Civil Rights

Maria J. Stephan 2-12-2024
The illustration shows lots of arms with different skin tones reaching out to put their envelopes in a ballot box, with an American flag in the background.

stellalevi / iStock 

DEMOCRACIES OFTEN DIE by a thousand small cuts. The slide from a robust, if unfinished, democracy to an authoritarian government is incremental and uses inherent weaknesses in a country’s institution and culture. In the U.S., racism has been a core weakness debilitating progress toward a vibrant inclusive democracy, exploited by autocrats to maintain power no matter the cost to human dignity and freedom.

Since 2015, the U.S. democracy score has slid from 92 to 83, according to Freedom House’s global index, lower than any democracy in Western Europe. At a point when pro-democracy and anti-racism movements need to be strongest in the U.S., we find them at odds.

I work in many pro-democracy coalitions committed to political and ideological pluralism where it is challenging to identify the role of white supremacy and Christian nationalism in undermining democratic norms. Conservatives see these as “leftist” issues and moderates fear dividing an already fragile coalition. I also work with political progressives who often see police brutality and mass incarceration as aberrations in a functioning democracy rather than direct attacks on democracy itself, as political scientists Vesla M. Weaver and Gwen Prowse have laid out in their analysis of racial authoritarianism and as Black intellectuals and activists have understood for decades.

Authoritarianism is a system that concentrates wealth and power in a relatively small group of unaccountable people. Authoritarian systems are made up of authoritarian leaders and their institutional enablers, including members of political parties, media outlets, businesses, and religious institutions who provide autocrats with critical sources of social, political, economic, and financial power. Authoritarian systems engage in a range of anti-democratic behaviors to consolidate or expand power, such as weaponizing disinformation, gutting institutional checks on power, subverting free and fair elections, undermining civil liberties, and condoning political violence.

Five former Memphis police officers who have been charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols appear during an arraignment hearing at Shelby County courthouse in Memphis, Tenn., February 17, 2023. REUTERS/Karen Pulfer Focht

Five former Memphis policemen were charged in federal court on Tuesday with violating the civil rights of Black motorist Tyre Nichols by beating him to death after a traffic stop and engaging in a cover-up.

Mitchell Atencio 4-19-2023

Representative Justin Jones marches with supporters to the Tennessee State Capitol the after being reinstated by the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County with 36-0 votes, after the Republican majority Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two Democratic members, representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, for their roles in a gun control demonstration on the statehouse floor, in Nashville, Tenn., April 10, 2023. REUTERS/Cheney Orr

Despite Republican colleagues expelling him from the Tennessee state legislature, Nashville’s Democratic Rep. Justin Jones still believes working for justice in the South means working on “sacred ground.”

A protester waves an LGBTQ rights pride flag as activists gather outside the Supreme Court, where justices were set to hear arguments in a major case pitting LGBTQ rights against a claim that the constitutional right to free speech exempts artists from anti-discrimination laws in a dispute involving an evangelical Christian web designer who refuses to provide her services for same-sex marriages, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled sympathy on Monday toward an evangelical Christian web designer whose business refuses to provide services for same-sex marriages in a major case pitting LGBTQ rights against a claim that freedom of speech exempts artists from anti-discrimination laws

Jenna Barnett 9-15-2021

Adam Russell Taylor. Original photo by Candace Sanders, illustration by Mitchell Atencio.

Interestingly, when I revisited a lot of Dr. King’s speeches and civil rights history, [I noticed that he] would often mention Beloved Community, but there wasn't like a singular speech where he completely unpacked what the Beloved Community means. And so in one sense, it was almost like it was assumed that a lot of people understood what the concept meant, or maybe he was hoping that people would kind of fill in [the gaps] with their own values and priorities. And so I feel there is a need to recast the vision for the Beloved Community in more contemporary terms.

Bayard Rustin at news briefing on the Civil Rights March on Washington in the Statler Hotel, half-length portrait, seated at table. Warren K. Leffler via the Library of Congress. 

Rustin, who died in 1987, is best known for helping Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. implement Gandhian tactics of nonviolence and for the key role he played organizing the 1963 March on Washington and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — two key components of the civil rights movement.

Less well-known are the particularities of Rustin's faith, including his deep roots in the Quaker and African Methodist Episcopal churches which drove his activism. Those two faith traditions, marked by silence and singing, respectively, echoed throughout Rustin’s life and work.

Madison Muller 4-05-2021

A woman poses in front of a 'Black Lives Matter' mural on the street as a protest against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., June 16, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

While adherence to organized religion may not be as strong as it once was, faith and spirituality still play fundamental roles in the contemporary fight for racial justice.

Jim Rice 1-04-2021
Illustration of vaccine vials with pink and red hearts.

Illustration by Matt Chase

We’ve experienced a season of transitions here in the nation’s capital. Coinciding with the onset of a new political administration, at Sojourners we’ve also been going through a significant passing of the torch. Adam Russell Taylor has taken up the mantle as new president of the organization, as part of a multiyear succession process. Outgoing president and cofounder Jim Wallis will continue to work with Sojourners in a variety of capacities and starting this fall will also have a new full-time faculty position and found a new center at Georgetown University on faith, public life, and the common good.

Mourners of the late Rep. John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and long-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives, hold a vigil in his memory in Atlanta, uly 19, 2020. REUTERS/Lynsey Weatherspoon/File Photo

For many today, the Black freedom struggle has become a myth. Our ancestors are memorialized in their death while crucified in their life. For many, it has become a symbol of progress: a symbol of the progress of America, particularly white America, to finally “get it.” It is a powerful myth. 

C.T. Vivian at The Summit for Change in 2015 in Washington, D.C. PHOTO: JP Keenan / Sojourners

While researching C.T. Vivian’s life, I had the honor of sitting with Vivian for hours, hearing about his life and work. “This was truly a religious experience,” he said. “People need to know that.”

the Web Editors 7-18-2020

Congressman John Lewis addresses supporters of Democrat Jon Ossoff as they wait for the poll numbers to come in for Georgia's 6th Congressional District special election in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., June 20, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Aluka Berry

Civil rights leader and long-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives John Lewis died on Friday at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Delman Coates 1-22-2020

The job guarantee was a centerpiece of the civil rights movement’s policy agenda.

Jamar A. Boyd II 12-02-2019

Image via REUTERS/Laurel Chor

The similarities here are not only due to the presence of death and violence, but high tensions between government and people. Here we’ve witnessed images of police exercising excessive force on protestors, extensive arrests of nonviolent demonstrators, and vile displays of militarization in neighborhood streets, much like in Baltimore, Compton, and other cities in the U.S.

Photo by Kyle Ellefson on Unsplash

How do we maintain hope when our earth is brutalized daily by the climate disasters brought on by human greed, denial, and consumption?

Da’Shawn Mosley 5-02-2019

Father Theodore Hesburgh

The new documentary Hesburgh, which premieres nationwide on Friday, May 3, and is directed by the Emmy-nominated filmmaker Patrick Creadon (Wordplay, I.O.U.S.A.) gives us a thorough look at Father Hesburgh’s walk. From Hesburgh’s origins to his decision to devote his life to the priesthood, to his appointment — at the young age of 35 — as president of the University of Notre Dame, to all the personal, national, and global adversities that the man of the cloth later faced afterward, Hesburgh weaves a beautiful and engaging story of faith lived out.

Lisa Sharon Harper 1-23-2019

Marielle Franco. UOL Notícias

MORE THAN 50 black women and a handful of black men huddled in a narrow room of an unmarked church on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. The women were adorned with natural hair and were happy to be together, but I noticed a seriousness about them. Many had traveled two hours or more via public transportation. This was not just a meeting: It was an event.

Our gathering formed in the shadow of Brazil’s recent election. Jair Bolsonaro won the Brazilian presidency, promising to target black women activists, LGBTQ people, and others and to bring in militarized security forces to squash violence in shantytown communities known as favelas. Seventy percent of evangelical Christians voted for Bolsonaro, giving him his win.

At our meeting, worship leaders led the women in singing songs about the God who promises a day when oppression will be lifted. One of the songs honored the brown, colonized girl named Maria, whose Magnificat promised these women’s liberation.

A year has passed since the assassination of 38-year-old black Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco. Franco, who challenged police brutality and extrajudicial killings, was shot while riding in the back seat of a car. Two hours before she was slain, she called for black women to engage in politics to bring about a just Brazil. The bullets that killed her were purchased in 2006 by federal police in the nation’s capital city of Brasilia.

Brazil’s Carnival has presented the country as a happy, diverse nation where black women can dance without shame or consequence. I didn’t know Brazil was the last nation in the world to abolish slavery and that 4.8 million Africans were shipped there over a span of nearly 400 years. I also didn’t know that after abolition in Brazil, the Portuguese elite begged Europeans to “whiten” their mostly African nation and “civilize” it. They promised 4 million Europeans seeds and free transportation to Brazil, while formerly enslaved Africans received nothing.

Kathryn Post 1-23-2019

SINCE HOBBY LOBBY won its landmark case in 2014, the religious freedom narrative has been dominated by traditionalist, politically conservative Christians. But for most of our nation’s history, religious freedom was a bipartisan value that echoed a commitment to inclusive pluralism.

In 1993 and 2000, religious freedom laws were passed almost unanimously in Congress, with support from social progressives as well as conservatives. Religious freedom was viewed as a basic constitutional right that should be applied indiscriminately.

The 2016 election only exacerbated the perception of religious freedom as a conservative Christian value. President Trump vocally supported Jack Phillips, the baker of the Masterpiece Cakeshop case who refused to bake for a gay couple’s wedding because of his religious beliefs. Trump took steps to dismantle the Johnson Amendment, which protects nonprofits from partisan political manipulation and, with the signing of the first of his two executive orders on religious freedom, announced, “We are giving our churches their voices back.”

In some cases, conservatives are claiming their right to religious freedom in entirely appropriate ways. Yet, in too many cases, far-right Christians have used religious freedom as a loophole for discrimination or to evade civil rights laws. And secular progressives have allowed them to do it, ceding religious liberty to extremists and jeopardizing this core tenet of democracy.

But that narrative could be changing.

Julie Polter 12-28-2018

A profile of Howard Thurman.

ONE OF THE MOST influential figures in the African-American civil rights movement did not march, organize, or speak at mass rallies. Mystic Howard Thurman found spiritual revelation in nature, championed the use of dance, theater, and nontraditional music in worship, and incorporated silence in his sermons. But his books, preaching, and teaching provided vital philosophical and spiritual underpinnings for the nonviolent resistance methods championed by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders.

Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story, airing on PBS in February, is a documentary by Martin Doblmeier, the award-winning creator of films on faith including An American Conscience, Chaplains, and Bonhoeffer. In this rich, one-hour portrait of Thurman, civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson Sr., Rep. John Lewis, and others—as well as scholars such as Alton B. Pollard III, Walter Earl Fluker, Luther E. Smith, and Lerita Coleman Brown—offer insights on Thurman’s life, legacy, and the dynamic tension between contemplation and social justice.

The film’s title is from Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited , published in 1949—said to have been carried by King and often cited by other civil rights leaders. Thurman wrote: “The masses of [people] live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them?”

Thurman’s lifelong engagement with this question produced wisdom as vital for our day as it was for his.

The Editors 12-28-2018

Freedom Rider Frank Holloway, then and now.

Freedom Ride

The expanded edition of Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders revisits a pivotal civil rights campaign. Filled with mugshots and recent interviews of several riders who were arrested in Jackson, Miss., Breach of Peace honors a historic act of protest. Vanderbilt University Press

One Body, Many Parts

Together at the Table: Diversity Without Division in the United Methodist Church, by Bishop Karen P. Oliveto, the UMC’s first openly LGBTQ bishop, is timely as the denomination nears a potential split over sexuality. Oliveto outlines how her denomination can remain whole. Westminster John Knox Press

Shannon Dingle 11-07-2018
Sergey Kohl / Shutterstock
 
 

Going to a new church as a disabled person is a brave act. Why? Because churches have a history of being unwelcoming to us.

I love the church. I can’t and won’t give the church up, no matter how wounded I feel. Yet, I know more disabled people who have left the church than who have stayed. I know more parents who have left after giving birth to or adopting children with disabilities than who have stayed. Whenever I’m asked about Christian speakers, writers, and leaders who are disabled, I pause to think if I can add any new names to the short list.