Remembering We Can Fly

Our three green rocking chairs creaked back and forth on the wrap-around porch of the main house on the Alex Haley Farm, outside Knoxville Tennessee. It was late July 2022. Common Hymnal songwriters, Phillip Joubert and Vincent Harlow, had joined me in a tight circle on this near sacred porch lined with rocking chairs; each dedicated to an ancestor in the struggle for Black freedom. Next to us sat four tiny rocking chairs dedicated to the Four Little Girls who died in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church—two weeks after MLK shared the Dream at the March on Washington.

Phillip and Vincent, asked me: “What is the song in you that wants to be written today?”

We did not know then that one year later, on the 60th Anniversary of The March on Washington, America would bear haunting resemblance to the context of the original March for Jobs and Justice. The Federation of Protestant Welfare Workers (FPWA) released a powerful analysis of the state of Black America now and then. According to the report, released in early this month, schools are as segregated now as they were before passage of the Civil Rights Act. Black unemployment is nearly the same ratio to White unemployment as it was in ‘63. The Black poverty rate is still more than twice the rate of White poverty. Black and White homeownership ratios are similar to the years before redlining was outlawed. And the Black/White incarceration rate gap has ticked wider.

Against this lopsided social backdrop, Black Americans in 2023 are also fielding explicit institutional and legislative attacks on par with those lobbed by White Citizen’s Councils and prolific Klan infiltration of Governors offices in the 1963 Jim Crow South. The Southern Baptist Convention, many Christian Colleges and Universities and now state legislatures, governors and even presidential candidates are banning, twisting or vowing to ban the teaching of African American history. The world watched the Tennessee state legislature wield Jim Crow era tactics like weapons of war to defend AR-15s at the expense of people. Attorney General Daniel Cameron declined to prosecute Breonna Taylor’s murderers. Now he is running for Governor. And White evangelicals still provide core support for the four times criminally indicted ex-president who traffics in explicitly racist tropes while vowing to dismantle democracy.

I sat on Alex Haley’s porch, closed my eyes and remembered Fortune Game Magee, my likely 10th great grandmother who was born in 1687 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to an enslaved Senegalese man named Sambo Game, which 2nd Son, and an Ulster Scot woman named Maudlin Magee. Because her father was Black and her mother was white, Fortune and her descendants absorbed the wrath of the earliest race laws passed on American soil. Those laws shaped Fortune’s fate and terrorized every generation thereafter.

But when Civil Rights veteran Dr. Ruby Sales read Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World, she saw something in my family’s story that I had missed in my 30 years of research. It was there. I had even written it, because it happened. But I didn’t see this truth. Ruby’s endorsement read: “Faced with the choice of becoming broken-winged birds from the weight of racism, the men and women in Fortune choose to both fly in it and above it.”

That struck me. How could I have missed it. Though separated by successive indenturing masters, Fortune fought to unite her family and her daughters’ fight to maintain dignity in a racializing society was documented by a tax collector who came to collect the extra tax levied on free black women. Fortune’s free daughter, Betty, refused to pay—in 1743. Though thwarted by medical racism, Henry fought for his Civil War pension. Lea survived slavery and raised three generations on her own South Carolina land. Lizzie cut ties with rising Jim Crow terror and forged north in the Great Migration. In Philadelphia she worked as a baker at an upscale hotel and leveraged her work to feed her depression-era redlined neighbors with left-overs sweets each day. My great-grandfather Hiram, fled rising sundown towns in Indiana and built a new life in Philadelphia where he eventually bought land that he used to house displaced southerners Migrating north. Reinaldo and Anita emigrated to the South Bronx from the recently annexed Jim Crow Puerto Rico. There they maintained the Bomba circle with friends and relatives. My mother, Sharon, helped open the first northern office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and organized Philly faith communities to support Stokely Carmichael’s SNCC. And I have worked at the intersection of faith, truth-telling and repair.

Ruby was right. My family—and so many African American families—have already taught us how to fly over and through the oppressive tactics of their times. They knew how to fly. They passed the lessons down from generation to generation.

There is an old tale passed between the enslaved on plantations across the south and captured powerfully in Virginia Hamilton’s “The People Could Fly.” They say, there are some people brought in chains and forced to forget the African words what made them able to fly. But one day one old character spoke the words and he bound up on the air and flew away and others learned the words, too. They spoke them and their bodies were lifted up on the wind and they flew away! Others forgot the words or lacked the courage to speak them. They stayed behind and worked and told the story to the next generations. Never forget we can fly.

Eyes closed, I rocked back and forth; turning my mind’s eye inward. I remembered Fortune Game Magee. I asked: “What would Fortune sing to us today?”

Eyes still closed, I opened my mouth and sang one word to Phillip and Vincent: “Fly!”

Andre Henry’s musical genius transformed the song that Phillip, Vincent and I wrote that day on Haley Farm into the anthem we share with you today.

Without further ado, here is “Fly (aka Fortune’s Song).”

May you remember—we can fly.

“Fly (aka Fortune’s Song)” Lyrics:

© Lisa Sharon Harper, Phillip Joubert and Vincent Charlow

There is a lie that stole the daughters from their mothers arms
The sons from out beneath their fathers shade
There is a lie that drove the ships upon the waters
Built the walls around the life we live today

When words of life are tools of death to bind up dignity
We think that what we’ve come to know is all that this could be

Fly
To a better a life and world for you and I
Fly
To a better a life and world for you and I

There is a lie making judgments without justice
Writing laws to keep the power where its been
There is a lie that steals the vote and harms the harmless
Working day and night to make us slaves again

When hope is bent to make us feel like things can never change
And all they ever let us see are claimers and the claimed

Fly
To a better a life and world for you and I
Fly
To a better a life and world for you and I
Fly

There is a truth that can heal us if we let it
Reparations to restore and make it right

Fly
To a better a life and world for you and I
Fly
To a better a life and world for you and I
Fly
We can build a better world for you and I

It is time to abolish the myth of ‘differently equal’ once and for all.

(RNS) — “As pernicious as the racial doctrine of ‘separate but equal.’”

That’s how the Rev. Pauli Murray, the civil rights and women’s rights trailblazer, described a legal system that discriminates based on sex. Murray dedicated herself to an extraordinary life of challenging the twin evils of racial and gender discrimination.

On Thursday (April 27), Murray’s hopes for human rights inch closer to victory, as a reform she championed comes before the U.S. Senate for a historic vote. If the Senate passes the bipartisan Senate Joint Resolution 4, the Equal Rights Amendment, originally approved by a supermajority of Congress in 1972 and approved by three-fourths of the states, will become “valid to all intents and purposes as part of the U.S. Constitution.”

This vote is about the bedrock principle of equality under the law for all citizens, regardless of sex. Affirming the ERA should be a no-brainer in a modern democracy like the United States that claims to uphold human rights.

As faith leaders concerned about the harms of gender-based violence, pregnancy discrimination, maternal mortality and other injustices, we believe full equality is an urgent moral imperative. Every one of these harms has an outsized impact on women of color and their families.

The ERA remains deeply contested, however — not based on minutiae of constitutional procedure, as some opponents claim, but on the age-old struggle for women to be respected as fully human, entitled to the same rights as men.

A vast majority of Americans support the ERA, including faith leaders from a diversity of religions. They agree that all people should be safeguarded against the indignities of sexism and the harms of gender-based violence. As nearly 600 faith leaders affirm in an interfaith petition in support of the ERA, “All people are equally valuable in the sight of their Creator, and thus deserve equal regard in human laws and legal systems.”

It is truly this simple, and this revolutionary.

In his 2011 book “The Idea of Justice,” philosopher Amartya Sen explains how the principle of equality, which animated demands of the American Revolution, remains central to “every normative theory of social justice” well-accepted in today’s world. Equality is an essential element of fairness and impartiality; it prevents a system from being arbitrary or biased against some in favor of others.

Demonstrators, part of a crowd of 25,000, march along Chicago’s lakefront on May 10, 1980, in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Many churches and religious organizations participated in the event. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.

At a Senate committee hearing on the ERA in late February, opponents veered as far as possible from the heart of the matter and doggedly tried to frame the debate around procedure — because the anti-egalitarian sentiment underpinning their opposition is anathema to 21st-century America.

Opponents insist it is too late to finalize this amendment, or that certain states revoked their decisions to ratify the ERA. But renowned constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe and others have thoroughly debunked these notions — and they were never the real issue to begin with.

As Lindsey Graham made clear at the hearing, he is intent on killing the ERA regardless of what process it undergoes.

The ERA’s Senate opponents (all Republicans) claim that U.S. women have already achieved gender parity but that somehow legal equality would be dangerous to women’s interests. In other words, they think women need “special protections” under the law rather than equal rights. Think of this as “differently equal” — as the Supreme Court does.

Currently, the court applies a unique standard to sex discrimination cases under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Sex-based distinctions in government laws, policies and practices are in essence more readily tolerated than racial or religious distinctions. This uneven standard of equal protection reflects an uneven history: The doctrine did not apply to women at all before the early 1970s.

The notion that this middling brand of “equality” benefits women is untrue. It has not come close to eradicating the widespread injustice many suffer today, such as life-altering pay discrimination, runaway maternal mortality, epidemic domestic violence and ominous medical risks faced by pregnant people since the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision last June.

At the February hearing, Republican opponents conceded that the 14th Amendment does not provide a legitimate guarantee of full equality — and they do not actually want one.

Granted, some women’s biological capacity for childbearing gives rise to particular needs — for prenatal health care and consideration during pregnancy, for instance. But the murky intermediate scrutiny of “differently equal” is failing to meet these needs.

This is precisely why the ERA’s more robust standard of sex equality is necessary.

Today, women live under a Supreme Court precedent that pregnancy discrimination is not “sex discrimination.” The newly adopted Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which goes into effect this summer, represents the latest effort to secure basic accommodations for pregnant workers. But it does not cover all employers, and experience shows that its helpfulness will turn on judicial interpretation.

A constitutional principle of full equality should inform how this law is applied.

The ERA will also undergird much-needed legislation, such as the proposed Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act. The ERA will empower Congress to enforce equality with relevant laws like these, which makes them more secure against court challenges. In recent years, laws prohibiting female circumcision and violence against women have been struck down for want of a constitutional foundation.

As former Stanford Law School dean Kathleen Sullivan testified in February, the “majestic” guarantee of equality under the law allows space for equity, too. It need not amount to banning public officials from considering gender altogether — but it will require gender distinctions in the law to be exceedingly well justified, not mere concessions to sex stereotypes or traditional roles.

Our ethnic, cultural and religious differences are meaningful, and our diversity as a nation is worth celebrating. Each human being is a singular creation, never to be replicated. God broke the mold after making each of us.

But our uniqueness as individuals and communities must not be used to elevate some over others or reinforce painful and oppressive hierarchies — such as white or male or Christian supremacy.

Since our nation’s founding, gender differences have been used to relegate women to second-class status, ignore their needs, impose double standards and tolerate the cruelest forms of violence.

It is time to abolish the myth of “differently equal” once and for all — and relegate it to the dustbin of history, alongside “separate but equal,” where it belongs.

Allyson McKinney Timm is founder and executive director of Justice Revival and convener of the #Faith4ERA interfaith campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment. Tarunjit Singh Butalia is a board member of Faith in Public Life and executive director of Religions for Peace USA. Lisa Sharon Harper is founder and president of Freedom Road and author of “Fortune” and “The Very Good Gospel.” 

(RNS) — Recent Supreme Court opinions dangerously undermine women’s equal protection under the law. As women of faith, we are alarmed and active. Each of us has struggled against patriarchal interpretations of texts and teachings that undermine women’s autonomy and rights. We reject the mainstreaming of repressive religious interpretations in shared public spaces that derail our quest for equal justice.

On Women’s Equality Day, we affirm the Equal Rights Amendment as an essential next step to protect women’s rights and dignity.

Justice and equality are at the heart of the human project. American history is replete with diverse, multifaith coalitions that advance cultural shifts toward inclusivity. It is appalling that the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned abortion rights based on the literal text of a centuries-old document that excluded women from its inception. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected …,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito.

We recognize this brand of originalism from religion. Opposing justice because a text does not mention a word or emerged from a patriarchal context is a familiar argument made to preserve hierarchical power. It has long been common conservative practice to declare that the sexist historical context in which a document was penned should remain the norm today — just as the court did.

Many of our religious texts make no explicit mention of the terms “abortion,” “homosexuality,” “same-sex marriage” or “the declaration of human rights,” but all emphatically insist on justice.

In Islam, the word “abortion” does not exist; the supreme right and well-being of the mother do. For centuries, a Muslim woman has had the right to end her pregnancy whether for the mother’s health or for economic reasons. A fetus’s personhood is only recognized with the baby’s first gasp of air.

Judaism has a similar belief rooted in Exodus. The Jewish tradition has such reverence for human life that the pregnant person is held in high regard. Abortion is not only mandated to save the mother’s life but is permitted to save her from great distress, physical or emotional. The ancient rabbis described a fetus as part of the mother’s body, which does not take on personhood until the majority of the head emerges from the womb.

Protestant and Catholic Christians hold diverse views of abortion and women’s equality. A thread of misogyny runs through traditional orthodoxy; control of women remains a consistent theme in many theologies. Yet, Christian sacred texts highlight the dignity and empowerment of women in accord with Jesus’ teaching that all are equal.

Christian Scriptures are silent on abortion. There is no Christian consensus on when fetal life begins. Many feel compelled by their faith to respect women’s moral agency to make prayerful choices about childbearing and family life. Opposition to responsible reproduction is a minority view among U.S. Christians. It should not be accorded broad legal authority in a pluralistic society.

The Sikh tradition proclaims the equality and dignity of women. Sikh sacred texts present a vision of a world where people of all castes, creeds and genders are sovereign in their bodies. Any ban on abortion is a violation of this core belief. To strip away a woman’s freedom to care for her body — to decide when, whether and how to bring children into the world — is to deny her intelligence and humanity.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson stated that “a wall of separation between Church and State” was a foundational element of American democracy. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly cited Jefferson’s words as justification for the priority of secular law over the teachings of any individual faith. We live in a democratic society where rule of law, not fiat, should control.

The Equal Rights Amendment will play an important role in ensuring such a democracy. By inserting these words in the Constitution: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged … on the basis of sex,” we can correct the intentional exclusion of women. For the first time in U.S. history, people of all genders will be citizens of equal stature.

This nation is a hair’s breadth away from finalizing the ERA. It has been duly ratified by 38 states and needs only to be published by the U.S. archivist. We call on President Biden to ensure that this happens swiftly. We call on the U.S. Senate to affirm that there is no arbitrary deadline on the ERA’s adoption.

Recent Supreme Court decisions, with repercussions in the states, have shown us how urgent this reform is. As women of faith, we are committed to the common task of making the ERA the law of the land. We invite all people of goodwill to join us as we get it done.

(Ani Zonneveld is the founder and president of Muslims for Progressive Values. Lisa Sharon Harper is the president and founder of Freedom Road. Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., is cofounder and codirector of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER). Valarie Kaur leads the Revolutionary Love Project. Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR and a leading voice in reanimating religious life in America. Allyson McKinney Timm is a human rights lawyer and the founder of Justice Revival. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

This article was originally published by Religion News Service.

Research for my book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and The World—And How To Repair It All, revealed that my likely 10x great grandmother, Fortune Game Magee, absorbed the wrath of America’s first race laws– laws crafted to exploit women’s bodies for profit. Every generation after that has endured the exploitation of white patriarchy.

In 1662, White male legislators in the colony of Virginia manipulated the citizenship status of the mixed-race progeny of white planters and their enslaved African rape victims. Their mulatto children were barred from citizenship in perpetuity. As non-citizens, they and their descendants were enslavable. In its wake, this first race law left a wide berth of Black women forced to bear white men’s children to increase white profit margins.

Two years later, the laws that ensnared Fortune were crafted in the colony of Maryland. Maryland’s General Assembly banned White women from marrying and having the children of enslaved Black men upon pain of enslavement themselves and the enslavement of their children in perpetuity. White male planters soon capitalized on the law, forcing their indentured white women to marry and bear the children of their enslaved Black men. They leveraged the law to increase their free labor and lift their bottom lines—in perpetuity.

Fortune was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland twenty-three years later. By the time she was hauled to court in 1705, the General Assembly had begged off of enslaving white women, but determined that the guilty women and their progeny would be indentured. Fortune was indentured until the age of 31. Her children and grandchildren were also indentured. Simple DNA matching through Ancestry.com indicates my ancestors were likely raped by the male members of their indenturing families. Each baby born of their violence would equal one more generation of free labor—and increased family profit.

When the Transatlantic Slave Trade was outlawed in 1808, the state of Virginia seized the economic opportunity and drew from its raping roots to make slave-breeding its primary industry. Genteel Virginia businessmen commanded overseers to place bags over the heads of Black women and force Black men who might be the women’s sons, fathers, uncles or brothers to rape and impregnate them. The African-descended progeny of these forced pregnancies were sold down river into the deep South for white men’s profit.

My 5x great grandmother, Leah Ballard, was born in Virginia, 1836. I don’t know if she was the product of a breeding farm. I do know she was moved by her Quaker master deeper South to South Carolina where he could exploit enslaved women outside of Quaker accountability. We believe Leah was forced to bear children to increase her master’s riches.

Whenever white men have controlled women’s bodies on American soil, the men have benefited. Now, on the other side of Roe, it’s clear: the 40-year fight of my white evangelical brothers and sisters to end Roe was not about morality. It was about power. By ending Roe, they get it back.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 enforced the 14th Amendment’s reversal of Virginia’s very first race law granting citizenship to all people born within U.S. borders, regardless of race. The Civil Rights Act of ‘64 led to the demise of America’s race-based immigration policy. It also laid foundations for Roe v Wade’s 14th Amendment affirmation of the right to privacy.

The same year I walked down the aisle and gave my life to Jesus, Southern White evangelical men lost their Supreme Court fight to protect pure white space at Bob Jones University and beat back the gains of the Civil Rights movement. They didn’t grieve long. Rather, they organized and launched a decades-long counter offensive. Conservative political operative Paul Weyrich partnered with televangelist Jerry Falwell and others to call the church to focus on abortion. They called white evangelicals to rise up and flip the court to end Roe. It was genius. By flipping the court on Roe, they would also flip the court on the 14th Amendment, which flips the court on Civil Rights.

It took 40 years, but they did it.

The death of Roe has dislodged a constitutional cornerstone. The 14th Amendment’s protection of privacy provides legal foundation for a series of Civil Rights era rulings including Loving v. Virginia the precedent-setting 1967 Supreme Court ruling that legalized mixed race marriage and placed the final nail in the coffin of Virginia’s 1662 race law.

With last month’s Roe ruling, the Loving v. Virginia coffin is rumbling.

One day in 1989, I stood in a crowd of pro-life protesters on the campus of Rutgers University. I looked across the crowd and thought to myself: “How could anyone not be with us? How could anyone be anything, but “pro-life”?

I believed white evangelical men when they told me the fetus could feel pain in the first trimester. No one mentioned that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says it is not possible for a fetus to feel pain until the third trimester—27 weeks when the fetal nervous system begins to develop. Plus, less than 1 percent of all abortions take place after 21 weeks.

I believed them when they told me pro-life was about the sacredness of life. No one mentioned how the same white men voted for people who supported the death penalty. They didn’t mention the gun they own at home or their vote for politicians who cut funding for healthcare and Head Start.

I stood on that square at Rutgers University during one protest—one afternoon in 1989. And now, I regret it. I regret lending my body to that movement—even for one minute.

The truth is… The end of Roe is not about life.

As my evangelical brothers celebrate their win, one thing is clear to me: they used my black woman’s body—once again—to resurrect White power in America.

I feel dirty.

*This article originally appeared in Lisa Sharon Harper’s substack. 

Fortune’s father was enslaved, but she stood in that Somerset County courtroom to face the prospect of indenture precisely because she was not enslaved upon birth. She likely had been able to live free until she was eighteen years old. Why? Because of White privilege.

Lord Baltimore Charles Calvert, grandson of the first Lord Baltimore, brought sixteen-year-old Eleanor Butler with him from England to Maryland in 1681—six years before Fortune was born. Butler fell in love with and married an enslaved man, identified in court records as “Negro Charles.” She appealed to her friend Lord Baltimore to repeal the 1664 law, which required Eleanor’s immediate enslavement and the enslavement of all her children for life, in perpetuity. Calvert immediately moved to repeal the original 1664 race law. It was rescinded and replaced with the 1681 race law, which acknowledged an unscrupulous practice that had developed since passage of the original law. Masters were forcing their White indentured servant women to marry the masters’ enslaved African men. This practice reaped exponential increases in planters’ free labor force over generations. Maryland’s legislature limited the scope of the law to forced marriages between Black men and White women and dropped the requirement that their children be enslaved. The result? As of 1681, all newborn mixed- race children would be born free.

According to Maryland State Park historian Ross M. Kimmel, Butler benefited only marginally from Lord Baltimore’s efforts. She was still enslaved because her marriage took place before the 1681 law was passed. But as a White woman, she was afforded liberties not usually afforded to enslaved people. Still, her children and descendants were born after the 1681 repeal. They should have been born free. The 1681 law provided the children free status regardless of which parent was White. Butler’s grandchildren were enslaved. They appealed to the courts in 1710. Around the time of the Revolutionary War, they finally won.

Fortune’s fate should have been equally clear. She stood before the judge in 1705. The eighteen-year-old girl listed as a “mulatto” in court documents should have been subject to Lord Baltimore’s 1681 law. But in the interim, the Maryland General Assembly soured on Lord Baltimore and replaced his law with a harsher, more comprehensive, racialized legal structure in 1692—five years after Fortune’s birth.

LISTEN: Lisa Sharon Harper on the RLC Podcast discussing her new book, Fortune

The new law protected White women and their children from slavery by removing the financial impetus for their enslavement. They would be indentured to the local parish, not enslaved by the master. The parishes were ordered to transact the sales of enslaved Black men and indentured White and mixed-race servants to White families. The proceeds of those sales assisted poor Whites in the parish.

In essence, at the turn of the eighteenth century, the church itself became the primary auction block in Maryland. The grotesque nature of this arrangement cannot be overstated. The church joined the banks, insurance companies, shipping companies, iron works, and other institutions in crushing the image of God on this land. The church was the principle protector and manager of White supremacy through the trade of enslaved and indentured human beings in America’s second colony.

According to the 1692 law, a child of a White mother could not be enslaved. Period. The race of the mother became the determining factor of slave or free status. But intolerance of interracial relationships hardened in this law. White women and their children could still be indentured as penalty for miscegenation—married or not. A penalty of seven years indenture was given to the woman and twenty-one years indenture to the child if the parents were married—or thirty-one years indenture for the child if the parents were not married.

Standing before the court, eighteen-year-old Fortune was born free and should have remained free according to Lord Baltimore’s 1681 legal turnabout. But of course the application of law is different from the law itself. Fortune’s fate was largely dependent on the judge, especially in this formative period of colonial race law. Would the judge see and honor the legislative merits of Fortune’s fight to stay free? Or would his sensibilities align more with the racialized hardening of the times?

JOIN: The RLC Book Club with Lisa Sharon Harper on February 20th at 7pm

I imagine Fortune, awaiting the judge’s decision, looking out a window to her left, just behind the prosecutor offering his closing argument for Fortune’s indenture. Her heartbeat races. Beads of sweat form on her forehead as she wipes sweaty palms on her dress. She clasps her high yellow hands—the only thing she has to hold on to in this moment is herself. I imagine Fortune thinking of the woman who birthed her, Maudlin.

We know so little of Maudlin other than the fact that she was an indentured Ulster Scots woman married to an Ulster Scot, George Magee, with whom she bore three children. Maudlin’s first child was John Magee, born one year before Fortune. The year after Fortune’s birth, Maudlin and George brought Peter Magee into the world and three years after that she gave birth to Samual. Historian Paul Heinegg cites the judicial record of this court proceeding, as well as land tax records indicating that Maudlin was alive and living with her husband George as late as 1705—the year of this trial. Yet, there is no record of her presence.

With possible moments left in her free life, I imagine Fortune’s thoughts turning to her father, Sambo. He, too, was born free. He, too, was bound and sold as a teen. He, too, lived on the other side of Whiteness, daily surviving the branding iron of legal Blackness. Enslaved to Constable Peter Douty, Sambo and his wife were willed free and given land upon Douty’s death, five years after Fortune’s trial. We know that he and Fortune were close. She would take his surname and later live with him on that land. Evidence suggests Sambo may have been a healer. His son, Harry, was a practicing doctor in 1750. He credited his knowledge to an “old experienced Guinea doctor”—likely Sambo, who was from a region that intersected Senegal, Guinea, and Mali, before national boundaries were drawn. Sambo was a learned man who passed down what he knew to the next generation. It makes me wonder what he passed down to Fortune that was in turn passed down to us.

Fortune stood at the precipice of bondage with only the memories of her freedom and her family to give her comfort. Indenture was just as brutal as slavery. Indentured servants were whipped and maimed as punishment. Fortune did not know what was in store for her, and she had no control over it—perhaps that combination is the essence of the terror of bondage, whether enslaved or indentured. She held within her both this unknowing and a complete lack of control over her own body, life, and family.

When I imagine eighteen-year-old Fortune in that courtroom, I find my own breath shortening in anticipation of the ruling. With short breaths, Fortune likely listened as the judge asked her if she understood her sentence. She was hereby ordered to retroactive indentured service to Mrs. Mary Day until the age of thirty-one years old.

Twenties gone. 

Freedom gone.

Safety for herself and her daughters? Gone, gone.

Content taken from Fortune by Lisa Sharon Harper, ©2022. Used by permission of Baker Publishing.

Join us on February 20th at 7pm EST for the RLC Book Club with Lisa Sharon Harper! You can join live on the RLC Facebook, YouTube, or website. You can also listen to the RLC podcast with Lisa on Fortune.

Click here for more information on #BlackFortuneMonth!

As authors published by Zondervan, a division of HarperCollins Christian Publishing known for its NIV Bibles, and activists against Christian nationalism, we were alarmed at this news, first reported by Religion Unplugged. We’re delighted today that Zondervan announced it will not support this Bible.

The growing specter of Christian nationalism

From our screens, we watched the rioters on Jan. 6 storm the Capitol. We can’t unsee the Jesus signs next to Trump signs, the Confederate flag paraded, the broken windows, injured bodies and officers assaulted. What some of us remember most are the prayers rioters prayed in the Senate chamber “in the name of Jesus,” including the now recognizable QAnon shaman who wore Viking headgear and publicly thanked God for helping rioters take over the Capitol.

After that day, hundreds of evangelicals, pastors, authors and faith leaders began to mobilize.  We started texting and calling everyone we could, especially friends who transcend partisan politics and are committed to Jesus and the common good.  We jumped on Zoom calls with some of the most influential evangelicals in the country.

Before long we had a movement of evangelical Christians denouncing what happened on Jan. 6 – as well as, and this is important, the conditions and theology that led up to the events on Jan. 6.  Over 5,000 pastors, faith leaders, bishops and authors signed on.  And that was just the beginning.  The momentum has continued to build, as evidenced in new websites like www.SayNoToChristianNationalism.org and www.LamentingChristianNationalism.org.

Last week, some three months after the original petition launched, six different organizations, all led by people of color, organized a week of action to respond to White supremacy and “Christian” nationalism… and the ways that racism tries to camouflage itself as Christianity.

It was during this week of action that we learned about the “God Bless the USA Bible.”  It’s advertised as: “The ultimate American Bible. The Bible and the founding documents of America. Now . . . together in one very unique Bible.”

As Christians around the country organized to address “Christian” nationalism, we heard about this new Bible, with the American flag on the front cover.  It features the text of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and the words to the song, “God Bless the USA.”  It’s available for pre-sale on their website for $49.99 and releases in September, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

There are many versions of the Bible and many translations. There is the “Justice” Bible and the “Green” Bible that emphasize the consistent themes in the text that we are to care for the poor and for the earth. There is even a military edition of the Bible, wrapped in camouflage. This is not the first time there has been an attempt to fuse American nationalism with the holy book – in fact Thomas Nelson released “The American Patriot’s Bible” over a decade ago, which was a very similar project.

But what is new is a growing awareness of how dangerous nationalism is when coupled with faith.

American nationalism is its own civil religion, where America rather than Jesus is the center of attention.  Instead of Jesus and the Church being the light of the world and the hope for humanity, America becomes the Messianic force in the world.  Like any religion it has its own liturgy, saints and holidays.  These symbols are on full display in this new Bible – the eagle, the flag, the red, white and blue.  America’s civil religion has its own creeds too in the new Bible – “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” It has its own “worship” songs – like “God Bless the USA” and “I’m Proud to be an American,” both by Lee Greenwood.  It has its own theology – manifest destiny, the doctrine of discovery and American exceptionalism.  And this is precisely why it is dangerous to mesh patriotism with orthodox Christian faith.

After all, the Bible does not say “God bless America.” It says, “God so loved the world.”  The national anthem should not be in the church hymnal, and the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States should not be in the Bible.

There are 66 books in the Bible.  Some streams of Christian faith include 14 others, known as the “apocrypha.”  But no version of orthodox faith has an American apocrypha.  Including the founding documents of America and the theology of American nationalism in the Bible is offensive.  We do not need an “American apocrypha.”  (And there is a verse in the book of Revelation that says: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll.”)

The bombshell article by Meagan Clark at Religion Unplugged that broke the news on this custom Bible had some deeply disturbing quotes from Hugh Kirkpatrick, the creator and driving force behind the “God Bless the USA Bible.” Here’s what he said as the visionary behind it:

 “We noticed the divide in the public where some people started seeing pro-American images like the flag, the bald eagle, the statue of liberty as weaponized tools of the Republican party, and we didn’t understand that… We started seeing statutes coming down and we started seeing history for good or bad trying to be erased…  That’s when we started thinking, okay how far does this erasing of history go? Love it or hate it, it’s history. But how far does it go?… We’ve never heard of anyone throwing a Bible away. It’s always prominent somewhere in the house, it’s either on the coffee table, it’s somewhere that’s accessible. So if the Bible contained holy scripture but it also contained these documents it would be a one-stop shop for people to learn the basics of why the founders built into those documents divine providence.”

This customized Bible is a reminder that the “Christian industry” must do better to stand against the heretical and deadly “Christian” nationalism that we saw on full display on Jan. 6.  It is like a spiritual virus, infecting our churches, homes and social institutions.  Just as we take intentional actions to stop the spread of COVID, like wearing masks and staying six feet apart, we must take concrete steps to stop the spread of this theological virus.

How can we better guard the Bible?

As authors who have written multiple books for Zondervan, we reached out to the people we know and love at the publishing house.  Some of our contacts at Zondervan did not know about the new Bible at all until last week.  Others explained how difficult it is to micromanage every project that wants to print the NIV version of the Bible.  It is a common if not well known practice for publishers who hold the rights to Bible translations to print customized versions of the Bible for organizations and special projects.

We recognize that it is a daunting responsibility to be the guardians of the Bible or to hold a copyright to the “Word of God.”  It is also a daunting responsibility to steward money made from over 450 million copies of the NIV sold worldwide.  The business of Bibles raises questions about how corporate America collides with the revolutionary movement of Jesus of Nazareth.  After all, Rupert Murdoch now owns HarperCollins, Zondervan and as of 2012, Thomas Nelson, which published the so-called Patriot’s Bible in 2009 that is still available at many retailers. For many of us, learning the fact that the man who owns Fox News also owns the company that is the gatekeeper to one of the most popular translations of the Bible is a bit shocking, even concerning.  But that fact is beyond the scope of this article.

We are authors, but we are also activists.  So when we heard about the “God Bless the USA Bible” and the potential it has to fuel the already hot flames of Christian nationalism, we couldn’t help but respond.  We also wanted to do that in a way that is respectful, not just reactionary, and in a way that might actually make a difference.

We are delighted to hear that Zondervan has released a statement today that affirmed this Bible is not their product. They will not be publishing, manufacturing or selling the Bible. They were approached with the product, but it was not something they decided to support. All the marketing on the “God Bless the USA Bible” website was premature. It is entirely possible that the folks crafting this Bible will find another translation with another publishing house, but for now it is on hold, and we rejoice. We hope that future projects like this one will be reconsidered as well.

We don’t need to add anything to the Bible. We just need to live out what it already says.

And if we are to be good Christians, we may not always be the best Americans.  The beatitudes of Jesus where he blesses the poor, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers – can feel very different from the “beatitudes” of America.  Our money may say in God we trust, but our economy often looks like the seven deadly sins.  For Christians, our loyalty is to Jesus.  That is who we pledge allegiance to.  As the old hymn goes – “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness/ On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”  Our hope is not in the donkey of the Democrats or the elephant of the GOP . . . or even in America.

Our hope is in the Lamb.  The light of the world is not America. It is Christ.

This piece first appeared at Religion Unplugged. 

Evangelicals have been manipulated by one party for the past 40 years because in all that time, we’ve never actually talked about the wedge issues that drive us apart. Our inaction has allowed cancer to take over this part of this evangelical piece of the Body of Christ. It’s allowed whole denominations to be born to protect slavery and Jim Crow. Our panelists take on the fundamental question: What needs to change in the way that Evangelicals disciple, to ensure that our politics are being guided by the principles of our faith and not the reverse?

Kyle: I think it is extremely important that other Evangelicals understand that right now there is a rise of a false religion within your mix, called Christian Nationalism. It’s “God is not Christ, but God is this nation”, a religion of idolatry that is causing many of you to sacrifice your brother and sisters on the altar of power and political expediency. You must understand that the Gospel is about the cosmic reconciliation and reunification of all things under Christ. And what that means is you are not a citizen of this world, but you are a citizen in the Kingdom of God, and your priority is to advance human flourishing and light in this world. If you sacrifice that for political expediency, or for social power, you’re going to lose all of that, your own faith family, and your faith. So stay fast and hold fast to the reality that this kingdom is not your world, but you are from another world, and push forth with light rather than darkness.

Justin: For me, honor of Christ far exceeds any political party that we may align ourselves with winning. It is more important that we maintain our Christian witness and the honor of Christ in the way that we vote. That might mean different things to progressives and conservatives, but the way that we vote often dishonors Christ and undermines the witness and credibility of the church. There are alternatives to being co-opted by particular political parties. Honoring Christ and continuing to be a proper witness in the world means more than your political party winning. And so this whole lesser of two evils argument, I think, is absolute nonsense.

Alexia: There’s no perfect political party and I don’t know why we think there would be. At every juncture, we have to decide who is more reflective of the deepest values of our faith. Who reminds us more of Psalm 72. That’s a very personal decision, but we’re not even asking the question most of the time. We need to ask that question. It’s like testimony for us to live according to the answer.

READ: A Prayer for the King

Andrea: I think when it comes to this discipleship question and the Evangelical church, I think I worshiped and heard about a white Jesus for a long time. The Jesus that I’m coming to know now is much more radical, a Palestinian Jewish man who was oppressed and part of the minority group under Roman rule. I think that the context of Christ, the way that you teach who he was, is crucial. He’s not someone who just said, “Ask me into your heart. Have some quiet times until you go to heaven.” He’s someone who really made a change where he was, and his love was sacrificial. If that’s the Jesus that we teach, especially in my Evangelical spaces, that would be a game-changer for the way people view politics, for the way people view how change should be done in our country.

Charles: Manipulation of the gospel and Christians comes from both sides of the aisle. Jesus is not a political party. It’s about how you live in your life. It’s about how you’re treating people. The Declaration of Independence claims that all men are created equal. Well, back then we know what “all men” really meant. It was white land-owning males. Today, if we really want to change what the word “all” means, we’ve got to love people who don’t look like us. We’ve got to reach out to people who don’t vote like us. We’ve got to be a part of people’s lives. We’ve got to “discover common ground.” with other people. That’s where we’re going to make a difference, when you grow a community with people who are not like yourself.

Postscript: A Call to Conversation

If you were inspired by these voices, please lift up your own. Let’s have and continue this conversation. Let’s hear from each other. Please go to the comments section on our Facebook Live Town Hall feed and share the principles of our faith that matter to you when determining how you think we should be living together. Make your own video statement about the kind of politics that you are looking for, and the way we should be living together in the world. Make sure you use the hashtag, #evangelicalvote. Let us know if you’re interested in doing an op-ed in your local newspaper. We will help you with that. Write to us at info@freedomroad.us. However you reach out, we will respond. Look for more opportunities to walk together on Freedom Road.

Now go mail-in your vote! 

God bless you.

The National Town Hall on Evangelical Faith and Politics was convened by Freedom Road LLC in partnership with Evangelicals for Justice, The Voices Project, Global Immersion Project and Evangelicals for Social Action. Follow Freedom Road on Facebook and Instagram @FreedomRoadUs.

We talk power and politics. Alexia starts us off with Psalm 72. 

Alexia: Psalm 72 is a prayer for the king to be a king that obeys God in all areas of his life. There’s particular attention to the needy and the poor and their well-being, understanding that the well-being of the whole society is seen in the needy and the poor and the children. The last two lines talk about who this king is. It says he prays that he would treat every life as precious and protect people from oppression and violence. I want our political system to treat every life as precious and to protect people from oppression and violence. We can then argue about different strategies, but that’s what I think we need to be about as a country.

Justin: You cannot expect unquestioned loyalty solely because of historic connections that certain types of Christians may have had to particular political parties. It is working against you to solely rally your base without attempting to understand and properly engage those who would otherwise disagree with you. We’re becoming the worst versions of ourselves as a result of it. I would call on all elected officials and particularly those entering races right now. You don’t have our loyalty because of some kind of historic connection. You need to prove that you care about the concerns of our communities, even if those might not necessarily be the concerns that you have in your own personal politics.

READ: Environmental Racism and COVID-19

Kyle: People are dealing with real racial trauma, and with real other forms of trauma. Many of us are exhausted by the political posturing and the pursuit after power. For many Republicans, they have chosen to align themselves with White Nationalism and support aspects of White Supremacy in a pursuit for political power. They’ve weaponized faith in that process. When it comes to the Democratic party leveraging power, even as they claim to be the party of diversity, they still seek to elevate white men over and against women and minorities. And so even when it comes to this election that we have right now, one of the first things that I lamented was seeing how little many Democrats are willing to put their money where their mouth was when it came to supporting minority candidates or women candidates. I think there needs to be a focus on many ways of redistributing power and being intentional with how that’s pursued. Both Republicans and Democrats need to understand that the power that is given to them through the electorate is power to serve. It’s power to practice self-denial, not self-interest, and serve the communities that elected them. I think that we have lost that. On both sides of the aisle.

Charles: Think of the people that you had the hardest time with, maybe your greatest enemy or maybe who your policies will affect the greatest. Think of those people, and go sit down with them. No cameras, no journalists, nobody to report what’s being said, just sit down and get to know people. The politicians, every one of them, all come through Indian country throughout the election year for their photo ops. They really don’t give a crap about our Native people. We’re not a voting bloc in most instances, so they’re not catering to get our votes. But if you reach out to people that are not like you, spend time with them, get to know them . . . I’ve asked friends who are opposed to immigration. I say, how many undocumented people have you had lunch with that are here in Tennessee where I live now? And every single one of them said, “I don’t know anybody personally who’s living here undocumented.” I said, well, that’s the problem. When you get to know people, they become more than just a vote for you. They become a real person. And that’s what Jesus did. Jesus came to us and said go serve my people. Feed the hungry people, take care of the people. That’s what we’re asking of these folks.

The National Town Hall on Evangelical Faith and Politics was convened by Freedom Road LLC in partnership with Evangelicals for Justice, The Voices Project, Global Immersion Project and Evangelicals for Social Action. Follow Freedom Road on Facebook and Instagram @FreedomRoadUs.

It’s of course impossible to not discuss COVID-19. We looked at the pandemic through the lens of environmental racism. Justin, who is based in East Harlem, has lived the horrifying images of body bags being loaded into the backs of semi-truck coolers for storage during the height of the COVID crisis in New York City. His neighborhood, and the South Bronx just across the river, were hit particularly hard. I asked what he learned about environmental racism, and the health of his own community in New York City, through the COVID crisis and if he reflected on this experience in scripture.

Justin: It was such a traumatic season for our city. One of the things I’ve reflected on deeply is the history of injustice and racism and the churches’ complicity with it. It has consequences. If one assumes that we are truly post-racial and we have worked out these issues, a crisis like COVID-19 makes it very plain how much that has not been the case. One of the things that has been the reality for us is, East Harlem, South Bronx, and other historically poor and marginalized communities were just ravaged by this thing. 

96th Street separates East Harlem and the Upper East Side. I have a friend who calls it the modern-day Apartheid. On the south side of the street, the median income is about 120K a year, predominantly white. You cross the street, the median income shifts to 33K a year and is predominantly Black and brown. It is a drastic shift. The Upper East Side had one of the lowest rates of infection and deaths in the city. East Harlem had one of the highest. The Upper East Side had a 40% decrease in residential population during COVID. People got out. Of course, in neighborhoods like East Harlem, people don’t have that option because of resources. So it just ravaged the community. The development of neighborhoods, the way that they are currently situated, had consequence in a crisis. There was a councilwoman that said something like, “We’re in the same storm, but we’re not in the same boat.”

READ: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

One of the more popular passages within Evangelicalism, especially as it relates to the urbanization of the world, has been Jeremiah 29:7: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city which you have been called.” That’s been used as a call to Christians to root themselves in cities, and to love and serve and care for the cities. I think that’s an absolutely good and right call to make of people. One of the things that challenges me, especially within Evangelicalism, is how Jeremiah 29 was used as a way to call people into the city to love and serve and care for the city, but then we hit COVID-19, and the crisis caused people to leave. It was almost like — the city stopped giving me what I came to get from it, and now because it’s problematic for me to be here, I need to bounce again.

The best thing that we’ve known to do is to truly take on that Jeremiah 29. How do we seek the peace and prosperity of those who don’t have the option to leave? They are stuck here, and they are struggling to just meet those basic provisional needs for themselves. How do we rally around that in the midst of this crisis? There’s a lot of racial implications. It’s been a very real tension that we’re still trying to process through and are obviously still in the middle of this crisis. It’s been difficult but we shall press on.

Lisa: I’m aware that Bronx Health Reach did a study awhile back about the two healthcare systems at play in New York City. That there was a healthcare system for the poor and a healthcare system for the rich and it broke down according to race. Black and brown people were largely in the healthcare system for the poor, and white folk were largely in the healthcare system for the rich. And the thing that strikes me is how environmental racism played a role in the COVID crisis in New York City. Because of the housing that you talked about, above 96th Street you have a higher density of people. They are poor, and their neighborhood back in the ’80s was zoned for fast food, not supermarkets. So folks have higher rates of diabetes and heart disease and when people come into the hospital with these comorbidities, they’re much more likely to die. And you can also see it around the country.

The National Town Hall on Evangelical Faith and Politics was convened by Freedom Road LLC in partnership with Evangelicals for Justice, The Voices Project, Global Immersion Project and Evangelicals for Social Action. You can watch the inaugural Town Hall on Facebook. Follow Freedom Road on Facebook and Instagram @FreedomRoadUs.

We tackle another hot topic this election cycle: Immigration. Alexia has been deeply involved in the immigration reform movement for decades. I asked her how she’s seen immigration policy shift under the current administration and how scripture guided her when considering what our immigration policy could be? She went to Psalm 139.

Alexia: Psalm 139 talks about how we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. What I think about is how do we treat children, not putting them in cages, right? You are wonderfully made. How do we take that seriously in all the ways we deal with each other? 

I have been working with our immigration system and with immigrant ministry for 40 years. It’s a horribly broken system, ineffective, illogical, unjust and inhumane. But since this administration came in, I have never in my life seen, through Democrat and Republican administrations, anything like this. There have been over 200 Executive Orders and regulations passed, all of them restrictive. I don’t have any other word for it but vicious. Most people know about the children in cages and separation of families, that’s the tip of the iceberg. 

READ: We Go There: Abortion

Guatemala is a country where what’s going on there is so terrible in terms of human rights violations that we have consistently given asylum to people coming from Guatemala. This administration declared Guatemala a safe third country. So people coming from El Salvador, for example, have to have asked for asylum in every country they came through on the way to coming to the United States. They declared all these countries safe third countries, even though they are countries, like Guatemala, where you regularly grant people asylum who are running from these countries. They declare them safe third countries for the sake of not having to consider people’s asylum cases. 

The Statue of Liberty is weeping at some of the viciousness of these policies. There are 92 scriptures that specifically talk about hospitality to the stranger. Here in terms of importance to God’s heart. Beyond that, I think about the compassion of Christ. If Jesus looks at us and suffers with us, and if we feel Jesus’s compassion, we have to look at other people and suffer with them.

I’m pretty moderate with regard to immigration reform policies. I don’t think we can’t have borders. But I think we have to have immigration policy that is logical, just, and humane. What this administration has done is nothing short of vicious. And some of what our churches have done  — some of it is blind support, and some of it is real de-prioritization of immigrants as human beings, and as our brothers and sisters, as members of our families. You know, these are complex issues about where we draw the line, but there’s not even a conversation here. 

Many Evangelical churches and Pentecostal churches are right there working on this issue, so I’m certainly not painting everybody with that brush. But I am saying there are so many of my brothers and sisters, as Evangelicals, white Evangelicals, who just aren’t paying attention, who are not treating us as members of the same body.

If we are brothers and sisters. Why don’t you see us as fearfully and wonderfully made?

The National Town Hall on Evangelical Faith and Politics was convened by Freedom Road LLC in partnership with Evangelicals for Justice, The Voices Project, Global Immersion Project and Evangelicals for Social Action. You can watch the inaugural Town Hall on Facebook. Follow Freedom Road on Facebook and Instagram @FreedomRoadUs.