In 1998, Nancy, Sarahbeth, Miles and I moved to Hampton, VA, where I had been called to First Christian Church. Soon, everybody but me went to school. Miles went to pre-school in the neighborhood. Nancy started her Master’s program at Hampton University, and Sarahbeth attended Forrest Elementary.
Forrest Elementary — it took me a while to notice that Forrest was spelled with two r’s, and that it wasn’t referring to the wonderful place where all kinds of small things flourish and grow under the canopy of mature trees. Forrest was somebody’s last name. I still remember the moment when driving by the school one day I said to myself, “No, wait… There’s no way they would name a school after a leader of the KKK,” but I wasn’t sure. I looked it up, and was relieved to learn that the school was named after Alfred S. Forrest. Perhaps he was a local leader, who knows, perhaps a teacher—I don’t remember if I found out who Mr. Forrest was. The school board’s governing documents stated, “Elementary and middle schools will be named in honor of persons who have rendered outstanding service to mankind in their community, state, and/or country.”[1]
A couple of years later, Sarahbeth graduated and went to middle school, Jefferson Davis Middle School. In a letter to the principal and the school board I asked what “outstanding service to mankind” Mr. Davis had rendered. I thought it was a curious way to teach young people the meaning of citizenship by having them recite, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands…” in a school named after the former president of the Confederate States. I never got a response. However, when doing a little research this week, I was glad to read that in 2018, in the aftermath of the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, the school was renamed Cesar Tarrant Middle School after a Hampton slave and Revolutionary War hero.[2]
Here in Tennessee, in 2018, the City of Memphis sold two parks to a non-profit, just to be able to remove statues of Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest. In response, the state legislature not only changed the law to explicitly prohibit such sales, but also cut a $250,000 appropriation to the city for its bicentennial celebrations.[3]
I wasn’t born here. I wasn’t raised here. I’m a resident alien still trying to sort out where I am and how to proclaim the kingdom of God in a state that has more dedicated historical markers linked to Nathan Bedford Forrest—a slave trader, war criminal, and Klan leader—than to all three former U.S. Presidents associated with Tennessee combined: Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson.[4] To honor such a man is not merely unwise or unfortunate, it is idolatrous. To elevate such a man, to literally put him on a pedestal in public places across the state, is to idolize his dehumanizing violence. To do so also declares emphatically that the lives of those so violated, and the lives of their descendants do not matter.
State law currently instructs the governor to issue proclamations for six separate days of special observation, three of which pertain to the Confederacy: Forrest Day on July 13; Robert E. Lee Day on January 19; and Confederate Decoration Day on June 3, otherwise known as Confederate Memorial Day and the birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.[5] Forrest Day is still on the calendar, but the General Assembly voted this year that the Governor no longer has to make the annual proclamation.[6] And that’s as far as Tennessee elected officials are willing to move even now—inches, when we have miles to go.
Some of them are afraid their constituents might torch their vehicles if they voted to remove the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Capitol building.
Tell me, what do you find more distressing: the fact that apparently such terrorist threats are being made, or the fact that some Tennessee legislators bury empathy, reason, and conscience for fear of losing their vehicle or the next election?
On Thursday, a bill was before the legislature that asked for $3,500 to move the bust from the state Capitol to the Tennessee museum. The bill was voted down. That’s when woman wearing a clerical collar stood up and raised her arms and said loudly, “I bring good news! I am Rev. Neelley Hicks and I have good news that we have the $3,500 needed to move the statue.” She didn’t remember what else she said when I talked with her on Friday morning, but she vividly recalled how she and Rev. Ingrid McIntyre and several others began praying, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”
They were gavelled down and asked to be quiet, but they continued to pray. State troopers were ordered to remove them. After Amen, they were faced with armed troopers asking them to leave. Neelley got up, and on her way out she said to the troopers, “This is sinful. This is wrong. God came to earth in a brown body. Forrest killed brown and black men. Your mama taught you better. Shame.”[7] She said it to the troopers, but she said it loud enough for the people on the floor to hear her, the ones who really needed to hear her, “Your mama taught you better. Shame.” Some of them had gotten up during the Lord’s prayer and bowed their heads during the holy interruption, suddenly aware that this was a moment not just for political calculus and fear, but for reverence in the presence of God.
“Prophets … are intent on making us see the truth about ourselves, which can result in our feeling humiliated and shamed,” writes Megan McKenna. Prophets aren’t concerned about coming across as judgy. What God sees, looking at their society, the prophets must tell, and they cannot not tell. Jeremiah said,
Whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
Reproach and derision all day long, but the prophet cannot not tell. The prophets, writes Megan McKenna,
never let up until we change, or until we make a choice, or until we attack back, or until what they say comes to pass, or until they disappear or die. … They go after everyone indiscriminately, but especially governments, the economy, the military, leaders, other prophets … They turn on us as a people and on us as individuals … They lay our lives bare, down to the bone, marrow, and soul. They break through our well-planned worlds to say that we are the problem.[8]
“Your mama taught you better. Shame,” Neelley declared on her way out of the assembly, trusting that her words would find a way to break through layers of complacency and fear, and touch the soul of one or two.
“You shall go to all to whom I send you,” God said to Jeremiah, “and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you.”[9]
Do not be afraid, for I am with you, has got to be one of the most beautiful commandments in all of scripture.
The power of a life drenched in God’s love threatens the powers and principalities of this world, but do not be afraid of them: they will not prevail.
Centuries-old entanglements of dehumanizing brutality and smug justifications may take generations to dismantle, but do not be afraid: the justice of God will prevail.
“It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher” and we all have a long way to go when it comes to that likeness, but do not be afraid to do the next right thing, for the kingdom of God is near.
Jesus didn’t come to bring easy peace, comfortable and convenient, but a sword that cuts through lesser loyalties than those to God and God’s reign. But do not be afraid, for nothing is greater in all of history and eternity than God’s loyalty to you and your neighbor and all creation.
To be a disciple is to be a learner, not a teacher. “It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher” — which doesn’t mean holy and perfect, but growing in holiness and fearlessness. Kingdom work and witness can be dangerous because it messes with demons and idols and powerful interests, but do not be afraid: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account,” says Jesus. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”[10]
John Lewis wanted to be a preacher when he was a little boy in Troy, Alabama, and he famously practiced preaching by offering words of comfort and challenge to the chickens in the yard. When he was a young man, his mama told him not to get in trouble, and he loved his mama, but she had also taught him to love the Lord. And so he did get in trouble: good trouble, necessary trouble, kingdom trouble. He got in trouble right here in Nashville where he went to college and where he met James Lawson and Diane Nash.
The civil rights leader and U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 5th congressional district for more than thirty years, turned 80 in February. Cynthia Tucker writes,
It’s at once remarkable and tragic that Lewis’ legacy — his lifetime of patient, optimistic and non-violent resistance to systemic racism — remains so relevant. He has given 60 years to the work of trying to build the “beloved community” only to arrive at a moment when that work may seem naive, that community farfetched, the dream a child’s fantasy. … His undying hope for America lies not in any sense of its imminent perfection but rather in his conviction that the “beloved community” will one day come to fruition only if those who are committed to justice and equality keep on keeping on, one step at a time, … no matter how brutal the forces on the other side.[11]
“It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher” — and we all have a long way to go when it comes to that likeness, but do not be afraid to do the next right thing, for the kingdom of God is near.
[1] https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/hampton/Board.nsf/Public#
[2] https://www.dailypress.com/news/education/dp-nws-hampton-school-board-davis-0124-story.html
[3] https://patch.com/tennessee/memphis/tennessee-house-punishes-memphis-confederate-statue-removal
[4] Loewen, James W. , Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 237.
[5] https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/17/tennessee-nathan-bedford-forrest-day-rep-files-bill-end-observation/4499963002/
[6] https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/10/bill-lee-no-longer-proclaim-nathan-bedford-forrest-day-tennessee/5336437002/
[7] https://www.facebook.com/neelleyhicks/posts/10222196742096398
[8] Megan McKenna, quoted in Feasting, Year A, Vol. 3, 149; my emphasis.
[9] Jeremiah 1:7-8
[10] Matthew 5:11-12
[11] https://bittersoutherner.com/2020/the-way-of-john-lewis-cynthia-tucker-black-lives-matter