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.
Every Black History Month we see a million memes, quotes, and images of Black people who have played an important role in shaping the story and lives of black people in America. We have heard about Martin Luther King Jr., Harriett Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Rosa Parks more times than we can count. If we’ve grown up with good black history education which is rare in these yet to be United States of America, then we might know Booker T. Washington or Maya Angelou. We know there is an active attempt to publicly whitewash black history as though the systemic destruction, repression, and marginalization of our history wasn’t enough. As a result it becomes more important than ever to teach and tell Black History.
But in an attempt to reclaim our history, let us not forget the key role faith played in the lives of so many of our black leaders. There is a reason why belief in God and practice of faith were so key in the lives of many (but not all) people we talk about during Black History Month. So let’s lift up the faith of our black heroines and heroes this month as we continue to live out our own faith. Below are just some notable examples of historical moments and key black leaders who were influenced by their faith.
Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey was an abolitionist and former slave who planned and organized an armed slave rebellion to free the slaves in Charleston, SC. Charleston was the largest slave trading port in the United States during the early 1800s. He was the slave of a ship captain who won the lottery and paid for his own freedom with his earnings, but was not able to pay for his family’s freedom. As a result he became intent on ending the institution of slavery itself. Vesey was a worshipper and small group teacher at the African Church which became Mother Emmanuel AME Church, and his faith informed his advocacy for abolition.
He was inspired by the Haitian revolution and planned to flee to Haiti with the freed slaves after the rebellion. He inspired other abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, David Walker, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is well noted that the abolition of slavery was a result of the work of Christian abolitionists.
The Christianity of Vesey and David Walker after him did not advocate for passive waiting to slavery to end. As he read Isaiah, Amos, and especially Exodus he were convinced that armed rebellion could be used by God to bring freedom to enslaved Africans. He began to preach a radical liberation theology from the Old Testament almost exclusively as he prepared for rebellion. Denmark Vesey resurfaced as a popular figure in recent years in the aftermath of the horrendous shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in 2016.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer was the founder and vice-chairperson of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which successfully unseated the all-white Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Party’s convention in 1968. This and other efforts earned her the title “First Lady of Civil Rights.”
In 1962, Fannie Lou became involved with the Civil Rights Movement when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee held a meeting in Ruleville, Mississippi. She and 17 others went to the county courthouse and tried to register to vote. Because they were African American, they were given an impossible registration test which they all failed. Fannie Lou’s life became a living hell. She was threatened, shot at, cursed and abused by angry mobs of white men including being beat almost to death by the police and imprisoned in Mississippi in 1963 for registering to vote.
Fannie Lou Hamer often sang spirituals at rallies, protests, and even in jail. Her faith in God is what she felt carried her through those difficult experiences. She quoted the Bible to shame her oppressors, encourage her followers, and hold her ministerial colleagues in the SCLC and SNCC accountable. She was a devout member of William Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, and let her faith permeate everything she did.
Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander, JD is a civil rights lawyer and advocate, a legal scholar and the author of the New York Times best seller “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” The book helped to start a national debate about the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States and inspired racial-justice organizing and advocacy efforts nationwide.
Alexander performed extensive research on mass incarceration, racism in law and public policy, and racial justice to write her book published in 2010. She has lectured and taught widely on her work as a professor of law and religion at Stanford University, The Ohio State University, and Union Theological Seminary. The New Jim Crow became a foundational text for many of the reforms being advocate for by various organizations involved in the recent push for criminal justice reform and the movement for black lives.
Alexander was driven by her faith to advocate for justice system reforms, believing that God called her to it and seeing it as her reasonable service. Her faith drives her advocacy for justice for the marginalized, care and compassion for all people, and teaching. She feels as though her work in law and faith are inextricably linked, and that people of faith are poised to serve one of the most important roles in changing the system. She is currently a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York exploring the spiritual and ethical dimensions of the fight against mass incarceration.
(RNS) — Frederick Douglass called the Bible one of his most important resources and was involved in Black church circles as he spent his life working to end what he called the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
Harriet Tubman sensed divine inspiration amid her actions to free herself and dozens of others who had been enslaved in the American South.
The two abolitionists are subjects of a twin set of documentaries, “Becoming Frederick Douglass” and “Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom,” co-productions of Maryland Public Television and Firelight Films and released by PBS this month (October).
“I think that the faith journey of both Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were a huge part of their story,” Stanley Nelson, co-director with Nicole London of the two hourlong films, said in an interview with Religion News Service.
“Religion for both Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass was the foundation in many ways of who they are.”
Stanley Nelson. Photo by Corey Nickols
The films, whose production took more than three years in part due to a COVID-19 hiatus, detail the horrors of slavery both Tubman and Douglass witnessed. Tubman saw her sister being sold to a new enslaver and torn away from her children. A young Douglass hid in a closet as he watched his aunt being beaten. They each expressed beliefs in the providence of God playing a role in the gaining of their freedom.
Scholars in both films spoke of the faith of these “original abolitionists,” as University of Connecticut historian Manisha Sinha called people like Tubman, who took to pulpits and lecterns as they strove to end the ownership of members of their race and sought to convince white people to join their cause.“The Bible was foundational to Douglass as a writer, orator, and activist,” Harvard University scholar John Stauffer told Religion News Service in an email, expanding on his comments in the film about the onetime lay preacher. “It influenced him probably more than any other single work.”
Frederick Douglass, circa 1847-52. Photo by Samuel J. Miller, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago Stauffer said the holy book, which shaped Douglass’ talks and writings, was the subject of lessons at a Sunday school he organized to teach other slaves.
“It’s impossible to appreciate or understand Douglass without recognizing the enormous influence the Bible had on him and his extraordinary knowledge of it,” Stauffer added.
Actor Wendell Pierce provides the voice of Douglass in the films, quoting him saying in an autobiography that William Lloyd Garrison’s weekly abolitionist newspaper The Liberator “took a place in my heart second only to the Bible.”
The documentary notes that Douglass was part of Baltimore’s African Methodist Episcopal Church circles that included many free Black people. Scholars say he met his future wife Anna Murray, who encouraged him to pursue his own freedom, in that city.
“The AME Church was central in not only creating a space for African Americans to worship but creating a network of support for African Americans who were committed to anti-slavery,” said Georgetown University historian Marcia Chatelain, in the film.
The Douglass documentary is set to premiere Tuesday (Oct. 11) on PBS. It and the Tubman documentary, which first aired Oct. 4, will be available to stream for free for 30 days on PBS.org and the PBS video app after their initial air dates. After streaming on PBS’ website and other locations for a month, the films, which include footage from Maryland’s Eastern Shore where both Douglass and Tubman were born, will then be available on PBS Passport.
Poster for “Becoming Frederick Douglass.” Courtesy image
Poster for “Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom.” Courtesy image
The Tubman documentary opens with her words, spoken by actress Alfre Woodard.
“God’s time is always near,” she says, in words she told writer Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney around 1850. “He set the North Star in the heavens. He gave me the strength in my limbs. He meant I should be free.”
Tubman, who early in life sustained a serious injury and experienced subsequent seizures and serious headaches, often had visions she interpreted as “signposts from God,” said Rutgers University historian Erica A. Dunbar in the film.
Portrait of Harriet Tubman taken in Auburn, New York. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress. The woman known as “Moses” freed slaves by leading them through nighttime escapes and later as a scout for the Union Army in the Civil War.
“She never accepted praise or responsibility, even, for these great feats,” Dunbar said. “She always saw herself as a vessel of her God.”
But, nevertheless, praise for Tubman came from Douglass, who noted in an 1868 letter to her that while his work was often public, hers was primarily in secret, recognized only by the “heartfelt, ‘God bless you’” from people she had helped reach freedom.
Nelson, a religiously unaffiliated man who created films about the mission work of the United Methodist Church early in his career, said the documentary helps shed light on the importance faith held for Tubman.
“It’s something that most people don’t know and so many people who see the film for the first time are kind of surprised at that,” he said in an interview. “She felt she was guided by a divine spirit and the spirit told her what to do.”
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.
Denmark Vesey
Fannie Lou Hamer
Michelle Alexander
