Black Alumni Association Newsletter: February 2022

BY REV. DR. LEONARD EDLOE
Union Presbyterian Seminary, Th.M ’19

Once again, in February, we celebrate Black History Month.  A celebration started by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1926 to revel and raise the awareness of black history in this nation. The celebration has focused on our many great achievements, however; I feel, too little attention has been given to the bad along with the ugly.  For when we know of the struggles, the pain, and the challenges, the achievements are even more remarkable.

Rev. Dr. Leonard Edloe

I attended segregated Black schools growing up in Richmond, Virginia, the Capital of the Confederacy. I attended Howard University, where the names of the buildings spoke to Black greatness. I attended the then School of Theology at Virginia Union University, where I was exposed by Dr. Miles Jerome Jones to literature that I had never read. It was only, however, when I was in my early 70’s studying at Union Presbyterian Seminary under Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, that I started to learn about the brutality of slavery and how our educational and religious institutions crafted a narrative.  This narrative was enforced by a culture that turned the darkest moments of the history of this nation into a fairy tale, a fairy tale that erased the brutality of slavery and told us Black folk that we should be thankful that our ancestors were enslaved so that they, and now we, would be introduced to their Jesus.

The true history is now being told.  In so many instances when we as a people have made progress historically, there has been pushback. What we are seeing today is no different.  Laws are being passed banning “Critical Race Theory” in public schools when Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not being taught in our public schools.  Rather, it is only taught in higher education (colleges and universities).

Most people have no idea what CRT is today.  It is code speech for anything that deviates from the narrative that conceals the brute treatment our enslaved ancestors endured as a people because of race.  Public schools must continue to teach the fairy tale since there is academic freedom in higher education.  However, now academic freedom is also being challenged and tenure is being denied or eliminated entirely in some states.  The narrative will be the only thing allowed to be taught in institutions of higher education.

I must ask the question, who is going to teach our children our story, for many of us have only been taught the narrative?  The greater question is, who is going to teach us? For many of us don’t know our story.

The Bible and Science agree that all of us are descendants of the woman from North Africa named Eve. That said, we are made in the image of God. Yet that was taken away from us when English Common Law held that any person who had been baptized was enfranchised or free. The Virginia House of Burgesses nullified that right when it came to Africans who had been enslaved in the colony.

To make enslavers unaccountable for the rape of African women, the legal doctrine of partus sequitur vetrem became law. This ruling made enslaved children born in the colonies take the status of their mothers. Therefore, children of enslaved mothers were born into slavery as chattel (property), even if their father was the enslaver. Not only was the body of African women available on demand for the enslaver, his lust resulted in more free labor and personal property for his business operation.  What happened in the Virginia House of Burgesses was just the beginning.  I’ll lift up just a few additional examples.

Few know of the slave coffles (doubled lines of thirty men) that marched past the United States Capitol building to the ports in Charleston and Savannah. Massachusetts was the first state to codify slavery. When slavery became less profitable in the North, the enslaved were sold to the plantations in the South. Each man hauled twenty pounds of iron in chains that draped from neck to neck and wrist to wrist binding them together. The march was 700 miles and at least a million enslaved men marched that road for 80 years. That’s just one of the stories that too many of us don’t know, but need to know.

Few know the fact that many religious denominations punished pastors that preached against slavery and that several religious denominations split on a regional basis fifteen years before the nation did. The theologies these denominations taught that negated our personhood in many instances has never been untaught.  Sadly, many leaders of these denominations today are proud of their history while at the same time never mentioning slavery.

The story is seldom told of the Plantation Revolt of 1811 in Louisiana. The revolt was suppressed, however, to make sure the enslaved would never try to free themselves again. The heads of many of those who rebelled were placed on poles along the levee.

The actions of ISIS in Iraq doing the same thing a few years ago were rightly condemned. However, most of the population of this nation never realized that as a nation we had done the same thing.

There are stories of slaves that were viciously beaten; not for failing to pick their quota of cotton, but for exceeding their quota. Slaves were constantly reminded that even excellence was not a way to obtain freedom. In fact, excellence could be considered a liability to the enslaved and a threat to the institution of slavery.

There is a monument in New York City honoring James Marion Sims. He is said to be the father of gynecology. He, however, earned that title by performing surgeries on enslaved women without the use of anesthesia. He was not the only one. We were the subjects of medical experiments both in life and in death. In my hometown of the Confederacy (Richmond, Virginia), Virginia Commonwealth University is trying to properly deal with the bones of our ancestors that were found in a well when a new medical building was being constructed. However, because time and money were more important, many bones were never recovered. The well was merely filled to continue construction.

We know of the dark days during and following Reconstruction. These were days when the KKK enforced white cultural values using intimation, violence, and lynching. Many times, lynching was carried out on Sunday morning after worship. There was the overthrow of a duly elected government in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1891. Virginia had its Constitution of 1902 that for all practical purposes shut black people out of the governmental process.

Attention has been given to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. However, that followed the Red Summer of 1919 when race riots erupted all over this nation. Many times, these riots resulted because of black men who had served their nation during World War I and had experienced freedom in Europe that they had never experienced before in this country that they were fighting to defend.  Just standing tall as they walked the streets of their hometowns was seen as a threat to segregation and the American way of life. That same pushback showed up again after the end of World War II.

I am a child of the Civil Rights movement. I saw Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he came to Richmond for the National Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I would listen to his sermon every Sunday on Martin Luther King Speaks. I even had the honor of singing in the choir for Dr. King when he spoke for Charter Day at Howard University. Dr. King, like all martyrs, has been sanitized in death. We have many of his speeches and writings. However, the ones with power, the ones who speak to the challenges of his day are seldom read or discussed.

We have made great strides as a people. However, we must know our entire story. We must embrace the biblical command of Deuteronomy, to forget not so that we will appreciate even more what we have accomplished.  By knowing our story, we will have the strength to endure no matter how strong the pushbacks might be from those who think we have come too far!

When Lord?

BY REV. DR. ANGELA DUNCAN
UNION-PSCE M.Div 2003

Habbakuk 1:1- 4 (NRSV)
1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.
The Prophet’s Complaint

2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?

3 Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.

4 So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

Rev. Dr. Angela Duncan

Just a few days ago, I read an article in Time magazine “A New Report Finds That 45 States Are ‘Failing’ to Teach Students About the Period That Shaped Race Relations After the Civil War” (January 2022). The 2020 murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd in the midst of the COVID 19 outbreak sparked new conversations about race relations in America. The conversations on race were not really new, just unresolved old ones. Some issues around race and racism could have been resolved long ago but the sickle of white supremacy and injustice keeps pulling us backward after great gains are made in the African American community. The magazine article finds we are not teaching this generation about the reconstruction period (1865 – 1877), and by failing to do so we miss an opportunity to understand the racism that exists in the United States today. The article goes so far to say that we need to not only teach the negative aspects of the reconstruction period but we should also teach its positive aspects. Such instruction will show how African American communities flourished by creating their own churches, schools, beneficial societies, banks, insurance companies, churches, and schools and will bring understanding and solutions to some of today’s problems. It is important to note that the highest number of African Americans were elected to legislative bodies during this period.

It was during reconstruction that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution were written and approved to abolish slavery (unless a person committed a crime); grant citizenship to newly freed enslaved persons, and gave Black men the right to vote. The federal government sent troops to the south to guarantee African American men (women could not vote until the 19th amendment) the right to vote and to oversee the rewriting of the southern states’ constitutions to recognize those most recent amendments. The presidential election in 1876 took 4 months to decide between the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden received more popular votes but the Electoral College votes in 3 southern states were disputed. Does this sound familiar? A special electoral commission was established to determine the election and Rutherford B. Hayes became the 19th president of the United States. With his election, he agreed to withdraw the federal troops and allow the southern states “home rule” meaning the federal government would not interfere with how states governed themselves. The end of reconstruction was the beginning of Jim Crow; the period in American history where the south created laws to disenfranchise African Americans and reinstitute a new kind of slavery.

This history shows us that the tactics used during the 2020 election and the insurrection on January 6, 2021, were from an old playbook that began soon after the election of former President, Barack Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. According to those who traditionally hold the power…that was never supposed to happen and the gains made during the Obama administration (health care for one) were consistently threatened.

In 2020, we saw a delay in the acceptance of the popular and Electoral College vote, an undermining of the confidence in the voting process, and an attempt to coerce election officials to “find votes” or push for the use of alternative electors to change the electoral vote count. When all of these tactics failed, there was an attempt to overthrow the government by charging into the capital to disrupt the certification process and deny the will of the people. States began passing laws that make it harder to vote and now there is a movement to stop teaching any history that shines the spotlight on “America’s Original Sin” (Wallis, 2015), the sin of slavery, and racism. Books that teach this history are being banned and teachers are told they can’t teach history that makes anyone feel guilt or shame. I keep hearing “all that happened in the past and why can’t we all just forget it and move on.” I share this graphic when I hear that.

The period from slavery through segregation is longer than the period from 1954 to the present time. The Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965 and has been extended several times. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that certain parts of the law were unconstitutional and states did not have to get preclearance to change voting laws. The challenge to voting laws would have to come from those who are already disenfranchised and overburdened by systemic barriers on a daily basis.

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help? Why does it feel as if we are almost back where we began?

I often get weary and want to quit but it is my faith that has been built over time that keeps me going. I continue in the fight for the sake of all of our children, grandchildren and all of our descendants.

I wholeheartedly believe that our African American churches must continue to stay relevant for our society today. The Civil Rights movement was born in the church and Black History was taught there too. I believe the church will have to realign itself to fill in the gaps for our children of today (they are not our ancestors and have had privileges our ancestors did not have). I also believe we will need to continue to provide a strong foundation but will need to become more pliable, less rigid and willing to lead from the rear. God answered Habakkuk “write the vision and make it plain” and God answers us and strengthens us “for there is a vision for an appointed time.” My strength is renewed when I witness our young persons in action “so that a runner may read it.” The Black Lives Matter movement has shown that the young folks today can, and are willing, to run with it.

The question for us today is how can we support them and not get in the way?

I’m grateful for the “Katie G. Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership”, and the “Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation”, both centers are part of Union Presbyterian Seminary. I’m grateful because both are helping me and others look at our current challenges in new ways. I want our children to know their history, be resilient and challenge injustice. I stand ready to support them. As Dr. Katie G. Cannon would always say to us “I’m going to give you the best that I have so you can do better!” “Ase” and “Amen.”

Lives Worth Not Forgetting