Michael-Ray Mathews

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?

After the Civil War, the promise of Reconstruction was swiftly extinguished by a campaign to “redeem” the South from Black political power. This Redemption Era gave way to Jim Crow laws, violent suppression, and the codification of second-class citizenship. Historian Rayford Logan called it the “nadir” of Black life in America — not only politically but morally. White churches were central to this betrayal. Many pulpits preached a gospel of racial hierarchy. Biblical texts were weaponized to justify segregation. Clergy blessed white militias or remained silent as terror reigned. This was not just a political failure — it was a theological one as well. The church clung to empire and the idol of whiteness, failing to imagine a Jesus who could break the chains of caste.

Even in the valley of the shadow of death, the Black church sang. While white churches often supported white supremacy, Black congregations became sanctuaries of resistance, offering spiritual refuge, political formation, and mutual aid. They preached salvation and liberation in the same breath. Leaders such as Bishop Henry McNeal Turner of the AME Church declared “God is a Negro,” reject-ing theological white supremacy. In 1900, James Weldon Johnson penned “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” later set to music by his brother. It became a spiritual protest and a communal prayer.