Hammie Nixon was born on January 21, 1908. Here is a favorite clip of him and Sleepy John Estes

From Ward Weems

Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes---Down South Blues/Clean Up At Home---

1964---RITY Archive

 

Freeing God to be God--Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler

There are so many opportunities available to honor Dr. King today that I hesitate to lift up a particular one or to put forward anything that might compete with others. But I think that I did find one short essay that has something to say to many of my good friends. It it called Freeing God to be God and was written by Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, an ordained miniter in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. Rev. Hagler currently serves as the Senior Minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC. He helped lead the fight against payday lenders there, and he helped co-found the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA). He is also Director and Chief Visionary of Faith Strategies, LLC, a collective of clergy manifesting progressive perspectives on human and civil rights in the public arena.

Part of Rev. Hagler's essay contains the following. The entire essay can be found here.

During the pandemic, and under Trumpism, a racial split emerged in the evangelical movement as white evangelicals largely supported the policies of Trump; many of those policies clearly racist, and communities of-color, in general, were horrified at the antics of Trump and the lack of criticism from white evangelicals against those policies and antics of the Trump administration. Racial and ideological cracks were revealed where one perspective supported a political/religious orthodoxy and the status-quo, right or wrong, leaving of-color evangelicals horrified and surprised by the racist theological and ideological gap! The white evangelical community went as far as creating a religious litmus test over not wearing a mask during a pandemic, while Blacks and people of-color were disproportionally infected and died from the virus. This revealed at least two separate theologies. There is the theology of the political status-quo, governments, flag-waving, that believe that political leaders are the appointees of God, that slaves should be obedient to their masters, women are kept silent, and statements of American exceptionalism abound. On the other hand, people of-color continued to look to God for freedom, dignity, protection from the hatred and racism of the society, and to maintain hope and a sense of worth amid a hard and unwelcoming world. At least two Gods were revealed, two theologies, two ideologies, and at least two experiences that heard and perceived God in very different ways.

Oh Happy Day - The Edwin Hawkins Singers

 Oh Happy Day - The Edwin Hawkins Singers

Two contrasting images

 

The couple above were living in their home on the Bayou Bourbeaux Plantation in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana in 1940 when this photograph was taken. The plantation was then operated by the Bayou Bourbeaux farmstead association, a semi-cooperative established through the auspices of the Farm Security Administration. The photograph was taken by Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration. Zoom in a little on the photograph and you will see that these are hard working people and that the man has a half-smile and that the woman and the child have that apprehensive look of people who are not used to being photographed. The child appears to be playing, or they are not working.

Natchitoches Parish has a history of free people of color, Creole, and mixed-race settlement. It is set in the historic Black Belt.

The photograph immediately above was taken in Greene County, Georgia and is also a Depression-era photograph. I do not remember who the photographer was, but I'm certain that this was also a Farm Security Administration photograph. I remember reading that this man was a plantation owner and this his operation had been in his family for many generations and that his property was heavily mortgaged at the time that this photograph was taken. He stood to lose everything that he had, I suppose.

I don't know much about Greene County, and the histories of working-class people, African Americans and Natives Americans there have not been recorded. I believe that the county has seen a loss of its Black population in recent decades.     

What stands out for me here are the different experiences and legacies captured in these two photographs. Those plantations were on stolen land. There remain the legacies of forced colonialism, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the changes that took place in the southern agricultural economies that increased production and caused dispossession of so many people, and the Great Depression. But the couple in the photograph have something to smile about and just a bit of security while the plantation owner who is facing the loss of ill-gotten generational wealth and public humiliation is clearly worried, and perhaps angry as well. The couple and their child do not stand in for all Black people, and neither does this worried and angry man stand in for all whites. The four of them are victims of a system, but they were experiencing their lives quite differently at the moments when these photographs were taken.

Semi-cooperative and cooperative agriculture would not solve every problem faced by farmers and tenant farmers. It will not, by itself, take up the questions of the theft of land and the genocide of Native American and Indigenous peoples. Restructured semi-capitalist or non-capitalist forms of agricultural production will not guarantee equality or security. No one said that they would. But I can't help but think that the plantation economy was bound to fail, and should have done so, and that semi-cooperative and cooperative government-sponsored agricultural programs had a necessary role in building up alternatives to the old ways. And within those alternatives greater possibilities were presented and made possible.

The tragedies that attended these programs were that they were not carried out to in greater scale and did not last longer and prevail against the old political and social systems. We are still fighting the hold-overs and hold-outs of the old planter aristocracy, and the threat of civil war is once again in the air. It is to our lasting shame that we have not yet found the ways to bring poor and working-class people of color and poor and working-class whites together in one mass movement to create good and lasting change.

Would you rather be the hopeful family with a chance at doing better with and within your community or the lone worried and angry man in the rocking chair?

      

     

Anthony Brown & group therAPy - Worship In The Woods (Official Worship Session)

 Thanks to Carlotta Young for introducing me to this!

Anthony Brown/Blessings On Blessings (The B.O.B. Bounce) (Official Video)

 

BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE by Timothy Wheeler

The post below comes from Timothy Wheeler, a lifelong socialist activist and journalist who grew up on the Left and has continued his commitment and work as a socialist movement elder and teacher. I'm posting this with two groups of people in mind. First, I have many conservative Christian friends who can't see where religious faith or spirituality and the Left might intersect and I hope that this will give them something to consider. This post is also intended for young people and others who are trying to find a place in the Left and who may be looking to the elders for direction.

My father, Donald Niven Wheeler, was an atheist. Yet among the lessons he taught me is that the Christian doctrine of love is a profoundly revolutionary idea.

He was thinking of Saint Paul’s First Epistle to Corinthians, so lovely in its poetic imagery that it sends chills up and down my spine. Think of the power of seeing truth “as through a glass darkly.” It is worth quoting at length: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophesy and can fathom all knowledge and if I have faith that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

St. Paul continues: “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always hopes, always perseveres.”

“And now these three remain: Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

It is a contradiction that St. Paul’ sublime vision of universal love was so corrupted by evil empires, starting with the Roman Empire. First the Roman Emperors crucified Christians, including the Apostle Paul. Then Emperor Constantine in 313 A.D. issued the “Edict of Milan” decriminalizing Christianity. From then on, the ruling classes have used Christianity as a weapon of ruthless conquest. Think of the conquistadors who pillaged the New World, murdering hundreds of thousands, driven by an insatiable greed for gold. And following right behind them was the Holy Roman Catholic Church subduing and indoctrinating the Aztecs, Mayans, Incans, as round two of the conquest.

Where was the love in this wholesale genocide?

Yet tens of millions of oppressed people reject the deliberate distortion of the Holy Gospel by the religious demagogues, fake evangelism pouring out a litany of lies.

Among the clearest in exposing these lies is the African American people. They saw in Jesus’ teachings a path to freedom. I think St. Paul, the African American people----and my dad----were right: “Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Jennifer Hudson - Christmas Gospel Medley

 

Some thoughts on where we come from

 Waiting for the northbound train in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1921

during the Great Migration.

Youngsters from Washington D.C. in the early 1940s.

The following was written by Bobbie Rutledge and appeared on the Appalachian
Americans Facebook page:

I knew a man, he was a poor man but an honest and hardworking man. He pulled corn for $.25 cents a day. He graduated from high school in a time, where most young people did not. He wanted to go to University of Georgia to become a Soil Conservationist since he came from sharecroppers. He wanted to import their lives and see that they could own their own land. However he got a letter from Uncle Sam that he was needed. This man, who had never gone any further than 25 miles from Georgia went to Texas, California, Florida, France, and Germany. He drove a tank. When he got back he farmed along side his parents. He picked cotton from sun up till sundown with no complaints. He married a beautiful black haired lady. They had a child that was their world. The year the child was born his cotton crop made $50 and the hospital bill was $48. He finally decided that farming wasn’t gonna get since child any future. So he went to work driving he’s y equipment for the county he lived in grading roads thru the farm land he used to farm. That broke his heart. But life goes on. One day he was driving with his son in law , in the SIL new trick when they turned wrong and the SIL got on ONSTAR to find their way back. The man listened to the directions given and when they were back home, he turned to my hubby and said that was nice of that man to stay in the phone with us. Hubby laughed and said it was a computer. Daddy said well I swear, this came from a man, who walked to school, did his homework by lamplight and saw electric light come into his house. Saw TV come into it’s on. Finally got a telephone at the age of 40. This man who went without dinner so his child could eat. This man. Is who Americans have to thanks for being what we are today. This man is my Daddy, thanks Daddy, I sure miss you.

A Victorian street scene

From Journey of a Mountain Woman:

When I was growing up when a person was near death, the Drs would say 'call the family in' and in most cases no matter where they were they would go back to the old home place in the mountains. It was a duty and a thankfulness, and A loving grateful opportunity to say goodbye. we all dreaded to hear those words...call the family in. Things have changed but us old folks remember...we remember the goodbyes, the casket set up in the living room, us sitting up all night, drinking strong coffee, that last time. The house smelled of flowers and fried chicken and the table was laden with food brought in by neighbors. Many of us will grieve this Christmas for those who have left us. Many of us are the only one left of a large family and we will smile through the tears as we remember those sad words...call the family in. Have a good night and God bless.

LaShun Pace---I Know I've Been Changed

 

La Shun Pace---There's A Leak In This Old Building

 

Maybe God Is Tryin' To Tell You Somethin' (From "The Color Purple" Soundtrack)

Associated Performer, Recording Arranger, Piano, Hammond B3, Conductor, Chorus Conductor: Andrae Crouch
Associated Performer, Recording Arranger, Producer: Quincy Jones
Conductor, Chorus Conductor, Associated Performer, Percussion: Sandra Crouch
Associated Performer, Vocals: Tata Vega
Associated Performer, Vocals: Jacquelyn Farris
Choir: Christ Memorial Church Of God In Christ Choir
Associated Performer, Upright Bass: David Stone
Associated Performer, Drums: Bill Maxwell
Associated Performer, Guitar: Tony Phillips
Associated Performer, Trumpet: Snooky Young
Associated Performer, Tenor Saxophone: Benny Golson
Associated Performer, Trombone: Al Grey
Associated Performer, Violin: William Howard Armstrong
Composer Lyricist: Andrae Crouch
Composer Lyricist: Quincy Jones
Composer Lyricist: B. Maxwell
Composer Lyricist: D. Del Sesto

Tuesday Night Hymn Praise with Phillip Carter

 

Discovering Alessandra Harris

I am just now discovering the writer Alessandra Harris. I would say that she's a theologian and intellectual who is very much in the present time. The biographical statement at the Black Catholic Messenger (BCM) website says "Alessandra Harris is author of two novels and is a wife, mother of four, and co-founder of BCM. She earned degrees in Comparative Religious studies and Middle East Studies and currently studies in the Diocese of San Jose's Institute for Leadership in Ministry. She has also contributed to publications such as America Magazine, Grotto Network, and US Catholic. Her third novel is due in 2022." 

There is a great deal on the Black Catholic Messenger website by Alessandra Harris. Her three-part interviews with Keith "Bomani Shakur" are good places to start, but I want to draw your attention to her article "Opinion: The pro-life movement has some explaining to do." I offer this not because I'm "pro-life" (I'm not) but because of the thought that went into this writing and because it has "graphic content including descriptions of abortion, rape, homicide, and infanticide" that demands that most of us not look away from as we formulate our positions. She deals frankly with context and radical honesty and judgmental attitudes that get lost in the debates. 

Please give Alessandra Harris your attention.

 

Amelia Shields and the Magee Sisters - He's Sweet I Know (8/5/2022) in Yazoo City, MS.

This really is music for the soul...

Inspiring! The B & H Gospel Singers - Time Belongs to You (7/22/2022) --- in Collins, MS.

 

Rev. Hanna R. Broome preaching a Special Sermon at Greenleaf Christian Church

Hardly a week goes by that we don't post something from Greenleaf Christian Church or from Bishop Barber, the Bishop and pastor at Greenleaf. I don't know how many people here pay attention to these posts, but I hope that many of you do. You can catch the hymns and praise and most of the service at Greenleaf or you can skip ahead to the sermons. I have never heard a sermon at Greenleaf that I didn't get much out of. Greenleaf is the kind of church that I'm looking for. I hope that someone reading this feels the same as I do. Reverend Broome gets it done this week. She hits it hard over and over again. I think that we badly need her voice and her testimony right now. 

The future of the church - Reverend Leroy Cain interview by Joshua Outsey - And supporting Appalshop

The video below came from Joshua Outsey of Appalshop. I cannot recommend supporting Appalshop enough. This is real talk right here, and Appalshop is where you can go to hear more real talk and real music. Appalshop also sponsors WMMT, my favorite radio station.

In a support-raising e-mail Mr. Outsey says the following:

Black churches are central to our communities and cultures here in Appalachia. Some of these churches even predate the Civil War. Through digitally recorded oral histories, photographs and moving images, my goal is to tell their stories--including those of the black coal miner--and through those stories bring more visibility to black Appalachian history.

At age 36, I have spent the last 20 years of my life living and working throughout Central Appalachia. I am an activist, and cultural organizer. Being a Black Appalachian is something I take pride in because that identity challenges what most people think of when they hear “Appalachia.” I intend to use my work to alter the narrative and bridge cultural gaps that exist throughout our region.

I value faith, family, community, diversity and inclusion. My goal is to spread awareness of the similarities and differences that Black Appalachians may share with each other and Appalachian people as a whole. Working with Black faith based communities energizes me. I love learning and sharing historical details of information about these specific people and their lives.

The existence of Black communities in Central Appalachia has largely been ignored and erased from the mainstream narrative.

Now, I do not agree with Mr. Outsey's views on capitalism expressed in his interview with Rev. Leroy Cain. I can see that people struggling with planned underdevelopment and economic and political abandonment, a situation faced by many Black communities, might gain from capitalist development in the short-run. I can't see capitalism as a long-term solution to anyone's problems. But I also think that both Mr. Outsey and Rev. Cain hit some major points on faith, community, and history. There is an urgency to their conversation that we all need to hear and take to heart and put into action.

Don't forget---Please support Appalshop!

We Will Overcome · The Mighty Clouds of Joy

 

Don't you let me sleep too late!

Five Blind Boys of Alabama - Swingin' On The Golden Gate