steps, advocates for them to receive their long-overdue honors and unlocks the potential we all hold to retrieve powerful family stories lost to the past.
The Burial is a film inspired by the real life story of black Attorney Willie Gary known as “The Giant Killer” who takes the unexpected contract case of a white funeral home owner named Jeremiah O’Keefe in southern Mississippi. Mr. Gary is one of the most successful trial attorneys in American history who has won lawsuits against multibillion dollar corporations to protect and get justice for his clients. The inspiring story is filled with comedy and drama as what begins as a case about deal gone bad begins to expose corruption, injustice, and power that would change both men’s lives. Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx plays Willie Gary who alongside Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones and Jurnee Smollett deliver truly amazing performances. UrbanFaith sat down with Willie Gary, the man behind the legend to talk about the film and his hopes to inspire others. The full interview is above. The film is rated R for language, but it is a movie I will be fine watching with my kids. There is use of the n word in context which likely contributes to the rating, but this film is a cinematic take on important black history and American history. The film is in select theaters now and on Amazon Prime Video October 13!
Maina
Dr. Glaude
Reverend Edward Ford Jr. is a Former Elected Official in Connecticut, a Community Advocate, Organizer, Healthcare Administrator, and Public Theologian. He is currently studying for a Master’s Degree in Divinity at Yale University in New Haven, CT.
