In Touch With Preaching to the Choir
By Betty Miller Buttram
FWIS Contributing Writer
When speaking with people who have the same opinions, convictions, and merits as you do without any or little debate about the topic’s importance is called “preaching to the choir.” Listening to the preacher at church on a Sunday morning is what the people do. They are familiar with the Bible and those in the choir and those in the pews wait for the final deliverance of the message.
Who is doing the preaching today? Is there a time now for folks to get out of the choir and out of the pews to sing some new music or spice it up with a new beat? Are there others preaching not from the Good Book but from their own viewpoints? Are we listening to the same old sameness and just nodding our heads in agreement without adding anything new or different?
We are all aware of the chaos surrounding the exclusion of diversity, equity, and inclusion of books that have been and still are being purged from the public and school libraries. Most importantly, the banning of certain books that educate, improve social awareness, the gathering of information, and the understanding of different cultures from various viewpoints will diminish the Book of Knowledge. The African American authors who had books on the public and school library shelves have been, in the definition of informal slang, “shafted.” Have the church choir and pew members gone home?
There is talk that our children are not reading; some do, but some don’t. We need to focus on the ones who aren’t reading while still encouraging those who do read toward more books that will expand their minds with knowledge, awareness, consciousness, and understanding the different viewpoints of what is written, spoken, and passed down through generations of people.
Virginia Hamilton (March 12, 1934-February 19, 2002) was an African American children’s book author. The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, published in 1985, is a collection of twenty-four folktales retold by Hamilton. The storytelling includes fantasy stories about animal tales, fairy tales, supernatural tales, and narratives of enslaved African ancestors. It is a fantasy book of tales of suffering and magic power. The enslaved ancestors created their own imagined ways of disappearing by “flying away” back to their African homeland. Much of the disappearing was the imagination attributed to the Gullah African slaves from Angola. Other slaves thought the Angola slaves had exceptional power. These Black folktales have been passed from generation to generation before and after slavery ended and are classic tales today thanks to Virginia Hamilton.
The folktales were told on a day off for a few hours rest for the slaves; on a Sunday. That is when the House folks went to church. But this is not a fact, just my thoughts after reading books on slavery.
Church choir and pew members, let’s get busy and encourage parents to read books with their children. There are elementary and middle school teachers in this group who are familiar with Virginia Hamilton’s books. These teachers’ passion is to encourage and teach your children to read. Public and school libraries are still here, some of African American authors books are not. Many churches have a library, and donations of these authors’ books can be placed in the church library. Organize book clubs for the reading of books according to the elementary/middle schoolers potential interests. In doing so, the reading of a book will lead to a book discussion. Reading is a deeply knowledgeable tool that will enable children to write and express their thoughts on paper.
freedom, but Irene Emerson refused the offers. The Scotts filed lawsuits to gain their freedom and that of their daughters. The Scotts claimed that they had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory for four years where slavery was illegal and laws in those jurisdictions stated that slave holders gave up their rights to slaves if the slaves stayed for an extended period. These series of freedom lawsuits were filed from 1846 to 1857 until on March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the majority opinion. There were three major issues to that opinion and the first one was: Any person descended from Africans, whether slave or free, is not a citizen of the United States, according to the U.S. Constitution. This rule inflamed the tensions between pro-slavery in the South and anti-slavery in the North, pushing the country a few years later into the Civil War. The Scotts received manumitted papers on May 26,1857, but Dredd died from tuberculosis in September 1858. Harriet died on June 17, 1876.
Homer Adolph Plessy was born around 1858, 1862 or March 17, 1863, but he died on March 1, 1925. Plessy was born a free person of color in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father and his mother were both mixed-race free people of color. His paternal grandfather, Germain Plessy, was a white Frenchman and together with a free woman of color with French and African ancestry had eight children. Homer’s maternal grandparents were both of African descent and mixed race. A free person of color was primarily a person of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not enslaved. Plessy was a married man but had no children. He worked as a shoemaker, carpenter, was a registered voter, and an activist in his community.
In 1890, Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, which required separate accommodations for Black and white people on railroad cars. Plessy was a member of the Committee of Citizens, who staged an act of disobedience to challenge this segregation act. Because of his mixed race, it is probable that the ticket clerk assumed Plessy was white when on June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railroad and sat in the white only section. The conductor, who was also involved in the staged act, removed Plessy from the railroad car after Plessy refused to leave. Plessy was arrested and charged before Judge John Howard Ferguson in the Orleans Parish criminal district court on October 28, 1892. Judge Ferguson ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies while they operated within state boundaries. In December 1892, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld Ferguson’s ruling that the “separate but equal” legal doctrine determined that state-mandated segregation did not violate the 14th amendment if the facilities provided for both black and white people were equal.
On Father's Day, let us remember and honor Denmark Vesey, Dred Scott, and Homer Plessy for their roles as warrior, freedom fighter, and activist.