“Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time,” was the opening line of “A Talk to Teachers” James Baldwin gave in October, 1963.
That year, Medgar Evers, a leading civil-rights figure and N.A.A.C.P. state field director, was murdered in his driveway by a white supremacist in Jackson, Mississippi. It wasn’t the first time shots had been fired at his house. A few years ago, I stood in the hallway of what used to be his family’s home, looking into the children’s bedroom: the mattresses were on the floor—not because they didn’t have beds, but because white men would drive by the house at night and shoot through the windows, and having the children sleep closer to the floor reduced their risk of getting shot, the docent explained.
That year, 1963, four young girls—Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley—were killed when Klansmen bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, in Birmingham, Alabama.
That year, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in his motorcade through downtown Dallas.
“Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time,” James Baldwin told a group of educators in October 1963.[1]
Black [people] were brought here as a source of cheap labor. They were indispensable to the economy. In order to justify the fact that [black people] were treated as though they were animals, the white republic had to brainwash itself into believing that they were, indeed, animals and deserved to be treated like animals. . . . This is why America has spent such a long time keeping [black people in their] place. What I am trying to suggest to you is that it was not an accident, it was not an act of God, it was not done by well-meaning people muddling into something which they didn’t understand. It was a deliberate policy hammered into place in order to make money from black flesh. And now, in 1963, because we have never faced this fact, we are in intolerable trouble.”[2]
Intolerable trouble. That was the year I turned three, and it reads like it could have been written last week.
Five days after President Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed a Joint Session of Congress, saying, “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.”[3] The bill passed the House in February of ’64, but in the Senate it was debated for two months, including seven Saturdays with several attempts to filibuster the bill. It still is the longest Senate debate in U.S. history. On June 19, the Senate adopted an amended bill and on July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the bill into law.
A month later, on August 4, the FBI found the bodies of three missing civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Earl Chaney had disappeared on June 21 while volunteering for the voter registration drive in Mississippi. They had been shot and buried. During the investigation it emerged that members of the KKK, the Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office, and the Philadelphia Police Department were involved in the incident.[4]
That was the year I turned four. Somebody will say with a knowing smile, Well, that was Mississippi, that was Alabama, that was over fifty years ago. George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis on May 25, that was three weeks ago.
I know, I’m not preaching; this is my lament. I look back and weep, and I don’t know whether to give in to the urge to scream or fall silent altogether. “[Lament] takes many forms,” says Brad Braxton.
Guttural groans, copious tears, long stretches of silence, fits of rage, quiet questioning, bittersweet remembering, tension-riddled tossing and turning. We lament because people matter to us, because values such as dignity and the presumption of safety matter to us. We do it because there remains somewhere in us a faint hope that today’s pain will not completely swallow tomorrow’s possibilities.[5]
Sitting with the Gospel reading for today, my hope was fed with the milk and honey of Jesus attention and compassion:
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Sitting with these words, I was reminded that God is the healer of our every ill. Jesus is teaching in our churches, I trust, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom—and he will not make our trouble a little less intolerable or tolerable enough. The God we worship will not rest until the promise of creation is fulfilled in peace.
Jesus sent the disciples to join him in the work of teaching, proclaiming, and healing. Say, ‘The kingdom of God has come near,’ he told them. Cure the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse the lepers. Cast out demons.
There’s a whole new world that begins to shine through and take shape in the presence of Jesus, a world where everything that gets in the way of life’s flourishing in fullness is overcome.
Raise the dead, he said, and I assume he meant it.
Are we to go to Birmingham and tell death to return Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley to their families? Are we to go to Jackson and tell death to let go of Medgar Evers? Are we to go to Neshoba County, and Ferguson, and Minneapolis, and Glynn County, Georgia and raise the dead? I don’t suppose Jesus meant to instill in us illusions of divine grandeur, when he told us, “Raise the dead.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his Christmas letter in 1942, sent from a Nazi prison,
We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ’s large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes and showing real compassion that springs, not from fear, but from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and action, not in the first place by their own sufferings, but by the sufferings of their brothers and sisters for whose sake Christ suffered.[6]
What I hear in Jesus’ commandment, “Raise the dead,” is “Do not let their names sink in dust and ashes along with their bodies.” What I hear is a commandment to speak their names and hear their stories and honor their lives by building the kind of communities where they would be at home.
On May 8, one of our neighbors posted on Facebook,
I am a Black man who jogs.
Given the tragic ending to the life of Ahmaud Arbery, yesterday’s run felt different. As I was preparing for my normal pre-run ritual, I added a new step; I kissed my wife and kids before heading out. . . . As soon as I left our apartment to start the run, I burst into tears. I had a moment of fear in thinking about Ahmaud. I wondered if that would [be] the last time, I saw my family. I almost gave in to that fear and went back inside.
. . . As I broke the border of campus to set out, I placed my playlist on shuffle and the first song to come on was “How Great is Our God.” That song and the circumstances surrounding Ahmaud’s untimely ending took something that I do almost every day and turned [it] into a therapy run, not just for me, but for our country. I didn’t stop crying until mile 3.
. . . I slowed down when I approached another Black man on a corner selling copies of “The Contributor” . . . I slowed down because as I approached him, he started yelling and cheering. It took me completely by surprise. Because of the distance between us and the music in my ears, initially, I could barely decipher what he was saying.
. . . I have never heard more encouraging words yelled at me as I ran. In that strange moment when our eyes connected, he yells, “do it for Ahmaud” and proceeded to give me the raised Black Power fist with his right hand. That set me off emotionally and physically to a place where I felt like I left my body and this run had become so much bigger than just another run. . . .
I am a Black man who jogs.
However, to others, I’m their deepest fear and can become the object of their hate. . . . The senseless end of Brother Ahmaud’s life is a tragic and triggering reminder to my people that your status, titles, degrees, wealth, etc. can’t shield you from the physical and psychological effects of racism. I’m a 44-year-old, married, Black male with two beautiful kids. My wife is a neonatologist; my daughter Jordan loves to randomly ask me to dance with her; and my son Rosevelt, thinks his dad hung the moon.
I have a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, where I have been a professor for the past 18 years. . . . I love photography, DIY projects, data analytics, and spending time with my family. I’m a very active person. In addition to being a member at Title Boxing Club, Orange Theory Fitness, and the Vanderbilt Rec Center,
I am a Black man who jogs.
Before yesterday, my “bio” was something I never thought about during a run. But yesterday I had to; while I may see myself as all those things, to someone with ill will in their heart, none of those things matter. Just as Brother Ahmaud’s bio didn’t matter. . . .
Today, I will run again in Ahmaud’s memory. And like yesterday, and every day moving forward, before I leave our apartment to start my run, I will kiss my wife and kids because
I am a Black man who jogs.[7]
I didn’t know about that post until Thursday, when we got an email from the man who wrote it:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am a Black man who jogs and I wanted to say thank you for recognizing Ahmaud Arbery on the sign outside your church. Mr. Arbery’s death had a profound impact on me. At the height of my frustration, anger, and confusion about his murder, I wrote the attached post. Because of how he died, I stopped running around the streets of Nashville. Instead I started running on Greenways and Trails, such as Shelby Bottoms or the Harpeth River Trail, because I felt safer in these environments. After a month long hiatus from running on the streets, I decided to return today. My run this morning took me in front of your church. When I looked up and saw, “Ahmaud Arbery” on your sign, I said to myself, “How great is our God.” Thank you for raising awareness about the unjust ending of his life and for restoring my faith in running the streets of Nashville. I pray for God’s continued mercy, favor, and grace for you and your congregation.
Sincerely,
Rosevelt Noble
Intolerable trouble James Baldwin called it with prophetic clarity of eye and voice. I pray that each of you and all of us together will continue to stand and march with those committed to cast out the demons of slavery and topple every false idol. God raised our brother Jesus from the dead, and therefore we stand firm in the hope that the pain of centuries will not completely swallow tomorrow’s possibilities.
[1] Delivered on October 16, 1963, as “The Negro Child – His Self-Image”; published in The Saturday Review, December 21, 1963, reprinted in The Price of the Ticket, Collected Non-Fiction 1948-1985, Saint Martins 1985.
[2] https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/baldwin-talk-to-teachers
[3] http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25988&st=&st1
[4] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-murder/
[5] Brad Braxton https://www.christiancentury.org/article/reflection/james-baldwin-reminds-us-not-be-surprised
[6] Letters and Papers from Prison, as quoted in Kelly, Geffrey B. and F. Burton Nelson. The Cost of Moral Leadership: the spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publ., 2003, 46.
[7] https://www.facebook.com/rosevelt.noble/posts/10102746323527478