We Shall Overcome

a sermon by Reverend Lynn Thomas Strauss

Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, January 15, 2006

Reading

from James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 1963

For the sake of one’s children, in order to minimize the bill they must pay, one must not take refuge in any delusion, and the value placed on the color of the skin is always a delusion.

I know that what I am asking is impossible. But in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand- and one is emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible.

Everything we must now assume is in our hands. If we, and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others, do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.

If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, recreated from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!

Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day! How many times have those words been sung in this worship hall, and in temples and churches and meeting- houses? How many times have those words been sung while people stood in a circle holding hands…or in a line, marching, or standing firm facing down those in power? How many times Have they been sung black and white and brown together…in church basements, or meeting rooms…with tears streaming down faces young and old? How many times have you personally sung those words?

Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day!

We shall overcome. I believe it with all my heart and soul. In my lifetime, I have seen progress toward racial harmony. If Dr. King were alive today, he would acknowledge- there has been progress. Inter-racial couples walk the streets of Washington, DC and rarely does a head turn.

Bi-racial children attend public schools throughout our land- and diversity is lived and celebrated within many families, and many school and community programs.

African-Americans serve at the highest levels of government and on the Supreme Court. And the middle class grows more racially diverse.

But have we overcome? Have we overcome the hatred, the fear, the distrust, the inequalities of race in this country? Have we overcome the ambivalences, the anxiety in our own hearts? Has Dr. King’s dream of brotherhood and sisterhood become a reality? Does justice roll down like water…is peace flowing like an everlasting stream?

Just this past week, two predominately Black churches in Montgomery Co. and several public schools were the target of hate crimes. Racist graffiti, apparently by a “white separatist” group was found at Ridgeview Middle school and Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg…as well as at Seneca Community Church in Germantown, and St Mark’s United Methodist church in Boyds. Church and community leaders convened a press conference to denounce these racist acts. Members of Action in Montgomery have taken supportive action in solidarity with St. Marks, which is an AIM member.

As fellow members of AIM and concerned members of the community, I invite you to sign a statement condemning these hate crimes. The statement will be available at a table after the service. We will see that it gets to the churches, or the country executive, the AIM leadership and anywhere else we think might matter.

Oh, yes, there has been important progress on issues of race in our lifetime…but we can never be complacent. Racial tensions, race prejudice, racial fear and hatred…are very much alive.

There have also been hate crimes against Jewish religious symbols in recent weeks. And hate crimes against women…rape and abuse…continue on a daily basis.

And racial hatred against immigrant groups continues to grow. With the organization of the so-called ‘minute men’ in Virginia who photograph day laborers, and the passage in the House…of HR 4437 …which includes a number of provisions sharply criticized by immigration advocates…if passed, this law would require the police to check immigration status and make arrests. Certainly Dr. King would be appalled.

“We shall overcome some day.” These words remind us that the struggle is not over, the dream is still deferred, the soul of our nation is still divided by a color line, a race line, a gender line. We must be careful not to romanticize the civil rights movement. We must be careful not to lift up a few African American heroes and still turn away from failing urban schools, from emergency room health care delivery, from poverty and the violence it spawns.

Our UUA president, the Rev. Bill Sinkford is speaking this morning in our church in San Diago…he is speaking about the Living Wage Campaign which our Association supports…he is speaking about the link between racial justice and economic justice. …and these injustices contribute to the culture of violence in our country.

The murder rate in the Washington Baltimore Prince Georges Co region is staggering. All is connected…none of us are safe, none of us are immune, none of us should turn away, none of us should remain silent.

I do believe…We shall overcome someday….but we still live with fear and heartbreak…we still live with despair. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this mountain of despair. It’s been with us for generations. A mountain of despair. But Dr. King believed that out of this mountain of despair we could hew a stone of hope. One small bright stone of hope.

Where can we look for hope this morning. Where is the bright stone of hope we can pass on to our children and grandchildren?

In the past, I have used this Sunday to talk, not just about Dr. King and the civil rights movement, but about other significant African American leaders. I have spoken of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court Justice. I have spoken of Nelson Mandela and the South African Truth Commission. I have spoken about Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement in the United States. I have spoken about Alice Walker, and Bell Hooks and Marion Wright Edelman. I have even used Martin Luther King Sunday to talk about rap music.

Too often, perhaps, this has been a day to look back. A day to remember a glorious movement, a precious moment when freedom was a word on everyone’s lips.

I considered speaking today of Rosa Parks…and the miracle of her one courageous action for human dignity. Ms. Parks died this past year at the age of 92. Her action for justice for all African Americans was honored as she lay in state in the capitol rotunda here in Washington.

There are many heroes and heroines of the movement for civil rights and racial equality. But I wanted to offer a stone of hope about the future. I want to encourage us to look forward, not back.

Too often today we feel bereft of great leadership, bereft of men and women of integrity and resolve. But I do believe in hope. I do believe in the future and the will of our nation to break the bonds of oppressions of race, class and gender…and yes, even the bonds of militarism.

So today I want to tell you about Barack Obama, the new US Senator from Illinois, The single African American in the Senate!…typical in many ways of his generation of African American leaders. Perhaps you have read his best selling memoir, “Dreams From My Father: A story of Race and Inheritance”….first published in 1995, but re-issued in 2004.

Barack Obama was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, he came onto the national stage when he delivered the keynote address to the democratic convention on July 27, 2004. His personal story as a person of dual heritage: his father was Kenyan, and his mother from Kansas…touched the hearts of many as he spoke of the “common dream born of two continents…the dream that in a tolerant America, your name, your skin color, your heritage is no barrier to success.”

He spoke of the greatness of our nation, “not because of the height of our skyscrapers or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride, “ he said, “is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago…”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Or as the UU Principles put it…We affirm , the worth and dignity of every person, and justice, equity and compassion for all…

“The true genius of America,” Obama continued, “ is the faith that we can tuck our children in at night and know that they are safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe.

That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution…and that our votes will be counted.”

Or as the UU Principles put it…We affirm, freedom of conscience and faith in the democratic process.

Speaking like the community organizer that he is…Barack Obama Told this nation, that we can do better…that we can rearrange our priorities, that we can choose to participate in the politics of cynicism or we can choose the politics of hope.

He was speaking, he said, not of a blind optimism, but of hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, …the audacity of a hope In things unseen…a hope in a future, not yet realized. A stone of hope, hard and lasting.

A hope that grows out of unity, out of solidarity….a hope that grows across lines of race and class, across lines of conservative and liberal, a hope that grows from our heritage…from the vision of our founders.

Or as the UU Principles put it…a hope that grows from understanding that we are all part of an interdependent web….

Obama did not come to this speech, to these ideas, to this hopefulness easily or overnight…he came after a long struggle with his own heritage. He came after many personal failures, after years of hard, on the ground organizing for change in the poor south side of Chicago.

His memoir tells of his struggle to find where he belonged. Obama came to understand what ee cummings meant when he wrote; “Heritage is not a birthright, but must be struggled for.”

Barack Obama was born in 1961…he was just 7 years old when Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis. Obama grew up in Hawaii, where his father was a foreign student from Kenya , his mother was born in Hawaii where her father was stationed during WWII..

When Barack was three years old, his father left to return to Kenya and Barry (as he was called) was raised by his mother and grandparents.

It was after college at Occidental in California that Barak began to search for his roots, and for a deeper understanding of his heritage and his place in the world.

He was a bit of a loner, unsure of what he wanted to do with his life, he lived in New York and then Chicago, picking up survival jobs until he fell into community organizing.

Later he attended Harvard Law school, and the rest, as they say is history.

Finally, after avoiding it for years, Barack went to Kenya to find his place. His father had died, but his reputation outlived him. Barack had many siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles in Kenya. And they embraced him. And he experienced a new clarity and a new sense of purpose. He had been lost to himself, and now he was found.

He struggled with his heritage and now he could embrace it.

We here today are inheritors of the legacy of the civil rights movement. Some of us were there…at the Washington Monument when Dr. King made his speech, some of us marched in other cities, some of us went to Selma….some of us were children, or not yet born.

But we all are rightful inheritors of Dr. Kings’ dream…yet, we cannot claim it without engaging in our own struggle.

It is the dream of a tolerant America, it is the Dream of Freedom for All…it is the dream of Justice and of peace.

It is the dream that none of us will be judged by the color of our skin.

It is the dream that we are our brothers and sisters keeper.

It is the audacity of hope in America and all that it stands for.

In his powerful book, “Race Matters”, Cornel West writes in the Epilogue, of the corresive effects of poverty and paranoia, “ The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict; the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division.

Race is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia, despair and distrust. A candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy.

And the degree to which race matters in the plight and predicament of fellow citizens is a crucial measure of whether we can keep alive the best of this democratic experiment we call America.

West, brings these concerns alive in his simple dedication at the front of this book….”To my wonderful son Clifton Louis West who combats daily the hidden injuries of race with the most potent of weapons- love of self and others.”

These few words also capture Barak Obama’s journey….his discovery that to combat the daily hidden injuries of race, (daily injuries most of us can never understand)…he needs…we all need, the potent weapons of love of self and others.

Of course, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also returned again and again to a message of love. Speaking just two months before he was killed, imagining his own death and how he would want to be remembered he said; “I’d like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to love somebody…”

So I call upon you to continue the struggle for freedom from bigotry, freedom from hate, freedom from fear, freedom from war…I call upon you to struggle for your heritage of the freedom movement…

So that you can say…so we all can say… We Shall Over Come Someday….I do believe that WE shall overcome some day!

Amen/Blessed Be