{"id":417,"date":"2012-08-27T16:18:08","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T16:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jonathanwilsonhartgrove\/?p=417"},"modified":"2012-08-27T16:18:08","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T16:18:08","slug":"american-roots-for-citizen-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jonathanwilsonhartgrove\/2012\/08\/american-roots-for-citizen-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"American Roots for Citizen-Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In Rocky Mount, North Carolina, at an Opportunity Industrial Center (OIC) on the east side of town, an auditorium is bustling with activity on a Saturday morning. I\u2019m greeted at the door by a friendly church deacon who offers my kids donuts and points me toward the coffee. Over the PA system, I hear the booming voice of Rev. William Barber, one of North Carolina\u2019s best preachers and the tireless president of our state NAACP branch<\/a>. I\u2019m here because Rev. Barber told me to come. When Rev. Barber calls, I listen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Rev. Barber is giving a report on the Poverty and Hope Tour that the NAACP has co-sponsored with the UNC\u2019s Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity<\/a>. Together with a team of researchers, journalists, and citizen-observers, Rev. Barber visited 22 of North Carolina\u2019s poorest communities. The academics already had the numbers to show that we\u2019re suffering a job deficit of half a million jobs in this state, that today\u2019s poverty rate is the same as in 1969, that American-Indians, Latinos, and African-Americans in North Carolina earn, on average, $15,000 less than whites. But they wanted to meet Richard Monroe, a 65 year-old veteran who lives under a bridge in Fayetteville. They wanted to talk to the kids in Navassa, NC, a town so poor that it can\u2019t afford the staff to keep its paperwork up to date. Living amongst the refuse of industrial waste, the black children hold signs that say, \u201cClean Up Our Future\u201d and \u201cWhy Was My Neighborhood a Dumping Ground?\u201d They wanted to listen to mobile home residents in Eastern North Carolina whose electricity bills are three times their rent.<\/p>\n

What they heard and saw was deeply disturbing. But it was also, for a Christian preacher in the prophetic tradition of Martin Luther King, stirring. I quote Rev. Barber:<\/p>\n

One day on the tour we came to Hickory, North Carolina. We were invited to walk down a path into the woods. We were confronted with the fresh reality of man\u2019s inhumanity to man. As we walked along the path we saw baby dolls and toys, eerie signs that there were children amidst all our affluence, amidst all our wealth, amidst all our national claim to be one nation, there were children living under and beneath the trees and brushes of the woods like animals.<\/p>\n

When we got to the community in the middle of the woods, we met God\u2019s family \u2014 black, brown and white; male and female.<\/p>\n

I was brought to uncontrollable tears when our new friends welcomed us. They swept the dirt and made space for us among the grass and the weeds. They told us of how often the authorities would come out to their small community and run them out of the woods because the city did not want to acknowledge its level of devastating poverty.<\/p>\n

And yet, in that same city, like so many other places, politicians open their meetings with \u00a0prayers unto God. Good church folk come to service and ask God for more personal abundance and more personal prayers. Standing in those woods it seems like I heard God saying,<\/p>\n

You want to know why it is you fast and I don\u2019t look your way?
\nYou humble yourselves and I don\u2019t even notice?
\nWell, here\u2019s why:
\nThe bottom line on your \u2018fast days\u2019 is profit.
\nYou drive your employees much too hard.
\nYou fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight
\nYou fast, but you swing a mean fist.
\nThe kind of fasting you do won\u2019t get your prayers off the ground.
\nDo you think this is the kind of fast day I\u2019m after: a day to show off humility?
\nTo put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black?
\nDo you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?
\nThis is the kind of fast day I\u2019m after: to break the chains of injustice,
\nGet rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed,
\nCancel debts.\u00a0 <\/em>
\n(Isaiah 58:3-9)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his new book American Dream 2.0: A Christian Way Out of the Great Recession<\/em><\/a>, Frank A Thomas shares his hope for an \u201cuprising of ordinary American citizens, particularly pastors, their congregations and all people of good will, to reclaim the American Dream.\u201d What Thomas is praying for is more than a dream. It is a reality in an OIC Center in Rocky Mount, NC, where over a hundred black and white folks gathered on a Saturday morning to hear what\u2019s really happening to their neighbors and to plan what they can go about it on both the local and national level.<\/p>\n

What Thomas shows in this study is how a citizen-activist like Rev. Barber is deeply rooted in a tradition of preaching called the \u201cjeremiad,\u201d which has taken different forms in this nation\u2019s history. King employed this form when he gave his famous \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech, calling America to live up to its promises and make good on a check that had come back marked \u201cinsufficient funds.\u201d But he also engaged this form in his \u201cBeyond Vietnam\u201d speech that alienated so many, including some of King\u2019s closest advisers. Through a careful reading of King, Jeremiah Wright, and President Obama, Thomas shows how this tradition has been appropriated at different times in this nation\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Though careful scholarship is at the heart of this book, Thomas means to tell a story that the reader does not simply engage as observer but gets caught up in as an activist. This is why I\u2019m excited about what he\u2019s doing. Because the everyday awakening that I\u2019ve been chronicling here\u2013the God Movement that is manifest in the day-to-day actions of thousands of people who are pursuing justice in their local communities\u2013needs scholars like Thomas who show us what streams we need to drink from if we\u2019re going to survive in this country. The answer, in short, is black prophetic preaching.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re white, like me, you may not immediately understand why this is so. Thankfully, Frank A. Thomas has written a book to explain it and to help you share the news with your friends. Listen to this man. He\u2019s tracing the history that points to the best future for all of us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This post is part of a round table discussion at the Patheos Book Club<\/a>. Check it out for an excerpt, an interview with Thomas, and others\u2019 take on the book.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Rocky Mount, North Carolina, at an Opportunity Industrial Center (OIC) on the east side of town, an auditorium is bustling with activity on a Saturday morning. I\u2019m greeted at the door by a friendly church deacon who offers my kids donuts and points me toward the coffee. 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