Today is a celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., perhaps the best-known champion of nonviolent resistance in the history of civic activism. Throughout the day, you’ll likely see friends and colleagues posting some of Dr. King’s best-known quotes on social media. Don’t be misled, however. It’s true, Dr. King cautioned us all that “hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
But that doesn’t mean King was content with “lukewarm acceptance” from the types of “white moderates” he resented and dismissed. The aim of public demonstrations, boycotts and marches was to awaken the morality of bystanders to racial injustice as much as to persuade out-and-out racists. King’s famous March on Washington was fully titled the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” He supported radical politics and propositions including the pursuit of economic justice through a universal basic income.
We should all take time today to interrogate the ways in which King’s vision for a more equitable society has been realized; and the many, many ways it continues to be deferred. Likewise, we should ask ourselves how we are complicit in the continued oppression of people of color, and what active steps we can take to remedy institutional and systemic barriers to racial justice.
On Sunday, the Montgomery County-Radford City-Floyd County chapter of the NAACP held a virtual event honoring the life and legacy of Dr. King. I hope this piece captures some of the nuance and intersectionality of the ongoing movement to eliminate racist hatred.
-Ashley
‘We can forgive and still fight for fairness.’
Local NAACP chapter advocates for love, strength and service after a tough 2020
Rev. Ryan Schaffer of Asbury United Methodist Church delivered the invocation at the Montgomery County-Radford City-Floyd County NAACP’s virtual event, celebrating the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on Sunday.
“God of grace and glory, as we conclude a year full of anxiety, pain and chaos … remind us of those who have led us through past times of pain,” Schaffer prayed. He called on the memory of those who “taught us to see the light of hope and to seek justice,” even when hope and justice seem out of reach. “Lead us to know your steadfast truth, that calls us to recognize that all persons are of sacred worth and deserve dignity and respect,” Schaffer concluded.
It was the beginning of an event characterized by the intersection of faith, fellowship and the pursuit of equality. As Da’quan Love, director of the Virginia conference of the NAACP, put it prior to swearing in new local officers, “One blessed day, we’ll eliminate racist hatred.”
During the ceremony, organizers encouraged everyone to sing along to “Raise Every Voice and Sing,” a song by civil rights activist and writer James Weldon Johnson. The song, which was first performed to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, has since become known as the “Black National Anthem.”
Service in Pursuit of Justice
The Montgomery-Radford-Floyd chapter of the NAACP also took time during Sunday’s event to honor two local women with Community Service awards. Both women, Judith B. Diggs and Benzena Eaves, embodied the connection between worship and community service. Diggs is an active member of Asbury UMC who strives to support the homeless and hungry in our community. During her acceptance speech, Diggs invoked Micah 6:8: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Diggs also mentioned Luke 12:48: “To whom much is given, much will be required.”
The relationship between civil rights activism, community-building and faith was one on which Martin Luther King, Jr., himself often ruminated. He once said, “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.”
Tyler Graves, a member of the local NAACP Youth Council, spoke on Sunday and detailed some of the many ways the chapter serves its community. The Youth Council has organized around protecting voting rights; spearheaded diaper drives; organized Juneteenth and Black Lives Matter events and collected toys for children during the Christmas season, Graves said.
Faith and Activism
There is a long history between those who fight for equality and the Black church. As one 2016 feature in The Atlantic put it:
“The spirit of the black Church has long animated the movements for civil rights and social justice in America. The call and response, the vocabulary of oppression and solidarity: These are the languages of sanctuaries and pews, of Sunday morning worship and Bible-study vigils.”
Although the NAACP is a secular organization, many of its members are ministers and pastors. And in the 1950s and 60s, the NAACP worked alongside organizations like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to campaign for racial equality.
These themes collided during a keynote address—essentially a sermon—delivered by Rev. Jefferson Jones.
For many, and perhaps especially those like NAACP members who advocate for racial justice, 2020 was a traumatic year. Rev. Jones of Surge Ministries in Christiansburg outlined as much.
In the face of pain, betrayal and hatred, though, Jones argued that it is incumbent upon Black folks to stay soft-hearted. The theme of his address was “The Strength to Love,” and he encouraged his audience to find that strength rather than to give in to hateful impulses. “When Jesus says love your enemies, he is setting forth a profound and inescapable admonition,” Jones said. “The chain reaction of evil, hate begetting hate … must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. I don’t owe others a pain that they have given to me. I owe them love, and if I have the strength to love, I will be too weak to hate.”
Jones didn’t diminish the pain of the Black community, saying they had been subject to systemic racism and “gaslighting” by white people. Nonetheless, he said, “We can’t have hard-hearts and have forward progress.”
Even beyond 2020, Jones said, the trauma for Black folks persisted. Referring to various right-wing and white supremacist groups sieging the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the Presidential election results, Jones said, “What happened on Jan. 6 was a hard punch to the liver. It was a pouring of salt water into an open gunshot wound.” He added, “Maybe you don’t feel like you have the strength to do anything but just exist ... have the strength to love anyway.”
A Racism Pandemic
Right from the start, Jones said, 2020 was difficult. One by one, Black legends and heroes died tragically, beginning with Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others in a January plane crash. “This event rocked the world,” Jones said. Actor Chadwick Boseman, Congressman John Lewis and mathematician Katherine Johnson also died last year.
Then, in February, Ahmaud Arbery was stalked and murdered by three white men while out for a jog in his neighborhood. Jones said of the suspects, “They decided to be the law in what many have recognized as a modern-day lynching.”
In March, Americans faced a collective public health emergency as COVID-19 began to rapidly spread.
Over the summer, Jones recounted, protests ignited across the country in response to the unjust, extrajudicial murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. After being accused by a nearby store owner of using a counterfeit $20 bill, Floyd was surrounded by multiple police officers and one, Derek Chauvin, pinned Floyd to the ground under his knee for more than eight minutes. Floyd suffocated to death. Jones called that heartbreaking encounter “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for activists and everyday citizens alike.
Last year, Jones said, Black folks were facing more than a viral pandemic. “We were facing a racism pandemic,” he said in Sunday’s sermon. Black people, he said, are disproportionately at risk for poverty, mass incarceration, infant mortality, lack of healthcare access, HIV, or being the victim of unconscious bias in the healthcare system. 2020 laid bare many of these injustices which Black folks have been discussing for decades.
Don’t Succumb to Hardheartedness
Despite all of that, Jones said, Martin Luther King, Jr., taught love and compassion in the face of injustice. He quoted King as saying: “What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hardheartedness?” The lesson to be gleaned from the immense tragedy of the past year, Jones said, is this: “Have tougher skin, but don’t let your heart be hardened. Don’t lose hope.”
Jones said it is possible to forgive those who impede progress toward racial equity, and still fight against them. And Jones, who is Black, offered this wisdom to white people who fight alongside him. “For those of you who don’t look like me: You continue to stand up for justice even when you feel uncomfortable. That is courageous.”
You can learn more about the local chapter of the NAACP and donate to their efforts here.