Timothy J. Clarke - Flashback to History (Black History Tribute)

It may well be that across the long arc representing the history of this Republic known as the United States of America, there is no segment, passage, or section along that long, sweeping arc that is more blemished and darkened than that period when this nation willfully, intentionally, and then through legislation and action allowed men and women made in the image and likeness of God, with the imago Dei stamped on them, to become less than human. This began in 1619 when the Dutch brought the first slaves to this continent of North America. Indeed, to this very present moment, the sin of racism, bigotry, and prejudice has been a blot on the moral garment of this nation from 1619 until 1863, when a tall, somewhat disheveled president by the name of Abraham Lincoln, who hailed from Springfield, Illinois, in the dark days of the Civil War, took quill in hand and signed a document now known as the Emancipation Proclamation—a proclamation, a document that, to be honest, did not do everything that was needed, but did enough to get us started. I know that there are historical revisionists who now revisit not only the document itself but also the motivations and impetus behind what Mr. Lincoln did. It is a matter of record that President Lincoln said, «If I could save the Union and free some of the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union and free all of the slaves, I would do that.»

Let’s be clear: If I could save the Union and free none of the slaves, I would do that. It was the saving and unifying of the Union that prompted Mr. Lincoln. But God works in mysterious ways; even though his impetus and motivation were the salvation and unification of the Union, God took that desire, baptized it in justice and mercy, and made him sign a proclamation that declared that those held in states practicing slavery would, as of January 1, be set free. We celebrated our ancestors, our forebears, and who we are today as the progenitors of their faith until that April night when Mr. Lincoln went to see my American cousin at Ford’s Theatre. There, a demented man—and I would argue, but I’ll save that for a moment—has always crippled America through the actions of deranged individuals. Whether it was in 1863 or it is in 2018, it takes but one demented, deranged person to shoot up the Tree of Life synagogue, to attack a Kroger in Louisville, to send bombs to elected officials. It only takes one deranged, demented person to come down an escalator and call Mexicans thugs and drug dealers. It takes but one demented person to speak vitriolic language that divides our nation.

It only takes one individual, John Wilkes Booth, who is demented and deranged, to shoot a bullet into the temple of Abraham Lincoln, and with his gasping, dying breath, the hopes and aspirations of those kissed by nature’s sun find themselves shaken amid the volatile, violent moment of that action. Lincoln dies and is buried, and his vice president is a small, uncommunicative man—not just little in size, but little in vision—by the name of Andrew Johnson. He comes from Tennessee and is as racist as they come. He sets in motion things that will undo what President Lincoln has put in place; the arc of the history of our nation takes a turn for the worse. Everything we gained in emancipation and reconstruction is lost as the White Citizens' Council, a forerunner to the KKK, begins to spread its fear and terror not only throughout the South but throughout the North. I will say again: history has a strange way of repeating itself, for we now see the grandsons and granddaughters of the White Citizens' Council and the KKK in these skinheads and neo-Nazis who walk through Charlottesville, chanting, «Jews will not replace us.»

We hear it in the language and the words of Dr. King: politicians who serve their constituencies to steal bread and spoil meat, fueled by bigotry, hatred, and racism. We are seeing it played out all over again. We saw it with poll taxes and literacy tests when Black men and women were not allowed to vote, making it hard for them to cast their ballots. And I say again, history repeats itself. It’s not poll taxes now; it’s not literacy tests; it’s not asking how many jellybeans are in a jar or how many rocks are in a jar. Now they want to change the polling places; now they want to change the identification requirements; now they want to change accessibility; and now they want to narrow the times when we can vote prior to the election.

Now they do not want college students to be able to vote in the places where they go to school to get an education, because history has a way of repeating itself. And so we have overcome, where tears have watered the ground. We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, out of a gloomy past, till now we stand at last, where choice beckons, as our Congresswoman, where Michael Coleman was the longest-serving mayor, and where Barack Hussein Obama was the first African American president of these United States. We have come a long way, but we still have a mighty long way to go. The same God that brought us here in 1619, the same God that took care of us in 1863, and the same God that took care of us in 1963 and 1968 is the same.