I AM A grandson of the Black South, descended from women whose lives were shaped by the long arc of American contradiction. In her later years, my maternal great-grandmother, Essie Lou or “Big Ma,” would often sit alone on her back porch. If anyone came to check on her, she would say, “It’s just me and JC.” That phrase, soft-spoken and straightforward, testified to her resilience, her intimate relationship with the Divine, and her enduring hope. From another branch of my family comes Delsie, my third great-grandmother, born enslaved in 1831. She lived to see her son register to vote in 1867, during the fleeting promise of Reconstruction. Though from different branches, both women were shaped by the same Georgian red clay, the same struggle, and the same unshakable faith. Their lives spanned the distance between hope and heartbreak — and still, they believed.
Today, I believe we are living in another such moment — one that echoes the backlash against Black freedom and multiracial democracy during the so-called Redemption period. Then, as now, the church stood at a crossroads: complicity or prophetic resistance?
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