27 minute read
A Journey from Brokenness to Peace
CHANNELING MARTHA AND MARY
A JOURNEY FROM BROKENNESS TO PEACE
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By Dr. Jennifer Sims, Contributing Writer By Dr. Herman Kelly, Columnist
When I heard the story of Martha and Mary as a child, I took away the message that caring for others involved both providing for them materially as well as emotionally. As the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, extreme weather, and other crises continue to stress and strain our daily lives, the message of these two sisters’ different but equally necessary orientations remains relevant and important.
The Martha-work during the pandemic is unending. In schools across the country, teachers are passionately teaching classes—in-person, on Zoom, or both simultaneously. At drive-thru restaurants, employees take one order while making change for a second and bagging a third. In homes, coast to coast, parents cook and clean and wash clothes and check homework. From hospitals to farms to living rooms and everywhere in between, people are hard at work, like Martha, keeping our collective proverbial house running.
However, in our haste to complete orders and meet deadlines and sign all the permission slips, and then get ready to do it all over again the next day, the Mary-work of the pandemic can easily slip through the cracks. In other words, working in these trying times can mean becoming so focused on getting through our material to-do list that we skip the quiet sitting and listening that Jesus reminded us is so important. Yet when Jesus told Martha that Mary was indeed doing something worthwhile sitting at his feet and listening to him, it was a reminder to us all that amid the hustle and bustle (or here recently panic and chaos), taking a moment to just be with each other is invaluable.
The story of Martha and Mary thus reminds us that we are not created to grind our way through life. While material work, especially our paid employment, is necessary, so too is nurturing interpersonal connections and being there for each other. That is what Mary was doing at the feet of Jesus, not simply learning from him but spending quality time with him. In fact, since it is safe to assume that she, too, knew there was a long to-do list full of chores, we can even say that she was making time for Jesus.
Mary knew that sometimes work can wait, not indefinitely, but long enough to remind ourselves and our loved ones that our time spent together is what truly matters. So, as we head into a new year, let us plan not only to channel both sisters by doing what we need to do at work but also to prioritize quiet time with our families. ❏ ❏ ❏
PAIN AND AGONY! BUILDING AN ENVIRONMENT OF TRUST
By Cynthia Gordon-Floyd, C.P.A., Contributing Writer
It can be agonizing and painful to learn that funds are not being used for their intended purpose within the church. A breach of trust among God’s people is serious and must be addressed properly. Why is it so important to build a solid foundation of the church so that breaches of trust do not occur? Simply stated, if we have not built a solid foundation, we dishonor the Lord and his standard of holiness. We must rebuild and confront failure without compromise. We can learn and grow from failure, but we should never try to build on failure. Failure makes a great teacher, but it is a rotten foundation.
First, we must face the reality of our situation. Are we being proactive to avoid failure? We do not want to offend, so we often give without ever knowing how much was raised or used for the intended purpose. We remain quiet, and we think it is unloving to question our leaders. Yet, there is a respectful way to ask questions. Second, we must set a practice of transparency for God’s people. All should have access to accurate, timely, and consistent financial reporting.
We cannot continue the same processes and expect a different outcome. We should not be ignorant about how In our life’s journey, we experience difficulties and circumstances beyond our control. We sometimes experience the sunshine, but we must also be prepared for the rain that will also come into our existence. As pastors and wounded healers, we must continue to preach and give a word of healing even in our own existential space. We all will experience some brokenness in our life journey. As Christian believers and followers of the Almighty God, our faith journeys take us from brokenness to peace. A journey has a beginning and an ending. The beginning is not so important, nor is the ending; it is the journey that we must internalize and capture. It is our faith that anchors us through the brokenness of life. Isaiah 53:5 reminds us that “[Jesus] was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” In our wounds and brokenness, we can find a renewed understanding of the holy. The journey from brokenness to peace is a journey of steps and phases. First, when we are broken, we believe we will never be fixed again. The brokenness attempts to direct our journey, and it attempts to overshadow our worldview. At this moment, and in this space, one must look at the faith journey through a new vision recognizing that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). During this phase of brokenness, one must search the deepness of one’s faith. Nice words and platitudes will not help. One must find the sacred place and sacred space of his or her existence. In my own brokenness, for example, the swimming pool was my sacralized space. I arrived between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., and as I looked at the water and the black line in the pool and the flags hanging across the lanes, I found my peace. I found God there, bringing peace to my brokenness. I only heard the water beat against the side of the pool as I listened to God’s voice speak to my spirit. Secondly, our brokenness has a purpose in others’ healing. In our brokenness, we can help someone else heal. The stripes help heal someone else. The pain can provide purpose for ministry and service. The brokenness can help one renew and revive his or her journey; sunshine can still come through the pain of brokenness. In my experience, the sacralized moment and the sacred place give strength for me to look beyond my personal pain and look for the ministry and purpose God calls me to do in the chapter of my existence. Frederick Douglass tells us, “Without struggle, there is no progress.” The struggle through brokenness moves one to another level of service and ministry. The swimming pool is not just for me to work out my strokes and practice my technique; it also helps me work on my spirit and my faith journey. Lastly, the journey through brokenness gives one an appreciation for the healing power of God. Only God can heal and mend brokenness. When Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, he believed he would never be whole again. However, God still works miracles, and the impossible becomes possible, and we move beyond our expectations. The journey belongs to God. The ministry through brokenness is driven by the spirit of a loving and compassionate God. The journey is not for the weak or the faint of heart. The journey is for those who can endure to the end. So me, I just keep swimming. Even if the water is too cold or too deep, I just keep swimming. ❏ ❏ ❏ money is used and reported m at the connectional, a district, conference, and d local church levels. We l should not assume that s proper stewardship will occur without accountability. If we accept the lack of accountability in many areas of ministry, we will continue on this path.
Here are a few steps we can take to build a stronger foundation in our Zion: 1) Ensure that those charged with fiduciary responsibility for monies, governance, and financial reporting have the qualifications necessary to be responsible for their position. Our Doctrine and
Discipline should be rewritten for all components to revamp our position qualifications. 2) Develop and implement proper internal control mechanisms in every aspect of our ministry so that individuals are not given complete control of receipt, custody, and disbursement of funds. 3) Create internal audit and quality control committees at all levels of the Connection consisting of independent, qualified AME members to monitor compliance with our stated policies and procedures for all levels of responsibility. 4) Use external fiduciaries with the needed expertise to assist with management reporting, oversight, and maintenance. These fiduciaries will be paid to provide reporting to all stakeholders routinely.
Cynthia Gordon-Floyd is a certified public accountant and founder of Willing Steward Ministries, LLC. Willing Steward Ministries (www.willingsteward. com) is a financial consulting and accounting firm for churches and other faith-based non-profits, specializing in Bible-focused financial practices, pastoral compensation issues, IRS compliance, and other financial needs specific to churches. Cynthia is a graduate of Lake Forest College and holds her MBA in Accounting from DePaul University. She is a steward and the financial secretary at the First AME Church of Manassas in Manassas, Virginia.
REVEREND WILLIAM LAMAR’S RESPONSE TO “FROM FAREWELL TO INNOCENCE TO THE NEED FOR A FIGHTING GOD”
26 JUNE 2021
He’s a battle-axe In the time of a battle He’s a battle-axe In the time of a battle He’s a battle-axe In the time of a battle Shelter in the time of a storm
This song. This song has never let me go. A quarter of a century ago, when my seminary professors stressed that we should not use military metaphors to describe God’s work in the world, this song would not let me go. This song will not let me go as I witness the continued theological, political, and economic violence visited upon communities globally as white supremacists and imperialists seek to consolidate their power amid demographic anxieties and the perforation of their bubbles of mendacity by the Holy Spirit and the humans she has anointed. I am not so sure that I sing this song as much as this song sings me. Yet, it has been preserved in spirit and memory to remind me of something that the theological academy wants me to forget, something that the American empire that seeks to swallow me whole would have me forget. God is a fighter! God is a weapon engaged in the demolition of dwellings founded upon evil!
I first heard this song emanating from the strong yet weary throats of Sweet Mama and Aunt Dot as they prayed daily at noon at their home in Macon, Georgia. I heard it later in prayer meetings led by Mama Tanner and Sister Mattie Green. In the tradition of Miriam, these women prophesied of a God who would deliver by any means necessary because human pain is forever commingled with divine pain, and the shedding of human blood is forever commingled with the shedding of divine blood. So I learned this song from and sang it with women who had been born so close to the period of legalised chattel slavery in America that they could still smell rawhide whips and hear the fullness of black joy, black resolve, and black terror in every syllable of this spiritual. I do not know who composed this song.
James Weldon Johnson asked this poetic question, “O’ black and unknown bards of long ago, how came your lips to touch the sacred fire?” That sacred fire, sung into me by Miriam’s daughters, is the source of the light, heat, and energy of the scholarship of my beloved teacher Allan Aubrey Boesak.
I do not know if Dr. Boesak knows this song, but this song knows him. Like Dr. Boesak, this song is profoundly biblical and deeply rooted in global black experiences. Here I wish to assert my principal claim that Allan Aubrey Boesak is, above all, an elegant exegete of the highest order. His reading of scripture is the fountain, the wellspring of the gifts he has offered to those yearning to be free. His reading of scripture is the insuperable theological, political, and ecclesiological obstacle he has placed in the path of those who belligerently call the status quo the reign of God.
Human beings have been described using many metaphors that seek to essentialise our nature: homo politicus, homo sapiens, homo economicous, homo sociologicus, and many others. However, one designation seems to hold these truths and so many more. We are homo narrans: we are creatures who tell stories to live. We tell stories to make meaning. Our politics, our economics, our sociologies, our theologies are all rooted in the stories we tell about our ancestors, ourselves, and others. Scripture grounds our faith because it contains stories that help us to know our creator and ourselves. Dr. Boesak is our elegant exegete whose deep intellectual work illuminates God’s story and the liberative possibilities of human life inside that story.
His writings which include Poverty: The Moral Challenge: Get Up and Walk (1984), Comfort and Protest: The Apocalypse from a South African Perspective (1987), Pharaohs on Both Sides of the Blood-Red Waters (2017), and Children of the Waters of Meribah (2019) demonstrate that our teacher, brother, and friend has been about the work of the exegesis of texts and contexts dedicated to the flourishing of humankind and its shared abundance for decades. Can you imagine a Boesak text, talk, or lecture not being scripture-soaked or deeply nourished by holy writ? This master teacher who is fluent in theology, history, philosophy, political science, economics, and biblical studies does not produce work for the theological guild alone: he produces intellectual work to participate in the divine battle-axe’s reordering of the world, and that cannot be accomplished by theory alone. Narrative or story is required.
In his 1976 dissertation, Dr. Boesak used his fierce intellect to change our theological narrative from compliance with “white-induced inferiority, enslavement, and dehumanisation as God-ordained” to a God-breathed, ancestrally nourished Black Theology of resistance, joy, human coexistence, and community. Lecture I, entitled From Farewell to Innocence to theNeed for a Fighting God, demonstrates Dr. Boesak’s awareness that ancestral stories, too, have the power to inspire us toward shared sacrifice. Dona Kimpa Vita’s revolutionary resistance to the Portuguese empire and her vision of Mary and Jesus as Africans and “progenitors of struggle” is also a reimaging of narrative in the interest of freedom. Boesak’s work seems to ask, who are these people who read God and Christ differently? What funds their theological imagination? How can we read similarly?
The lecture mentions Frederick Douglass, Henry McNeal Turner, James Cone, Susan Smith, Letty Russell – all thinkers caught in a narrative where God’s children are subjects of divine love and not objects to be manipulated by capitalism and commodification. Anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko adds to the narrative participating in the resurrection through the ancestral intellectual archaeology presented by Dr. Boesak. For Biko, “Black Theology is the search for a fighting God.” We find that fighting God engaged in a full-bodied, full-throated warrior dance flanked by Miriam and Kimpa Vita in our contemporary moment. The divine hand is outstretched in our direction. God keeps using Allan Aubrey Boesak to invite us to do more than read, think, lecture, preach, pray, and write. God uses Boesak to invite us to join the warrior dance against all forms of oppression and tyranny.
For fifty years, Boesak has been telling a different story and singing a different song. Boesak reminds us in this lecture, “We should not forget the power of the theology of hymnology. We were given a hymnified theology of other-worldliness that denied our people voice to sing of holy this-worldliness.” But not Miriam. Not Dona Kimpa Vita. Not Sweet Mama. Not Aunt Dot. Not Mama Tanner. Not Sister Mattie Green. Not Steve Biko. Not Allan Aubrey Boesak. They do not sing songs of otherworldliness to the exclusion of God’s active overthrowing of evil and injustice in this world. Instead, they join their voices with the voices of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders who surround the throne in Revelation 5:9. They sing a new song:
He’s a battle-axe In the time of a battle He’s a battle-axe In the time of a battle He’s a battle-axe In the time of a battle Shelter in the time of a storm ❏ ❏ ❏
WHERE ALL MEANS ALL — FINDING A PLACE TO BELONG
By Rev. Renita Green, Columnist
Belongingness and love—the third layer on Maslov’s hierarchy—fill a deep spiritual and emotional need. It heals us of past rejection, isolation, and disappointment. With this need fulfilled, we are able to develop a healthy sense of esteem which leads to the ability to achieve our full potential. Belonging is central to our wholeness.
The most impactive decision of my life was made in 1994 when I joined St. James AME Church in Odessa, Missouri. The Reverend Gloria Butler was the pastor— she invited me to preach, and I went back every Sunday thereafter. When we talked about me becoming a member, I asked so many questions that she just gave me the 1992 Book of Discipline to read—which I did.
I found my connection in the mission and purpose statement—I just knew that this was where I belonged. Reading the historical statement, however, gave me a sense of pause. Was I intruding in space not intended for me? I was confused—how could I feel like I belonged in a community where I was not supposed to be?
The Reverend Butler listened to my tearful lament and sent me back, “You missed it, go back and read again.” This time I saw these words, “For all people.” Mother Butler said, “Baby, all means all!” Perfect! I joined the church. My children were baptized in the AME Church. I was licensed to preach in 1996, ordained an itinerant deacon in 2001, and an itinerant elder in 2008. I graduated from Payne Seminary in 2014 and am on track to graduate from Payne in 2023 with a Doctorate of Ministry.
To say that the AME Church is my church gives me a sense of belonging to something greater than place or person—it is a connection to identity, purpose, and vision—to the past, present, and future. One of our leaders affirmed my sense of belonging, “Renita, you are ours. You are a product of us. We love you.”
For me, the sense of belonging feels like being a kite, of sorts. I feel the freedom to fly as high as possible, reach my full potential, yet connect to someone— something—holding me, guiding me, guarding me. In some ways, TheBook of Discipline is like the hand that holds the kite string, and the church is the string—the connection. When I have felt most afraid, I have also felt most secure, knowing my connection was strong and secure.
I have taken great pride in belonging to the AME Church and have proudly promoted our having theological authenticity that others lack. I say, for example, that we do not just do charity; we do justice. We do not just talk about poverty as something to be pitied, we talk about it as an evil, and we do something to eradicate it systemically while simultaneously ministering to its dreaded effects. This, I say, is theological authenticity—our behaviors and beliefs are in alignment.
People are desperately searching for theological authenticity—for a faith community that provides a place of belonging for all—where all means all. Talking about our theological authenticity in community and modeling this in our ministry has caused people from all walks of life to give to our ministry and seek out pastoral care—most have experienced the pain of being shunned from or shamed by a church where they wanted to belong. Instead, they are genuinely grateful for our connection.
It has been such an honor to create a safe space where people can gather for all types of community meetings and community-serving. Never was there a greater witness of God’s presence than when a selfprofessed atheist posted on Facebook, “This atheist feels the presence of a power greater than this universe in this place.”
Recently, however, my profession of our theological authenticity has been confusing to people in our community—and to me, too, admittedly. The source of confusion lies in the barrier to belonging for nonheterosexual humans. Last month I was asked to officiate the wedding of a non-heterosexual human couple who has served in our church, given to our ministry, and found peace in our sanctuary. Declining was hurtful for me and to them.
It was hurtful for them to learn that while nonheterosexual humans are encouraged to consider our sacred space safe enough to serve and give, it is not a safe place to be fully human—they cannot get married in their church by their pastor. Likewise, it was hurtful to explain that while I can officiate the marriage of heterosexual non-Christian humans, I will be stripped of my ministerial orders if I fully pastor non-heterosexual Christian humans.
I confess that I was tempted to say yes. In my moment of righteous indignation, I pulled on the Rev. Dr. King’s words, “One has the moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Does this mean unjust church laws, too? I weighed the balances—would the good of breaking the law outweigh the consequence? No, not in isolation.
It has been disconcerting to confront our theological authenticity and admit that it has limits. It is so difficult for me to be a benefactor of this amazing gift of belonging and not be able to extend it to others who so desperately seek safe space. Suddenly, the place where belonging felt good, safe, and edifying feels less certain. What does it say about me to enjoy the strength of belonging while others are left out?
There are some deep questions I am pondering in my heart. ❖ Regarding just/unjust laws: Can a law be just if it is not moral? ❖ Regarding humankind: If we embrace all humankind as our family, are we intending to message that some are not human enough to be included? ❖ Regarding morality: When is denying a person’s full humanness moral? ❖ Regarding belonging: Can any of us authentically belong if some of us are excluded?
I do not pretend to know the answers to these and other questions. On the other hand, I am not sure I really want the answers, either.
I deeply hope that we will remove the barriers that prevent the full belonging of our human family, declaring with certainty that to God and to us, all
FROM THE OLD SCHOOL: CRITICAL RACE THEORY & EDUCATION AS A PRACTICE OF FREEDOM
By D’Weston Haywood, Ph.D., Columnist
Glenn Youngkin’s recent victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial election has been a cause celebre for many Republicans, especially for the ways it provided the GOP with an ostensibly new plank for its platform. In a memorandum to the Republican Study Committee, one Republican leader distilled the “lessons from Virginia” that Youngkin’s win signaled the blueprint for future GOP triumphs. Republicans “must become the party of parents,” the memorandum stated, prioritizing issues of education, schools, and curriculum, as Youngkin did, particularly in following his vocal opposition to Critical Race Theory (CRT). This supposed new blueprint actually grows out of strategies as old as conservative resistance to public school desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s, bussing in the 1970s, and the embrace of school choice that has led to the re-segregation of many public schools since the 1990s. These strategies are cut from the “old school” precisely because so too is the seemingly new phenomenon, CRT.
While CRT has now become a deeply politicized, catch-all term for anything “race,” the legal scholars that began advancing it in the 1970s would argue something different and far more complex. Kimberle Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, and Patricia J. Williams, among others, developed a body of high-level theory that asserts that race is, in reality, fiction. They reach beyond racism as a matter of personal prejudices to examine the intricate ways that race is made real by policies that sit at the core of American law, policing, and political and economic institutions. Critical Race Theory is usually taught in the confines of colleges, law schools, and graduate schools more than at the primary school level if this rather nuanced and complicated theoretical framework is taught at all to K-12 students. These scholars’ publications and talks are widely available to the public. The website for the ...continued on p17
By Eddie Mae Williams Washington, 8th Episcopal District
CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
The Virtual 151st Session of the Central North Louisiana Conference convened on Thursday, October 21, 2021 and was called to order by president of the conference and presiding prelate of the 8th Episcopal District, Bishop Stafford J. N. Wicker.
This conference session documented the work of the presiding elders, pastors, churches, Women in Ministry, Sons of Allen, Lay Organization, and the preconference work of the WMS of the Central North Louisiana Conference composed of the Alexandria-Thibodaux District and the Shreveport-Monroe District.
Worship services were filled with the presence of Holy Spirit as various gifted and anointed musicians and vocalists, including Sister Tonya Boyd Cannon, ministered in song to the glory of God. The word was proclaimed with power from on high. The Reverend Louis Smith powerfully delivered the Annual Sermon, from Genesis 28:13-14, Subject: “God Is Still Able.” Our Bishop Stafford J.N. Wicker took us to the mountaintop as he delivered the Closing Commissioning Sermon, from I Peter 5:10, Subject: “Restore.”
We were enlightened by the conference institute facilitated by the Rev. Robert Payne on the topic of “The 8 C’s of the 8th District Model of Ministry.” We were edified by literary reports that offered recommendations that can be used to enhance the functioning of churches in the Central North Louisiana Conference.
The Central North Louisiana Conference goes on record giving highest commendations to the Right Reverend Stafford J. N. Wicker and the Reverend Dr. Constance Belin Wicker, son and daughter of the 8th Episcopal District, for the stellar manner in which business was conducted.
The Central North Louisiana Conference goes on record commending host Presiding Elder Gwendolyn Snearl and co-host Presiding Elder Richard Starks, Sr. for their commitment and hard work in ensuring that this conference was second to none.
The conference commends the Reverend Dr. Lydell Scott, Mrs. Adrienne Scott, and the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church family for the excellent hospitality provided during this annual conference.
The conference commends the 8th Episcopal District Tech Team led by the Rev. Ritney Castine on the superb way they have assisted this conference and the district as a whole in the transitioning to the virtual platform to conduct worship and business.
The powerful presence of the Holy Spirit was definitely present during the conference. We salute our awesome bishop and supervisor, presiding elders, host pastor, and church for a job well done. ❏ ❏ ❏ S ttM Adi S tt
THE HEART OF THE HOLIDAYS
By Rev. Dr. Darryn Hewson, Contributing Writer
A holiday is a “holy” day and therefore has sacred significance within whichever tradition celebrates it, but often the heart of the holiday is a theme that resonates beyond those who adhere to a certain religion. Diwali is a fabulous example of how the heart of a holiday can transcend a religion and find sacred significance in a way that is universal, even sacred in multiple faith traditions. Diwali is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, some Buddhists, and Jains, all at the same time within their various religious traditions, with different stories and foci, but with a central concept of light defeating the darkness. In reality, Diwali is celebrated by secular people and even some Muslim, Christian, and other religious peoples in communities around the world. It is most prevalent in India as a cultural community celebration, but there are more than a dozen countries where it is an official holiday, and several billion people celebrate it. A celebration with lights and food and family (sounds familiar) focused on the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness seems like something universal that we could and should all celebrate.
Then there is Christmas, which is celebrated around the world by Christians and many others, including those who practice other religions or espouse no official connection to a particular religion. In the Christian faith, Christmas is celebrated as a remembrance of the day Jesus, who would be the Christ or Messiah, was born. Most religious scholars agree that December 25th was not likely the actual day Jesus was born and that the celebration in December was to replace other festivals like Saturnalia (which was about family and gift-giving) on the Roman calendar. Does that matter? It should not. If you celebrate Christmas by giving and receiving gifts (yes, learning how to receive a gift is actually important) and spending time with loved ones, but you do not even think about Jesus or God, have you somehow violated the holiday? If you celebrate with food and family and love on or around December 25th, but instead of Jesus, you celebrate enlightenment or community, are you dishonoring God? Should “real Christians” (whatever those are) be upset, or is that exactly what God or Jesus or whatever higher power is watching over us wants for us? If we find reasons to be generous and share love and community, is not that exactly what Jesus prayed for us? He did not pray that everyone would believe in or worship him as God or even the Son of God. In fact, Jesus got kind of annoyed when the disciples tried to. Instead, he prayed that “we would all be one”—period, no strings or sacred holidays attached. Jesus is important for Christians, but the most important attribute about the Messiah is supposed to be what he taught us, not when he was born or even how he died or did not die. As inspirational as Jesus’ story is, his lessons about love and forgiveness and service are the real heart of what is holy.
So, when we think about the “holy” in the holidays, I hope we remember that the heart of our traditions is not the memorial of an event but rather what those events were meant to teach us. ❏ ❏ ❏
...From From the p16 American Bar Association even provides a useful summary of CRT. Still, opponents of CRT are not engaged in a serious, robust reading of CRT as a body of knowledge. That several states, including Tennessee, Idaho, and Arkansas, have banned it outright in public schools demonstrates this point. However, prohibiting CRT in and of itself is not even the real goal here. The real goal is also nothing new.
The development of CRT into a sophisticated school of thought has made race and racism worthy of sustained study at elite levels and, just as important, made people of color into intellectual authorities with expertise in exposing the failures of American democracy; and therein lies the problem. Critical Race Theory is rooted in a black “old school” tradition, histories of black pedagogical resistance dating back to slavery that has been centered on applying education as a practice of freedom. This longstanding educational philosophy remains dedicated to promoting critical thinking over rote memorization and investigating matters, such as race, to question and critique, if not challenge, structures of power. For these central reasons—black theorists invested in education as liberation, then and now—black educational practices always face intense resistance, even criminalization. ❏ ❏ ❏
