“Then they compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by, to bear His cross.” Mark 15:21 (NKJV)

According to the Department of Justice: Nearly 650,000 people are released from state and Federal prison yearly and arrive on the doorsteps of communities nationwide.

If you were to ask most people who were raised in Christian countries to name a Black Biblical character many would mention Simon of Cyrene aka Simon the Niger (Black) or that guy who helped Yahshua carry the cross during the crucifixion, but how much do we know about this brother who was made to help Yahshua at his lowest point, and what can his example teach us about bearing the crosses of formerly incarcerated citizens returning to our communities?

Cyrene is a country on the North coast of Africa that played a crucial role in early Christian history and served as a haven for Jews fleeing trouble in Israel. Actually, according to Thomas Oden, founder of the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University, anytime the Hebrews were in trouble they fled to Africa. Why was Simon asked to help Yahshua carry his cross? We do not know, but what we do know is that he did help Yahshua with this demonizing task. What many of us do not know is that Simon’s partnership with Yahshua did not end with the crucifixion.

The New Commentary on the Whole Bible editors J.D. Douglas and Philip W. Comfort bring up the interesting possibility that Simeon called Niger who appears in Acts 13:1 is the same person as Simon of Cyrene mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels as the man who helped Jesus carry his cross. We should note that Simeon is a Hebrew name, and Niger is Latin for black, so Simeon aka Simon was an African Jewish man. A further examination of the Greek and Hebrew meanings of the name Simon gives more clues to the African heritage of this character in the gospels.

Simon is a common name, from Hebrew שִׁמְעוֹן Šimʻôn, meaning “listen”. It is also a classical Greek name, deriving from an adjective meaning “flat-nosed”. Many sub-Saharan African people have noses that have been classified as “flat-noses” which some have used in a derogatory way but in my opinion is just physical characteristic such as being tall or short or blond or brunette. Oden even goes as far to say the Apostle Mark and Simon of Cyrene may actually be related as Levite Jews in his work The African Memory of Mark. We read in Acts 11:19-21 about the men from Cyrene and Cyprus who founded the church in Antioch. The Apostle Mark who is known as the Apostle to Africa mentions Simon with his sons Alexander and Rufus and they became prominent members of the early church. It was the Cyrenians who carried the Gospel to Greece.

It appears that though helping Yahshua bear the cross was one moment in a momentous day this had a lasting impact on Simon’s life and ministry. This Black hero of the Bible was changed by helping Yahshua bear the cross which reminds me that as I work to help formerly incarcerated people re-enter our communities, it is I who ends up changed along with my formerly incarcerated brothers and sisters who bear the cross of being marked by our criminal justice system as having a “record” that often prevents them from fully re-joining our communities.

READ: Black Women Cracking ‘Stained-Glass Ceilings’ with Jesus’ Last 7 Words

As the former Executive Director of Faith in New York,  I worked on a campaign called Live Free a national movement of faith communities dedicated to ending mass incarceration and police brutality through prophetic action as well as state and federal policy changes. In my work, Bishop Darren Ferguson of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Far Rockaway, New York is a hero to the formerly incarcerated. Bishop Ferguson helps his brothers and sisters bear the cross of shame that comes with being formerly incarcerated. Bishop Ferguson knows first-hand about bearing the cross of incarceration as he served time in the notorious Sing Sing prison and earned his theology degree from New York Theological Seminary while incarcerated. Upon returning to New York City, he became a youth minister at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.

In May 2015, as a leader in the Live Free campaign, he chaired a meeting with high level White House staff urging them to take action to help formerly incarcerated citizens re-enter our communities with dignity. Bishop Ferguson like Simon of Cyrene has God sons and daughters who help him take the Gospel to new communities while standing up for the rights of returning citizens.

Simon of Cyrene bearing the cross of Yahshua makes me proud as an African American woman, but it also challenges me to examine whose cross I am helping bear. I was born and raised in East New York, Brooklyn one of the seven communities that sends the highest number of people to New York state prisons; and each day we welcome men and women back home from prison. Simon’s example challenges me to help bear the cross of my formerly incarcerated brothers and sisters.

We forget that the cross symbolized that Yahshua was unjustly incarcerated and executed by the Roman Empire, just like many African Americans are unjustly executed by the American Empire through the death penalty. Crucifixion was a mark of deep shame on its victim. The Cross was adopted by the Roman Empire with the intent to suppress and intimidate people was originally reserved for slaves. According to Philippians 2: 8, “He (Yahshua) humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”

Bearing the cross of being formerly incarcerated in America means that you may not be able to vote or obtain federal financial aid for college which are just two of the many ways you are denied full citizenship. There is also the shame of being viewed as a criminal long after you have paid your “debt” to society. This shame is especially unfair when we take into account the ways in which Black men and women are unjustly targeted and charged in our criminal system. It is interesting that when Simon was told to help Yahshua bear his cross, he did not ask Yahshua what he did to deserve this punishment, but he just “helped a brotha out” as my young neighbors in Harlem would say.

In our faith communities, do we first question the returning citizen before helping them bear their cross or do we just help them bear their cross? Maybe Simon didn’t question Yahshua about why he was being crucified because he knew that Rome was an unjust empire that had a broken justice system. As we prepare to welcome scores of formerly incarcerated men and women home let us help them bear their crosses like Simon of Cyrene. And let us realize that by doing so it won’t be those bearing the cross that are changed, but it will be us who are changed by walking alongside them. Simon of Cyrene and his sons, like many other countless Africans, played a key role in laying the foundation for the Messianic Movement that would become Christianity.

When we discuss early Christianity in Africa, we should note this is not the same as Western Constantinian Christianity but is a Christianity that was very much connected to the early Messianic Hebrew movement, with many early African Christians keeping the Sabbath and Biblical feast. Black men and women are not new to the faith and the witness of Simon of Cyrene; and Blacks of faith today can teach us a great deal.

So I leave you with these words of Bishop Darren A. Ferguson, Author of How I Became an Angry Black Man, “I live, breathe and fight for my people, and I will live for God, pray to my God and fight with what God has given me. I love the Afrocentricity of the Holy Writ, though heathens sought to obscure it as they attempted to force feed my ancestors a white-washed, watered down gospel. But thanks be to God that the liberation story of Moses resonated with my ancestors more than the misquoted ‘Slaves be obedient to your masters’ that Massa tried to force down my people’s throats. I believe in the power of prayer but am not waiting for anything to fall from heaven. My prayers are merely my recharging station that I may go out and fight the good fight.”

Caption: This is the boy in Jericho from Onleilove’s trip in Israel.

Last August I joined people of African descent from across the diaspora in Israel for a conference and trip organized by Mahaleyah Goodman who had lived in Israel for 35-years first as a member of the African Hebrew Israelite Community of Dimona and then on her own as an author, Internet show host and advocate for Black women and children living in Israel. Additionally, she kept the African diaspora abreast on how our brothers and sisters were doing in Israel. After following her work for a couple of years I was excited when she gave a call for Blacks from across the world to come together to visit Israel and see this land through the eyes of Blacks living there. Mahaleyah also wanted to host a time of spiritual unity for Blacks from across the globe as many of us (especially those of us from America) faced a year of hash tags due to police brutality and were collectively mourning the deaths of #EricGarner #AkaiGurley #SandraBland and #MikeBrown.

As a faith based organizer, speaker and author covering African and African-American Jewish communities as well as the African roots of the Jewish and Christian Faith traditions I was excited to go to Israel while being hosted by a Black woman. As someone whose career has been focused on ending systematic injustice I was also careful to travel to Israel in a way that was sensitive to the plight of Palestinians. Mahaleyah partnered with Yonis a Bedouin tour guide who was born and raised in the Judea desert and so I was able to see the land through his eyes and culture as well. As I prepared for my trip to Israel Rabbis I worked with as a faith based organizer gave me tips on traveling to Israel and a Black Jewish man I was dating told me not to wear a Star of David or anything Judaic because that may cause me to be turned away at Ben Gurion airport. I took his words seriously as I heard of stories of Black Jews who had undergone orthodox conversion processes only to be turned away at Ben Gurion airport because there was fear that they would illegally stay in Israel. With a letter from Mahaleyah and Rabbi referrals as well as my business card as Executive Director of a Faith-based organizing non-profit in New York City I entered customs at Ben Gurion and was able to get my visa with just one question about why my hotel was in the desert.

My tour included people of African descent from all parts of America as well as London by way of Ghana. We stayed in Tel Arad which is one of the most diverse areas of Israel and as we visited Black families who had lived in Israel for 10, 20, 30 and 40 years they were very concerned for the lives of Black Americans due to reports of police brutality. I also knew that a few months before our arrival Ethiopian Jewish women led #BlackLivesMatter protest concerning racism in Israel and so I was surprised that African-American expats felt comfortable in Israel. As we traveled through Israel I saw Sudanese refugees, Ethiopian Jews and countless other people of African descent. Towards the end of our tour Yonis took us to Bethlehem, Jericho and the West Bank and I was saddened to see the conditions Palestinians lived in but I also wanted to speak to Afro-Palestinians in the African Quarter of Jerusalem because I knew they faced discrimination not only from Israelis as Palestinians but from lighter skinned Palestinians as Blacks. My question for friends and colleagues on the side of Israel and those on the side of Palestine is who is concerned about Blacks in Israel or Blacks in Palestine?

Over the past few weeks friends from the Movements for Black Lives, Jewish Rabbis and colleagues, as well as Palestinian organizers have all weighed in concerning the #BlackLivesMatter platform and the statement about Palestine. As I read the statements and spoke to colleagues I remembered one person I met while in Jericho during my trip last August. When my group and I arrived in Jericho we were greeted by a beautiful Afro-Palestinian boy who gave us a big smile and shook our hands as if he was welcoming us to the town. I was shocked to see him there until my friend Stephen Graham author and documentary film maker who focuses on Black communities in Israel told me in Jericho there are multiple Black communities. I would later read an article that discussed the Blacks of Jericho who had lived there from time immemorial and who were mostly sharecroppers which connected to me as the granddaughter of North Carolina share croppers. I took a picture of that beautiful Black boy in Jericho and his smile was bright enough to light up any room but as we drove to the West Bank I wondered what his life would be like as a Black and Palestinian. When I returned home I heard about Black and Palestinian unity or Black and Jewish unity but no one was talking about the Black communities in Israel including Black American activist because most of us don’t even know these communities exist and have always existed in Israel. So as my friends debated online about the #BlackLivesMatter statement on Israel I remembered the beautiful Afro-Palestinian boy I met and continued to ask who is talking about him and who is talking to his community?

I want to stand with Palestinians as they seek justice and I stand against any form of discrimination including anti-semitism. As a Black womanist, however, my womb and what it can produce is central and I cannot stand for Arab-Palestinian lives or White Jewish lives without standing and centralizing the struggle of Blacks in Israel. For me the whole debate about #BlackLivesMatter, Israel and BDS could be rooted in radical justice if all sides focused on Black communities in Israel like the one the little boy from Jericho belonged to. The fact is there are Black communities in Israel who have lived there through multiple occupations some of these groups are Afro Bedouins, Afro Palestinians, the Canaanites (yes that group from Torah who Israel was always at war with actually exist), Black Jews and Black Hebrews. When I studied Black Liberation Theology with Dr. James Cone we learned that the prophets wrote about justice as focusing on the most oppressed among us the widows and orphans and that God had a preferential option for the most oppressed and in this situation the MOST oppressed in Israel are the various Black ethnic groups who face racism from non-Black Israelis and Arab-Palestinians alike. So as a Black woman who is a part of the broader Movement for Black Lives I have to call attention to my Brothers and Sisters living in Israel who in this whole debate have been deemed invisible. I have to remember the Afro-Palestinian boy who welcomed me to Jericho with a bright smile and who will face racism from Israelis and Palestinians alike. I have to remember the Black Jews who underwent orthodox conversions only to be turned away at Ben Gurion airport. I have to remember the beautiful complexity of the Black diaspora and I would challenge those who advocate for Israel and Palestine to do the same. If we are not talking about Blacks in Israel while talking about the #BlackLivesMatter statement on Israel we are missing a powerful opportunity for justice. As a Black faith leader I like many Black faith leaders are asked to stand with Israel. As a Black organizer I am asked like many Black organizers to stand with Palestine, but it is actually an insult to my humanity to ask me to stand with either side when both sides are discriminating against my Black brothers and sisters in Israel and Palestine. Essentially as a Black woman when you ask me to advocate for Palestinian liberation or for Israel to exist without advocating for justice for Blacks in Israel and Palestine you are asking me to be a mammy – the archetype of enslaved and Black woman who took care of the master’s family while having to neglect her own and this will not lead to justice. I believe that by centering this current conversation around the liberation of Blacks in Israel we will all be able to find our North Star to true healing, true justice and true Shalom.

“I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I endorse the Nicene Creed. I believe that Jesus died for me. I believe that God lives for me as for all men, and no condition you can impose upon me by deceiving me about Christianity will cause me to doubt Jesus Christ and to doubt God. I shall never hold Christ responsible for the commercialization of Christianity by the heartless men who adopt it as the easiest means of fooling and robbing other people out of their land and country.”- Marcus Garvey

This week I celebrated my birthday on August 17th. Growing up in New York City, every year on or around my birthday in Brooklyn and Harlem there were big parades and special events. My mother would jokingly tell me that these celebrations were in my honor. I believed her. But as I grew in my knowledge of African history as well as in my career as a community organizer, I learned that these celebrations took place on August 17th because across the African diaspora this day is known as Marcus Garvey Day.

Marcus “Mosiah” Garvey was born in Jamaica on August 17th, 1887 and immigrated to America where he founded of one of the world’s largest grassroots organizing networks the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), this organization was founded on July 15, 1914 not only by Garvey but with the help of Black Jewish leaders from Harlem who composed the constitution and hymn. As a Black Christian woman I did not know that one of my heroes was a devout Christian and the inspiration for Black Christians, Black Jews, Black Muslims and for the founding of the Rastafarian religion.

The UNIA from its inception was an interfaith movement where people of African descent not only in America but in the Caribbean, South America, Europe and Africa were urged to unite under: “One God! One Aim! One Destiny” which was the organization’s motto. At its height it had over 1, 900 divisions in more than 40 countries, representing millions of members. Most of the divisions were located in the United States, which had become the UNIA’s base of operations. Marcus Garvey was a serious Christian and this faith motivated him but he understood that the UNIA had to be ecumenical and interfaith in order to provide all African people regardless of faith tradition a venue for organizing for liberation. In recognition of needing a Black led interfaith movement Garvey called on his Black Jewish friends at the Commandment Keepers Synagogue of Harlem (our nation’s first and largest Black Jewish temple) to help form and lead the UNIA. Currently, Black Jews and Hebrews have taken a more visible role in the Black Lives Matter Movement and in light of this it’s important to know the essential role Black Jews played in the leadership of the UNIA.

“Rabbi Arnold Ford became the musical director of the UNIA choir, Samuel Valentine was the president, and Nancy Paris its lead singer. These three Black Jews became the core of an active group of black Jews within the UNIA who studied Hebrew, religion, and history, and held services at Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the UNIA. As a paid officer, Rabbi Ford, as he was then called, was responsible for orchestrating much of the pageantry of Garvey’s highly attractive ceremonies. Ford and Benjamin E. Burrell composed a song called “Ethiopia, ” the lyrics of which spoke of a glorious past before slavery and stressed pride in their African heritage,  two themes that were becoming immensely popular. Ford’s efforts in the movement place him in the category of GEORGE ALEXANDER MCGUIRE, Chaplain General of the UNIA.

But Ford’s contributions to the UNIA were not limited to musical matters. He and E.L. Gaines wrote the handbook of rules and regulation for the African Legion (which was modeled after the Zionist Jewish Legion) and developed guidelines for the Black Cross Nurses. He served on committees, spoke at rallies and was elected one of the delegates representing the 35, 000 members of the New York chapter to the “First International Convention of Negro Peoples of the World, ” held in 1920 at Madison Square Garden. There the governing body adopted the red, black, and green flag as its national ensign and Ford’s song “Ethiopia” became the “Universal Ethiopian Anthem, ” which the UNIA constitution required be sung at every gathering. During that same year, Ford published the Universal Ethiopian Hymnal. Ford was a proponent of replacing the disparaging term “Negro” with the term “Ethiopian (In antiquity, all of Africa was sometimes referred to as Ethiopia), ” as a general reference to people of African descent. This gave the line in Psalm 68 that “Ethiopia shall son stretch out her hand to God, ” a new significance and it became popular slogan of the organization. At the 1922 convention, Ford opened the proceedings for the session devoted to “The Politics and Future of the West Indian Negro, ” and he represented the advocates of Judaism on a five-person ad hoc committee formed to investigate “the Future Religion of the Negro.”

What I love about the history of the UNIA was that though it was a Pan African organizing movement, an official position in the organization was Chaplain and in addition to a Jewish Chaplain there was also a Christian Chaplain (and I should note Black Muslims played a key role in the UNIA). The African Orthodox Church was founded by the first UNIA Chaplain to create a Pan African Christian denomination and today this denomination still exists. Marcus Garvey in his lectures would preach about the Blackness of Jesus, God’s hatred of racism and injustice, and the need for Black Christians to root their faith in their African culture. Garvey truly believed it was God’s will for Africans across the world to be free. Here are some quotes from Marcus Garvey’s personal faith that Christians of all races can be inspired by:

“Leadership means martyrdom, leadership means sacrifice, leadership means giving up one’s personality, giving up everything for the cause that is worthwhile. Leadership means everything – pain, blood, death.”

 

“The God we love, the God we adore, the God who sent His Son to this world 2, 000 years ago never created an inferior man. The God we love, the God we worship and adore has created man in His own image, equal in every respect, wherever he may be. Let him be white, let him be yellow, let him be red, let him be black; God has created him the equal of his brother. He is such a loving God. He is such a merciful God. He is such a God that He is no respecter of persons. He is a God that would not in His great love create a superior race and an inferior one. The God that you worship is a God that expects you to be the equal of other men. The God that I adore is such a God, and He could be no other.”

 

“The ends that you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself. But the ends that you serve that are for all, in common, will take you even into eternity.”

 

“Radical’ is a label that is always applied to people who are endeavoring to get freedom. Jesus Christ was the greatest radical the world ever saw. He came and saw a world of sin and His program was to inspire it with His spiritual redemption.”

Unfortunately, J. Edgar Hoover, the first Director of the FBI, was obsessed with taking down the UNIA and especially Marcus Garvey because he did not want a “black Messiah that could electrify the Black masses.” This fear of the rise of a Black Messiah led Hoover to also target Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Garvey was wrongly accused of fraud, arrested and deported from America. Today Garvey’s descendants are pushing for a Presidential pardon of Marcus Garvey.

I believe we all can learn a great deal from the faith of Marcus Garvey, especially as we seek to do justice as people of faith and some of these lessons are:

1. Our movements need to be ecumenical and interfaith in order to have a powerful impact. Yes, Marcus Garvey was a Christian but he understood the Black Jews and Muslims had an important role to play in the liberation of African people.
2. Our movements have to be rooted in faith, Garvey established the office of UNIA Chaplain understanding that a successful movement has to have “chaplains of the resistance not ministers to the empire”, like my friend Rev. Michael-Ray Mathews, Director Clergy Organizing for the PICO National Network reminds us as we organize an interfaith movement for justice.
3. Our movements need immigrants. Marcus Garvey was an immigrant to America and yet his work organized millions of African-Americans, inspired Malcolm X, led to the founding of a denomination and laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement, proving that immigrants have and do bring an important perspective to our movements. Garvey reminded African-Americans that we were not isolated but that we came from a wonderful continent and that our struggle was tied to the struggle of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. One of the founders of #BlackLivesMatter Opal Tometi is a daughter of Nigerian immigrants and Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, where would the movement for Black lives be without immigrants?
4. God’s will is for justice to reign. Garvey was so sure of this that even when he was framed, imprisoned and deported he did not lose the faith but in one of his last writings (from prison) he declared:
   

   “If I die in Atlanta my work shall then only begin, but I shall live, in the physical or spiritual to see the day of Africa’s glory. When I am dead wrap the mantle of the Red, Black and Green around me, for in the new life I shall rise with God’s grace and blessing to lead the millions up the heights of triumph with the colors that you well know. Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God’s grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life.”

During these very hard times for various movements for justice, will you join me in taking inspiration from the faith of a fellow Red Letter Christian Marcus Garvey and push forward knowing that our God will bring justice upon the earth?

My ministry Prophetic Whirlwind: Uncovering the Black Biblical Destiny was inspired by Garvey’s Look For Me in the Whirlwind Speech.

For more information on Prophetic Whirlwind visit us on Facebook and Instagram @PropheticWhirlwind

This season I am reminded of the meeting Mary had with Elizabeth to announce she was with child. Though this could have been a time of anxiety for Mary, with Elizabeth it became a time of celebration. I playfully call the following account of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth the first baby shower and in this account we see an example of the deep sisterhood that maintains women on the margins especially Black woman during times of uncertainty.

“Mary didn’t waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, straight to Zachariah’s house, and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby in her womb leaped. She was filled with the Holy Spirit, and sang out exuberantly, you’re so blessed among women, and the babe in your womb, also blessed, And why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord visits me? The moment the sound of your greeting entered my ears, The babe in my womb skipped like a lamb for sheer joy. Blessed woman, who believed what God said, believed every word would come true!

And Mary said, I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God. God took one good look at me, and look what happened — I’m the most fortunate woman on earth! What God has done for me will never be forgotten, the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others. His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him. He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts. He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold. He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high. It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months and then went back to her own home.”

In America, baby showers are times for women to come together and celebrate new life; presents are exchanged, advice given, and games played. Mary and Elizabeth celebrated the new life within them by exchanging presents of joy, encouragement, song, and prophecy. Both women were carrying children of promise: one would pave the way and the other would be the way.

John the Baptist, a prophet even from the womb, jumped for joy because he knew the baby Mary carried was the Messiah. Mary and Elizabeth were both silenced and marginalized in their society, yet in the company of each other they declared prophetic words of what God was doing in their midst. Neither woman had a convenient pregnancy — Mary being a teenager and Elizabeth being an elderly woman, but each allowed herself to be inconvenienced for God’s purposes. Mary and Elizabeth’s celebration shows the importance of women coming together for prayer, praise, and prophecy.

When Mary sings, “He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold, ” we see that in the presence of Elizabeth she could freely declare words that may have been dangerous if spoken in public. Mary’s song was more than words of celebration, it was a declaration of the inevitable breakthrough of justice.

In my tradition as a womanist Sabbath Keeping follower of Yahshua (Jesus) I am in a season of waiting for the messianic age, but this season I am not waiting for Christ. There is no need to wait because his grace breaks into my reality each day. As a young African-American woman, I am waiting for the justice Mary sang about to break through into my community, into the U.S. prison system, into the shacks of South Africa, into the relations we have with each other. As I think about Mary being pregnant as a Hebrew woman living under Roman domination I am reminded of the thousands of pregnant incarcerated women that give birth while chained to beds every day. They too are waiting for God’s justice to break through, will we be like Elizabeth and stand by them?

This passage is an encouragement to me as I wait because it reminds me that when women gather in Jesus’ name He is in our midst. I believe that if we want justice to break through into our society we cannot passively wait, but like Mary and Elizabeth we have to actively wait singing prophetic songs and taking actions of justice. Let us not grow anxious by the circumstances we see: the holiday parties, gifts to buy and return, or seasonal loneliness. But, during this season of Advent, let us remember that the Gospels included everyday people who God used in extraordinary ways.

Women can continue to come together to rejoice, celebrate, and prophesy about liberation through collective action and prayer. This season I will actively wait by organizing for justice in my community, because when we come together the course of history will be interrupted, life birthed, and justice given.

Prayer: God of Sarah, Hagar and Mary please be with women who are incarcerated this season, especially be with our pregnant incarcerated sisters and the children they will bring forth. Give us the courage to be like Elizabeth and standby our sisters to sing and act in ways that will cause the powerful forces of injustice to fall. Amen

The Stand with Black Women and Girls toolkit is subdivided into four sections: 1) Liturgical Resources; 2) Policy Options & Public Actions; 3) Social Media Campaign; and 4) Video Resources. Starting Friday, December 11^th, the #StandwithBWG campaign will continue until Sunday, January 17^th, 2016. To join the campaign or request further information, please email standwithbwg@gmail.com