On the Other Side of Freedom by DeRay Mckesson

Author:DeRay Mckesson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

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WHEN THOSE OF US who have come from marginalized communities and/or are engaged in the work of social justice are paving a way forward, we need to figure out how to resolve the internal tensions that will necessarily arise in order to do our best work. Thus we need a compass. Since the protests began in Ferguson, I have thought about the role of the church in the work of social justice and how belief factors into our collective work. In many ways, the civil rights movement was born out of institutions—largely churches and schools. But when we took to the streets in St. Louis, it was the result of an organic infrastructure and not the work of organizations or institutions. Even so, there were local pastors—Traci Blackmon, Renita Lamkin, Tommie Pierson Jr., and Starsky Wilson, to name a few—who were pivotal, as they both protested and assisted protesters in organizing. One day, when Brittany, Netta, and I were traveling, we even called Pastor Blackmon so that she could pray over us on the phone as we were heading into a challenging situation in another city.

I will never forget when Pastor Renita stood between protesters and police on a night that was particularly tense—we thought the police had killed a young man and were hiding their actions as they blocked us from entering the church parking lot—and as she stood between the two camps, she prayed out loud in a firm and warm tone. I’ll never forget the chills I got as we all watched her pray. The police immediately eased up, as did the protesters. It immediately changed the tone of the tension. And Pastor Pierson and Pastor Wilson repeatedly opened up their churches to create space for a range of events, meetings, actions, and to host visitors who were coming to assist the protesters.

The access to resources, the stability of the infrastructure, and the deep sense of moral courage were factors that made the church an important part of the protest landscape in the end, even though they were not the central part of the protest ecosystem.

Even if people were not regular churchgoers or especially religious otherwise, the church still held an important role in the way they thought about the black community. For this reason, it was disappointing when churches turned us away or called the police on us or were simply absent during the unrest. And for some, challenging these churches was off limits. It reminded me that the black church, in many ways, is about more than faith per se; it is also a model of black power. Thus, to challenge the churches was to challenge long-standing pillars of black power. But to us, the presence of power also means the presence of responsibility.

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