Toward the Morning

It is impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg—even though they both belong to the same family of fowl ... It can only produce according to what that particular system was constructed to produce. The system in this country cannot produce freedom for an Afro-American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system period ... And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, I'm quite sure you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken!
—Malcolm X

I want to say to you ... as we talk about "Where do we go from here," that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society ... We must ask the question, "Why are there 40 million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

The year is 1984:
- twenty-nine years since Rosa Park's refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and the subsequent birth of the contemporary civil rights movement with Martin Luther King, Jr. as its most prominent leader;

- twenty-four years since the beginning of the sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina and the creation of SNCC [Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee], with radical students prepared to give their lives in Mississippi, Alabama and the rest of the South, because they believed in freedom;

- twenty-three years since the rebirth of CORE [Congress of Racial Equality] and the start of the freedom rides that left many permanently injured as the federal government did little to enforce its own laws;

- twenty-one years since the Birmingham demonstrations, the March on Washington, and Martin King's dream about American society "transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers";

- twenty years since the Civil Rights Bill, granting African-Americans the right to eat and sleep at most places open to public accommodation;

- nineteen years since Malcolm X's assassination, the Selma march, the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and the beginning of the urban riots in Watts (Los Angeles) that took many black lives and left an even greater number permanently damaged—physically and mentally;

- eighteen years since the rise of black power, the NCBC [National Conference of Black Churchmen] endorsement of it, and the beginning of a black consciousness in religion that created a black theology that white churches—and many blacks—would condemn;

- sixteen years since Martin King's assassination and the beginning of the decline of the civil rights movement as a creative moral and political force in American society;

- fifteen years since James Forman walked down the aisle of Riverside Church and issued his Black Manifesto, demanding reparations from white churches for their involvement in the long history of the oppression of African-Americans in the U.S.A.

Between 1955 and 1984, much has happened in the relationships between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. and the world, between the East (Soviet Russia and its satellites) and West (U.S.A. and its European supporters), between the North (First and Second Worlds) and South (Third World), and between the rich and the poor who are struggling for freedom and self-determination throughout the world. The black struggle in the U.S.A. has been an important symbol of freedom in the struggles of other peoples, as their struggles have been a symbol for us.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are household names among oppressed peoples in many parts of the world. Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A. Philip Randolph, and Paul Robeson are known to all serious students of history. The spirituals and the blues, gospel music and jazz have revealed to many the depth of our spiritual and cultural will to survive amid situations of extreme oppression, thereby encouraging them not to lose hope but to keep on fighting until freedom comes. The spirituality of black churches, creatively expressed in worship, and the black theology emerging from it have also been taken to many parts of the globe, strengthening the determination of the oppressed "to keep their faith in the God of justice," whose righteousness is always found in the liberation of the oppressed.

The black struggle and the faith that has nourished it have been important symbols not only for other oppressed peoples; our faith has also sustained us and it has empowered us to struggle from Montgomery to Memphis, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan. In black religion, faith in the God of justice and the human struggle to implement it belong together and cannot be separated without both of them losing their authenticity. The faith of African Americans is deeply embedded in our African and slave past. It has sustained our identity amid wretched circumstances, extending our spiritual and political vision far beyond the alternatives provided by the whites who enslaved us.

Our spirituality and the theology derived from it are unique when compared with the religion of Euro-American churches and their theology. We have developed a spirituality that plants our feet firmly on this earth, because the God of our faith demands that we bear witness to the humanity of all by refusing to adapt ourselves to the exploitation that the few inflict on the many. We have hammered out a black theology that has helped black churches to recover the authenticity of their faith so that they will not go woolgathering in a nebulous kingdom on high and forget their practical responsibility to live obediently in this world, liberating the poor from the misery of poverty.

However, as we look back over the black struggle in the United States, recounting its accomplishments and feeling proud of how far we have come, let us not forget that we are living in the year of George Orwell's 1984. The world of 1984 is a world moving toward its own destruction. Obsessed with its own power, it tries to make right wrong, and wrong right. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, dying of hunger and malnutrition in a world that seems not to care.

Since 1955 the misery of the poor has increased to massive proportions in a world of plenty for a few. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is an outrage to human decency. In addition, we are on the verge of nuclear annihilation, with no apparent to means stop it. It is insanity unchecked, sheer madness!

Do not the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the real possibility of nuclear annihilation mean that we need to re-evaluate our definition of freedom and the methods we have used to attain it? Is not a deeper analysis of our struggle required if we expect to achieve liberation for the poor and survival for all?

When I evaluate the historical development of black churches and the civil rights movement, as well as the theological and political reflection connected with them, I think we blacks have a right to say that they have brought us "a mighty long way." But I am not sure that they will be able to take us much further if they do not lead to radical changes in our analysis of black freedom and the methods we have used in our attempts to implement it.

No one can deny the important roles that the NAACP, National Urban League, CORE, SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference], SNCC, and PUSH [People United to Serve Humanity] have played in the black struggle for freedom in the U.S.A. But neither the civil rights organizations nor black churches and their theology, in their present form, will be enough to take us into the twenty-first century with sufficient political power and spiritual health to cope with the problems of injustice and poverty that are rampant in the black community.

The ideals of integration and nationalism are insufficient for the problems we now face and for the issues with which we will have to deal in the future. We need to do more than try to be assimilated into white American society or to separate ourselves from it. Neither alternative is possible or even desirable.

We need a broader perspective, one that includes the creative values of both but also moves beyond them to an entirely new vision of the future. It should be a perspective on freedom that incorporates the best in the long history of the African-American struggle—the best in Henry Highland Garnet and Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary McLeod Bethune, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Ella Baker and Queen Mother Moore.

Building on the strengths of black leaders of the past, we must also look beyond them and learn from the struggles of the oppressed throughout the world, as our leaders did in their lifetimes. We need a vision of freedom that includes the whole of the inhabited world and not just black America, a vision enabling us to analyze the causes of world poverty and sickness, monopoly capitalism and antidemocratic socialism, opium in Christianity and other religions among the oppressed, racism and sexism, and the irresolute will to eliminate these evils. We must analyze these complex and deeply rooted evils in such a manner that the black struggle and faith can be seen expressing solidarity with the struggles and faiths of others who are fighting for the liberation of the wretched of the earth.

If we study our history critically, we shall know that a true understanding of Martin King and Malcolm X pushes us beyond them both to the creation of a future for which they died but which they saw only imperfectly. It is our responsibility not to romanticize them but to build upon their wisdom through a critical examination of them. It is our responsibility to promote their ideas by refusing to be imprisoned by them but allowing them to propel us toward the new black future that is linked with the future of all humankind.

Some will say that the current drive for black voter registration, spearheaded by black civil rights leaders such as Jesse Jackson, means that African Americans can achieve freedom through the American political process. They point to black mayors in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and the increasing number of black elected public officials at all levels as evidence of the black movement toward freedom.

Jesse Jackson's bid for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party aroused the interest of many African-Americans as he said: "There's a freedom train acoming. But you got to be registered to ride. Get on board! Get on board!" And many blacks did, because he touched the nerve of freedom deep within their being. His mission to Syria that resulted in the freedom of Lt. Robert Goodman and his showing in the 1984 presidential primaries have established the fact that the Country Preacher is no joke and was thus a viable candidate for the office he sought.

Although I do not believe that blacks will achieve full freedom through the electoral process, I do want to emphasize that political action is a necessary step toward freedom, because it encourages us to take responsibility for our future. No people will achieve freedom if it remains passive, either in complacency or despair, while others make laws that shape the world. It is absolutely necessary for all blacks to realize that they must not leave their future in the hands of others. We must take charge of it, and that involves at least the act of voting. But we blacks must not be so naive as to think that merely electing black public officials is going to affect significantly the lives of the black poor. The goal of black freedom must mean more than a share of parity in the current American capitalist system. That would mean only a few jobs and privileges for black professionals and continued misery for the masses of blacks in the U.S.A. and the poor throughout the globe: What difference does it make whether there is a black mayor in Detroit or Los Angeles or even a black president of the U.S.A. if the capitalist system of maximum profit for a few at the expense of the many remains intact?

A ruling elite of one percent controls over of the 30 percent of the wealth in the U.S.A. Western Europe and the U.S.A. comprise about 17 percent of the world's population, but they control more than 70 percent of the world's wealth. More than 50,000 persons die each day of hunger and malnutrition. All of this must be radically changed so that the right to life under decent, human conditions is protected by churches, governments, and other organizations.

Unfortunately, some black Christians will say: "You can have the world, just give me Jesus." That is the most serious mistake that African-Americans could make politically and theologically. Politically, because nearly four centuries on this continent as slaves and second-class citizens should be enough to convince us that our freedom will never be realized by sitting back watching whites run the world. Theologically, because as the writer of the Gospel of John says: "God loved the world so much that [God] gave [God's] only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).

How can Christians withdraw from the world when Jesus died for its redemption? The freedom of our children and of others in the world is dependent upon our political engagement in the struggles for justice. We cannot ignore the world and still retain the ethical credibility of the Christian faith. To be a Christian is to love one's neighbor, and that means making a political commitment to make the world a habitable place for one's neighbor. Christians are called not only to pray for justice but to become actively involved in establishing it.

Black churches have a special responsibility for the world, because we claim that Christ died to redeem it. We are thus called to bear witness to God's redemption of the world through what we do and say. When others give up in despair, feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the evil that engulfs us, black churches continue to preach hope, because "when a people has no visions, it perishes."

What visions do we have in 1984? We need to dream about radically new possibilities for the future or our people will perish, not only of racism and capitalism, but of our own neglect and illusions. We have the resources and the talent for creating radically new ideas about the political economy. The question is: Do we have the will and the determination to do it? Or are we too fearful of those in power or too satisfied with our own professional status?

What I am talking about will not be easy to accomplish, nor will it happen without careful analysis and intelligent planning. If we are to build a genuine black future, it will take the "talented tenth" that W.E.B. DuBois advocated, the mass involvement that Martin King demonstrated, and the integral solidarity with the grassroots that Malcolm X embodied in his life and death. Physical and mental energy, firm discipline, courage and commitment—all these are crucial ingredients for the creation of a new black future. If we believe that the present political economy must be radically changed before freedom can become a reality for all, then it is our duty to participate in the creation of a vision designed for the humanity of all.

The vision of a new social order that we need should not be taken from any one person (a university professor, politician, civil rights activist, or preacher) and should not be dependent upon the charisma of Martin King or Malcolm X or any current aspirants to the mantle. The vision should be the result of a group of committed persons whose love for freedom is deep and broad enough to embrace and consider many viewpoints. The members of the team should include persons who represent a cross section of the total black community, including community grassroots activists and scholars, scientists and politicians, artists and lawyers, teachers and preachers, men and women, youth and senior citizens, Christians and non-Christians, artists and doctors. The chief requirement should be commitment to the freedom of all and a willingness to suppress one's ego in view of the needs of the community.

The initiative for the new vision and the creation of the team should come from the black church, because it is the only institution with the power and the resources to do the job. The black church is the only major institution we have that is owned and operated by blacks with no appeal to white money. It is the only institution that is relatively free to act independently of the white ruling class. The black church, therefore, should take the initiative in the creation of a team of committed persons who are prepared to think and to act independently of both white liberals and black middle-class interests.

Although the team should determine its own immediate and long-range goals, I would like to conclude with a few suggestions regarding some elements in the new vision of freedom.

- The new vision will need to include an emphasis on black unity through an affirmation of the value of black history and culture. This is the strength of the nationalist tradition in our history. There will be no freedom for blacks without black unity. Whites have been able to divide and conquer us because we have not had a deep knowledge and appreciation of our past. Those who do not know and love their history and culture cannot possibly love themselves.

To love our people does not mean hating whites. Indeed, we cannot love anybody unless we love who we are as blacks—that is, the culture and the history that has sustained us through centuries of slavery and second-class citizenship. The enduring message of black power has nothing to do with hate. Rather black power, as John O. Killens says, "teaches love. But it teaches us that love, like charity, must begin at home; that it must begin with ourselves, our beautiful black selves." Whatever vision of the new black future is created, it must be derived from and include at its center black love of self—the history and culture of an African people in white America.

Lack of knowledge of one's past leads inevitably to self-hate, and self-hate leads one to love the oppressor's values, and thus to act against one's own freedom. Malcolm X recognized and expounded this truth far more clearly than anyone else in our history. That is why he was so severely criticized during his lifetime and is seldom remembered today.

Any new vision that African-Americans create should be built upon the best in our past history, so that our children will proudly affirm their blackness.

- After black unity has been achieved, the new vision will need to include the best in the integrationist tradition as articulated by Martin Luther King Jr., in his dream of the "beloved community." Black unity and nationalism are the pre-requisites of coalition, lest the beloved community turn out to be a pious front for white upper-class interests.

Coalition is also crucial. To think that blacks could achieve their freedom through complete, permanent separation is nationalistic romanticism. The world is too small and complex for that sort of logic to have any credibility now. No, freedom will come only through the building of a society that respects the humanity of all, including whites. The Christian faith requires it, and human decency demands it. We blacks must not be so naive as to think that we will achieve our freedom by denying it to whites. The greatness of Martin King was his embodiment of this truth in his life and thought—from the beginning of his public advocacy of black freedom in 1955 to his tragic death in 1968.

- The vision of the new social order must be anti-sexist. The movement for black freedom in the churches and civil rights organizations is male-dominated, which merely contributes to the retardation of freedom. Half the members of the team must be women, with diverse dimensions of a feminist consciousness. There can be no compromise on the idea that justice means the true equality of all, with mutual sharing of responsibility in all areas of the decision-making process. A truly liberated social order cannot have men dominating women.

- The new social order must view the necessities of life, food, shelter, work, play as rights inalienably linked with membership in society. No one, absolutely no one, should control the wealth of a nation or community through the private ownership of property.

The vision must be democratic, protective of individual liberties, and involving all persons in the community in its creation. That is why the team should include a wide representation of interests in the black community.

- The new black perspective must be a global vision that includes the struggles of the poor in the Third World. African-Americans are linked in countless ways with their brothers and sisters in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific. Jesse Jackson is right. We must create a "rainbow coalition" that includes all the disadvantaged in the U.S.A. and throughout the globe. There will be no freedom for anybody until all are set free.

- Any new vision of a just social order must affirm the best in black religion and embrace the creative elements in the religions of the poor who are struggling for freedom throughout the globe. Any social order that excludes religion or ignores it is doomed to failure from the start.

The life and thought of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are the best examples in the black community of the creative role that religion can play in the transformation of society. They combined their religious vision with their political commitment, but they refused to allow either their politics or their faith to separate them from other persons straggling for justice even though those persons held different views. Both men always remained open to be taught by the experiences of others in their struggle for justice.

Although Martin King was a Christian preacher of the black Baptist tradition and Malcolm X was a minister in the religion of Islam, the distinguishing mark of their thought and practice was their commitment to justice for the poor and their willingness to die for it. Though they held sharply different views regarding religion and politics, they were one in their rejection of religious and political dogmatism. Both realized that an inflexible attitude was detrimental to the creation of coalitions among the poor and their supporters—coalitions that are indispensable for the establishment of a just society. The members of these alliances should, like Martin King and Malcolm X, take their stand for the truth and refuse to be sidetracked by their fear of religious and secular authorities who would prevent them from speaking and doing what truth demands.

The creation of a just social order must be grounded in the hopes that have been engendered by the poor as they have emerged from their encounter with God in their fight for freedom. No society that is based merely on the intellectual reflections of university professors, professional politicians, or any other privileged analysts can be just. A just social order is one that takes seriously the prereflective visions of the poor as defined by their political struggles and celebrated in their religious life.

Although I am a Christian theologian, I contend that a just social order must be accountable to not one but many religious visions. Any creation of such an order must take into account that God has been known and experienced in many different ways, and no single expression of God's identity in worship or theology should be regarded as the final truth.

As the apostle Paul said, "Now we see in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12), and thus cannot possibly have a perfect understanding of ultimate truth. Because we have an imperfect grasp of divine reality, we must not regard our limited vision as absolute. Acknowledging the imperfections of our own vision and the truth in other religions has always been difficult for Christians, who have often talked and acted as if they had the whole, pure truth. Today such a view must be firmly rejected. God's truth comes in many colors and is revealed in many cultures, histories, and unexpected places.

Because, however, I am a Christian whose theological and political perspective has been defined by the black church tradition, my view of a just social order cannot be understood apart from my faith in God's liberating presence in Jesus. The importance of God and Jesus for black Christians is best explained when we consider the preponderance of suffering in black life and blacks' attempt to affirm their humanity in spite of it. When we consider slavery, lynching, ghettoes, and Ronald Reagan's vicious attack upon the rights of the poor, how can we explain blacks' mental and physical survival? How was it possible for black slaves to hope for freedom when a mere empirical analysis of their situation of servitude would elicit despair? How is it possible for blacks today to keep their sanity in the struggle for freedom when they consider the continued exploitation of the poor in a world of plenty?

I belong to a Christian community whose members believe that we blacks have come "this far by faith," leaning on the God of our slave grandparents. We have survived slave ships, auction blocks, and chronic unemployment because the God of black faith has bestowed upon us an identity that cannot be destroyed by white oppressors. It is the knowledge that we belong only to God that enables black Christians to keep on fighting for justice even though the odds might be against us.

We firmly believe that Jesus heals wounded spirits and broken hearts. No matter what trials and tribulations blacks encounter, we refuse to let despair define our humanity. We simply believe that "God can make a way out of no way." Black Christians do not deny that trouble is present in their lives; we merely insist that "trouble does not last always" and that "we'll understand it better by and by." In the words of Charles Tindley:

Trials dark on every hand,
and we cannot understand.
All the ways that God would lead us
to that Blessed Promised Land.
But God guides us with God's eye
and we'll follow till we die.
For we'll understand it better by and by.

By and by, when the morning comes,
All the saints of God are gathered home.
We'll tell the story how we overcome.
For we'll understand it better by and by.

The eschatological hope found in black faith is not pie-in-the-sky religion. It is not an opiate. Rather it is born of struggle here and now, because black Christians refuse to allow oppressors to define who we are:

O, nobody knows who I am,
Till the judgment morning.

James H. Cone was a professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City when this article appeared. Excerpted from For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church, by James H. Cone, published by Orbis Books, September 1984. Used with permission.