Living Reconciled
Living Reconciled, hosted by Mission Mississippi, is a podcast dedicated to exploring reconciliation and the Gospel that enables us to live it out. Mission Mississippi has been leading the way in racial reconciliation in Mississippi for 31 years. Our model is to bring people together to build relationships across racial lines so they can work together to better their communities. Our mission is to encourage and demonstrate grace in the Body of Christ across racial lines so that communities throughout Mississippi can see practical evidence of the gospel message.
Living Reconciled
EP. 43: Living the Legacy: Christian Perspectives on Black History
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In our latest episode of "Living Reconciled," Brian Crawford, Austin Hoyle, and Neddie Winters, delve into the profound connections between Black History and the Christian call to reconciliation. Throughout our discussion, we underscore the year-round significance of Black History, reflecting on the foundational work of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who initiated Negro History Week, and the enduring contributions of Black Americans to our society and culture.
We share our thoughts on the critical role that Black History plays in the Christian narrative, emphasizing its importance in understanding our past, informing our present, and shaping our future. Our dialogue brings to light the ways in which Black History Month acts as a lens through which we can view the broader American story, highlighting the achievements, struggles, and resilience of Black individuals and communities.
In our conversation, we also reference the poignant words of Langston Hughes in his poem "I, Too, Sing America," which resonates with the themes of recognition, dignity, and belonging. Hughes' words echo the sentiments that we explore throughout our discussion, reinforcing the idea that Black history is an integral part of the American fabric.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters
This is Living Reconciled, a podcast dedicated to giving our communities practical evidence of the gospel message by helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured for us by living with grace across racial lines. Hey, thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Living Reconciled, episode 43. I am your host, brian Crawford, with my incredible friends, prodigious friends, stupendous friends, austin Hoyle, nettie Winters indistensible friends.
Speaker 2I like incredible.
Speaker 1Have I said that before.
Speaker 2Have I said I like incredible before.
Speaker 1Because my wife calls me Mr Incredible. Mr Incredible, have I said that before? We've heard that before. Oh, you've heard that before. Never mind, we've heard that before, that is not new man.
Speaker 2Why do you keep bringing it up? Because my wife we're not going to call you Mr Incredible and we still have not validated that. So we need to talk to your wife best and find out if that's true, we need to talk to her best. That's true, man.
Speaker 1Special thanks to our sponsors, nissan, st George's and the rest of the world. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh, my God, we have not validated that. We need to talk to your wife best and find out if that's true man. Special thanks to our sponsors Nissan, st Dominick's Hospital at Miss Energy Regents Foundation, brown Missionary Baptist Church, christian Life Church, miss Doris Powell, mr Robert Ward, miss Ann Winners. Thank you, guys, so much for what you do. It's because of what you do to Mission Mississippi is able to do what we do and what we are doing today. Gentlemen, prodigious friends, we're spending some time talking about Black history, are on the end of Black History Month, but I thought it would be suitable to talk about not just simply why Black History Month, but why Black History in general, because this is something that should be discussed not just in an isolated month in the year, but throughout the year.
Speaker 1Well.
Speaker 2I'm excited we get 29 days to the 28 days to talk about it. Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1Isn't it great? It's great and I think we should continue to talk about it. So I want to talk a little bit about Black History and Black History Month. Black History Month was actually Negro History Week for 50 years, started in 1926, february, in light of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass' birthday, dr Carter G Woodson started Negro History Week. He saw it as an opportunity to highlight all of the great achievements post emancipation for Black Americans and actually pre and post emancipation. But he also saw it as an opportunity to bring to the attention of the majority culture, the white audience or the white citizens of America, that Black folks had dignity, black folks had value, black folks had knowledge and ingenuity and wisdom as well to share with this country. And so Negro History Month was something that Dr Carter G Woodson would host along with his colleagues every single year. It went on for 50 years, until 1976, where it was recognized as Black History Month, and at that time it began to be recognized as a national you know you know JRFO or the president, Absolutely, and that's well, not absolutely.
Speaker 1It's not like I was there. I'm talking like I was there, but yes, I personally remember that right. No, I do know that JRFO was the first to actually acknowledge.
Speaker 2Black History Month, he proclaimed it or whatever, but I was actually there, yeah.
Speaker 3That's right, I was there. Yeah, I was actually there.
Speaker 1I was two years, shocked.
Speaker 3I was two years shocked.
Speaker 1And so I want to talk about this idea of Black History Month, I want to talk about its significance and I want to talk about why Black History Month. I have a question. Yes, sir, you know.
Speaker 2Carter G.
Speaker 1Carter G Woodson.
Speaker 2Woodson started this to recognize, you said, achievements and accomplishments of Black folks. It had amazed me that when you think about George Washington Carver, when you think about the guy that invented the elevator, the ironing board, street lights laid out in Washington DC, how could they miss that? That's just in my mind. How did it just amaze me that we had to have a particular month, a week, whatever, to recognize Black folks as it relates to their history, and people would not. Well, I guess it's like everything else, they did recognize it, but this made the awareness and I guess, more intense of the people and called the conscience of what was going on, and it wasn't just think about it, it wasn't just for white people to recognize the achievements.
Speaker 1Part of the reason that Dr Carter G Woodson was so inspired to start, I believe, the Journal of Negro History, I think they called it was because he went to an event 1915 in Chicago and it was an exhibit, so to speak, of all of these black achievements and in that exhibit thousands of African-Americans became so inspired. Well, carter G Woodson became was one of those African-Americans that was so inspired. He said, hey, we need to continue to tell these stories because there's so much here that I did not know about myself.
Speaker 2I still don't know all the. You know, I read the book, the history. I got several sheets that I review every year and I'm just amazed at all the things. I got a legal size sheet, several of them, several pages with legal size sheets and it's listed on bullet points of what black Americans have achieved in terms of patents and inventions and things like that. And I'm thinking, man, I owe this to a black guy.
Speaker 3Wow, wow, wow Austin he's about to say something. Yeah, and think about it. There's so much to recover in terms of black history because for so long, methodologically and even the universities, it was all done from the majority perspective, really just until recently, just in the past probably 50 years. So you have a lot of recovery of the history that needs to be done as well. So there really is. You are more likely to recover and to find new things within the history of black history than probably the history of white history in America, just for example, simply because the tools for that type of discovery had not been allowed, as much hasn't been as proliferated, so to speak, across the black community as it has been just through history.
Speaker 1And it's not just the recovery, which is incredibly important I appreciate you highlighting that but it's also the engrafting of all of this history into the wider history, exactly.
Speaker 3Oh yes, integration. Well, I mean integration.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, we talked about yeah, the most recent talks we've had about black history and these different locations this month, we've called it, we've called the talks. Black history is our history, the indispensability of our history, the collective American story. Black history is a part of that collective American story and weaving that into the fabric of the American story is just as important as the recovery right.
Speaker 3Oh, exactly, exactly, Making sure that it happens. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2You know and Austin made me think that is that it's like all of you great economists have been hidden in a bold. Maybe it's at the part of the end of the rainbow. No, it couldn't be there, because the rainbow was round, so there ain't no end to it. So it's like that was a. For me, black history month was like a gold rush, the more it was highlighted about what black folks had accomplished. It was like man, I can dream beyond playing music.
Speaker 1I ain't even dry the tractor, but before we got on the podcast recording today, you were talking about your dream At one point in time was plowing me Right, plowing me.
Speaker 2Listen, here's how that story works out Ted, my brother Doris, my sister Emma, my sister and myself we went to field chopping cotton and Big Junior, which my older brother named after. We called him Big Junior because he's Evan Jr. I got a cousin named Lil Junior, so anyway he was Big Junior. I don't know how that. Don't ask me about that Lil and Big Junior thing.
Speaker 1Big, junior and Little.
Speaker 2Junior and Lil Junior was in a fight one day and the person that was fighting Lil Junior thought Big Junior would come to rescue him. He popped Big Junior and almost knocked us out. He had to wear a patch of his eye for and had surgery on his so you know, you ask me stories, man, I got them right.
Speaker 1What's about to say? We were asking about a story plowing with mules and somehow we got to Big Junior and Little Junior and fistacuffs, but anyway, but anyway stikuffs.
Speaker 2So here's go, Big Junior. He's flying and he'll plow all the cognate. We have right. He put the mules in the bun, put the plop shed in the bun, move in the pasture and put the plow in the bun. Goes to the house, take a bag, put on his starch nine blue, jean white t-shirt, hang a chip, hang it out of the bag and I see him hitching a ride to town. So he gets off the rest of the week. Maybe in a week or so he'll start back plowing again. Oh, wow. But we get off early on Saturday. You know what early on Saturday meant, instead of leaving the field and going to the garden and working, and we leave the field and go directly home. Wow, that's getting off early, wow. So it gets too dark to work in the field. So you go closer to where the garden is in the light and on Saturday we get to go. Just go straight home.
Speaker 3That's getting off early. That's getting off early.
Speaker 2So would you have that dream? That's a day off, listen. Would you have that dream? You know you're gonna work six days, right, right, right. You know in the field. And so you aspire, right, you aspire to get to plowing with the mule so I can get off on Wednesday, thursday and Friday, maybe Monday, tuesday the next week, and then I'll plow it over Wow, and so Black History expands the horizon, so to speak. Yeah, they gave me dreams of going to school and getting education, a whole deal in terms of that yeah, yes.
Speaker 2I told you about the inspiration I had when Austin was talking about his inspiration from Langston Hughes. My inspiration was to see my sister perform the creation by Langston Hughes Right by Langston, and, as she done, the creation. It not only talked about the creation that is self-invited, but it also talks about what that instilled in us that we'd be able to achieve Right right, and just so y'all know, I haven't actually quoted Langston Hughes yet.
Speaker 3Nettie just knows I have it in my heart to do so.
Speaker 1Talk about Langston Hughes as we talk about Black History.
Speaker 3All right. Well, I came across this poem. It's called I Too Sing America. I love this poem because what it does, it really kind of underscores the necessity for Black History Months. It reminds us about this kind of this reflection of the struggle for not just recognition but also to have that capacity to be inspired to go after a mule Seeing what other people who are like you look like.
Speaker 3You had a similar kind of history, similar context towards they grew up, what they were like. So I really like how this poem encapsulates this. So it says I too sing America. It says I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes. But I laugh and eat well and grow strong. And this is where remember, this is like 1920s, 1930s, harlem to this New York city. And he's saying tomorrow I'll be at the table when company comes. Nobody will dare say to me eat in the kitchen then. Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed, I too in America. So this really does show the necessity to have that time to remember black history.
Speaker 1It's Carter G Wood, since Dr Wood, since dream is the same dream that Langston Hughes has, which is that I'll be seen on the same level and welcomed to the table as equal.
Speaker 3You see how beautiful.
Speaker 1Absolutely. You'll see my dignity, you'll see my value, you'll see my worth.
Speaker 3It's the same dream.
Speaker 1It's the same dream.
Speaker 1That's incredible. You know, besides inspiring right, there's a lot of reasons why black history is important showing that it's a part of our collective history and it's indispensable, and because it's our collective history, and also inspiring us like it inspired a young, young netty winners as he was planning his mule plowing, and then he looked up and he realized that there were greater dreams for netty winners to achieve. But also also it gives us clarity about the present. It gives us understanding about the present. You know, there are times in which only history can give us reasons for why things are the way they are.
Speaker 2Absolutely, there's no way around it. You got to know your history, not only that you would not repeat it, but also to know how you got to where you are and how they worked out and why all that. All the six detective questions can be worked out in black history in terms of understanding and appreciating why things are the way they are. You remember when we said Bill Haven we were talking about the civil rights movements and other things and one of the students just outbursts go, oh, that's why it was like that. Absolutely. At that point, he's like what is the big deal? And then, at that point that he got some clarity on how we got to where we are, what happened to make it this way and how things were. All of a sudden, this light goes on and now he's like man, I'm tracking, now I'm clicking. You know I'm with this, I got it. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2I think black history serves those. What do you call those moments like that, all those aha moments, those like moments? Yeah, and I'm thinking to myself now he went aha, but the whole room with biz is writing, the other 26 or so students with busy writing notes and they are how mom, and they didn't outburst aha, but they outburst with their pen Like I'm making a note of this because this is important and not because it's going to be on a test, cause, you know, they just it was like okay, that makes sense now to me, absolutely, absolutely you.
Speaker 19 11 2001. That date lives, of course, in our collective conscience. As Americans, we oftentimes hear the words associated with that date Never forget, never forget. We are.
Speaker 2We are told 9 11 2001.
Speaker 1We are told to remember and reflect and never forget it, and one of the August 2011, august 2011.
Speaker 2And that Katrina.
Speaker 1August 2005.
Speaker 2Okay, all right.
Speaker 1Let he forget. Let he forget no.
Speaker 2I didn't, no, I didn't forget.
Speaker 3August 2011 was a tough year too, man. Yeah, yeah, thank y'all.
Speaker 1I don't know what happened but it was tough, it was tough, it was tough, it was leading up to 9 11.
Speaker 2It was leading up to 9 11.
Speaker 1But prerequisite but no, no, no, no, 9 11 2001. Right and never forget. And never forgetting helps us. When I go to the airport and they tell me to take my shoes off, take my belt off, they tell me, hey, my lotion can only be in containers three ounces. They tell me, hey, if you brought bottled water to this check in station, you're going to have to throw that bottle of water away. And when I want to get agitated and aggravated and think about why am I doing all of this nonsense? Just won't ride on the plane. No, I'm reminded of 9, 11. I thought there was a lot of people who were like oh, I'm reminded of 9, 11.
Speaker 2I thought they're going to kick you off. You get agitated.
Speaker 3No, no, I'm reminded of 9, 11.
Speaker 1And I'm reminded that four planes were hijacked. For commercial planes were hijacked. Three of them crashed into targets.
Speaker 2Now I'm stripping all the way to the bar man. Whatever y'all need to do, Absolutely Exactly.
Speaker 1And that history. If you lose sight of that history, then you will easily lose sight of why we do the things that we do. And eventually you'll say we don't need to do them anymore. It's interesting because even biblically, you can argue that that's the reasons for the festivals, because God is constantly calling back, calling Israel back to their exes.
Speaker 2And I know exactly Remember remember remember. Yeah, okay, you remember where you were 9, 11. I do.
Speaker 1Yes, yes, I remember, I remember almost yeah, I was.
Speaker 2I was with Bill Bonham, bill Bonham Hope Credit Union. He and I went visit a guy named Barnes about investing in the credit union up in Madison, up there where the uh C-spot building in that area before he ended up was developed. That's where we were, wow, visiting, and on the way back we listened to the radio and told us what happened.
Speaker 1I was on the campus of Mississippi State University and on the campus of Mississippi State University passing through the library to class.
Speaker 2That was before you met Candice after.
Speaker 1That was before, that was before me and Candy started.
Speaker 2BC, bc, bc. Before Candy, yeah, before Candy.
Speaker 1I'm passing. I'm passing through the library and I'm trying to figure out. Why is everyone, all you know, huddled around the TV screens? And that's why they were huddled around the TV screens, because they were watching um the devastation.
Speaker 2Yeah, they were watching that playing. They were playing in a good, good time. You know they repeated that over and over again watch that playing.
Speaker 3I remember man, I was, uh, I was driving in from school or to school and I was. It was a chemistry class. I think it was 10th grade 2011.
Speaker 2Yeah, 10th.
Speaker 3No, junior year, junior software, junior year. I forgot which one Um and uh. And I was, I remember, you know, almost walking into my class thinking, man, I'm 10 minutes late. But luckily, when I walked in the teacher didn't even notice and just had me watch TV and I was just like, oh I, I. At first I was just like, oh good, I'm not going to have to, I'm not going to get in trouble for being late. Right and then I was like oh, okay, that's, that's not really that's not really good.
Speaker 3Yeah, I would prefer to have gotten in trouble being late.
The Importance of Black History
Speaker 1Yeah, 이죠 checking out his new school uniform. Living reconciled is the work of Mission Mississippi, but it is not our only work. From days of dialogue and prayer meetings to consultation for schools, businesses and churches, mission Mississippi is eager to help you, your team, your church and your community live reconciled Every month. Join us for our weekly prayer breakfasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6.45 am, our bi-weekly statewide connection meetings on Fridays at 10 am and a focused time of prayer on the third Thursday of the month at 7 am. To get details on any of our upcoming events or to learn how you can invite us to your church, business or school, visit our website at MissionMississippiorg and click on the events button or call us at 601-353-6477.
Speaker 1We gain understanding when we look back for why we do the things that we do and why the things that are, why they are the way they are. For example, people argue about HBCUs and they say, hey, why do we need two schools? What's the purpose of an all-corn? What's the purpose of a Jackson State? Well, if you understand your past, you understand that roughly 60 years ago, somewhere around 1962, there was a man by the name of James Meredith who was walking on the campus of University of Mississippi. He was not walking on the campus to a friendly welcome. He had to be escorted on to that campus with US Marshals.
Speaker 2Without those Marshals he would not have been on that campus.
Speaker 1Without those Marshals he would not have been on that campus Not alive anyway. Even beyond that. 1968, the same thing, or not to that degree, but a similar thing happened on the campus of Mississippi State University, my own alma mater, in 1968, it's been shared that some of those Black students, the handful of Black students that went to Mississippi State in 1968, some of them reflect on the one-seat rule. That was unwritten but was a part of their experience where in the classes that they would go to, one seat to the south, the north, the east and the west of them was to remain empty. Students didn't want to sit in, students didn't want to be near them. They had to literally keep one seat of separation on the left, right, front and back.
Speaker 1That was just an unspoken and unwritten rule. That was some of the experiences that they had. Until you understand, or rather until you see and reflect on that history, then, yeah sure, an Alcorn State University might not make sense to you, or Jackson State University might not make sense to you. When you reflect on that, oh, now I see the reason for Russ College, atougaloo College, a Mississippi Valley, all of those things make sense, and so we need understanding. We also need wisdom.
Speaker 2Yeah, had it not been for understanding.
Speaker 1No, no, let's say it went understanding, Go ahead.
Speaker 2Had it not been for Alcorn or Valley or Jackson State, I would have had no options for going to school Right, because during the time Merritt was trying to get on the campus, I was graduating. I was getting on through things, and as I dreamed about going to school, I couldn't dream about going to Mississippi State Right.
Speaker 3Ole Miss University of.
Speaker 2Mississippi. I couldn't do a whole lot of dreaming about going to Alcorn because my parents was not able to send me. But just thinking about going beyond one of the HBCUs was way beyond my company to understand it, because I had to go there and do work aid and work study or whatever it is that they had to offer me on limited scholarships or work aid. That was my option to go to school and there was no way I could have obtained that. I couldn't even get entered into the university number one, but if I did, I still wouldn't get the finances I needed to do that.
Speaker 3That was not an option.
Speaker 2Right, that was not an option. So people need to understand that we have like history month, we have HBCUs because of history. We have black churches because Absolutely I know you're going to want to get to that, but we have black churches because white churches said no, absolutely, and if you're going to come, you better come through the basement, absolutely, absolutely. And you better not get too loud in the basement or you're going to put you out of the basement and some of that crazy stuff goes on. Today you got Asians and Chinese folks meeting in the basement of churches because they can't meet up stills in the main sanctuary, and the thing that I don't understand is that nobody's in the sanctuary during the time you allowed them to come, because certainly you're not going to let them meet at the same time.
Speaker 2You're, a major denomination group is meeting. So since the sanctuary is empty, why are they still meeting in the basement? Why can't they just meet in the sanctuary? I don't understand why it got to be two separate services to begin with. But, more importantly, you have two separate services at two separate times so that one or bump into the other coming and going in the building, but you can't even use the same seating Right God's house man. So appreciation for what all has gone on in the past to get us to the point of understanding that, even though Carter G Woodson was a Harvard graduate think about it this is in what? 1920 something. He's a graduate of Harvard. Today, they still talk about the first person that entered Harvard and how difficult it is for black folks to get into Harvard. Now, and I'm thinking, really, here's an educated man that graduated to Harvard with a, got a PhD, and it stands for a doctor of education, right? Not a post-hoed digger.
Speaker 2And so that just amazed me. I'm sorry with the landness, but to me it's like the understanding and the library that we get from African-American History Month. I wonder when we're gonna start calling it that brother, but I hear it was Negro.
Speaker 1Negro History. It was Negro History.
Speaker 2Week, now, now.
Speaker 1Black History.
Speaker 2Month. No, no, no, it was Negro History Week. It didn't became Negro History Month. Right, right, right. Right Now is Black History Month, so I know when it's gonna get to be American History Month, african-american History Month. You know, we've been, we got all these different names, so we gotta catch up with African-American now with Black History Month.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wanna focus in. I wanna TM. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2I've been. My purpose is to say it's Negro, but I've been colored. I've been black. Now I'm African-American man.
Speaker 1I'm moving on up in life. You've gone through all the iterations. You've experienced all the iterations.
Speaker 3Hey, before we wrap up, I wanna talk a little bit. That is not funny.
Speaker 2Go ahead, man no.
Speaker 1I wanna talk a little bit about the fact that we talked about we need black history because it's our history, collective history. We need black history because it inspires, it gives us hope, because we see people rise above the odds and accomplish incredible things. We said we need black history because we need understanding for why things the way they are currently, but also I think we need black history because we need wisdom and when we look back we see incredible, incredible thinkers, Folks like Booker T Washington.
Speaker 2People love me some peanuts man. I know y'all throw my peanut butter. Might not be one of them, but I love peanut butter.
Speaker 1That's George Washington.
Speaker 2Carver. Okay, whatever, so him, I think did. We have this conversation before.
Speaker 3Yes, we had this conversation before we have had this conversation before.
Speaker 2And you still gotta correct me.
Speaker 1George Washington Carver was the peanut man, the peanut inventor, who had over 300 uses for the peanut.
Speaker 2I don't feed him man, I just love that. Peanut butter was his.
Speaker 1Peanut butter is on the mind of netty winners.
Speaker 2Absolutely man. But beyond peanut butter, Great peanut butter, jelly sandwich man I don't know what you guys are doing.
Speaker 3I know I like PB and Honey.
Speaker 2There you go, man.
Speaker 1But beyond PB and Honey we had great thinkers Like Booker T Washington. Beyond who helped establish Tuskegee College and did not invent anything with the peanut, but he may wait for the next guy to do the peanut butter. That's very true. But we also had men like WE DeBoys, and we had WEB rather than the boys, and we had Zoro Neil Hurston, absolutely Langston Hughes Like we reflected on earlier. And Dr King.
Speaker 3Richard Wright.
Speaker 1Richard Wright, dr King, so much wisdom, harry Tuckman, so much wisdom. So much with Sojourner Truth.
Speaker 2Washington T Bergen.
Speaker 1So, much wisdom out there that goes untapped because we don't reflect on the history. You know when we were and the context in which that wisdom was being produced and curated, this context of suffering and struggle. It's a lived wisdom oh my goodness, it's not just a heady wisdom, it's a lived wisdom it's the best kind the greatest experiences come through.
Speaker 2That. It's the best kind, greatest wisdom I've ever had come through, those kind of experiences. You know, again I'm probably gonna throw us off track, but I'm just thinking this stuff was not hidden in a basket somewhere, so who was taking credit for it? Move on.
Speaker 1I'm thinking, you know, you guys said something just a second ago that took me back to something I heard recently that just stuck with me, and it's that I can borrow another man's knowledge, but I cannot borrow another man's wisdom, because wisdom is an applied knowledge, it's a knowledge lived out, it's a knowledge that has been tested and tried and then, and from that testing and trying, comes a produced wisdom, right. And so this struggle that we see in the black experience right Produces just timeless wisdom because, as your point to your point, austin, it's knowledge that's been lived out, it's knowledge that's been tried, it's knowledge that's been tested and the crucible of experience, and the crucible of experience and the crucible of struggle, and so it's so rich.
Speaker 1You know, what Frederick Douglass has to articulate to us, for example, is so rich. The words that Dr King has articulated to us through history is so rich because it comes out of a shared struggle, right, and there's so much for us to learn and to glean, not only from them, but for our current lives when we look back and we pull that knowledge from them.
Speaker 3And I think this is also important, especially for the white community, because we can glean wisdom as well. Yes, absolutely. So look at what we can do. And we can read these figures. We can read Washington T Boecker, we can read Frederick Douglass, we can read Langston Hughes, these guys who were there way before the Civil Rights Movement, ever, even before the 1950s. Absolutely, I mean, and you can read them, you can gain their wisdom, you can see the earnestness of their heart. Absolutely For, and I can see it as nothing less than reconciliation.
Speaker 3And in my opinion when I read Frederick Douglass, when I read Langston Hughes although, yes, they're saying, I want something for the next generation, for the people who look like me, but I also want to be reconciled to you that's what I read when I read that and for me there's that relational desire that's there on the pages. And so when I see that relational desire broken and marred at times because, as just a couple of weeks ago we talked about Dolfo's weary deciding whether he was gonna kind of stay at the school and he wasn't in California he was gonna go and kind of more of a I forgot if you said an extreme direction.
Speaker 3I don't want to use words he didn't use but at the same time, anytime that doesn't happen or that marred desire for reconciliation and I see that people have started with that, wanting to have that reconciliation. But anytime it's marred, I see it as because a relationship that was not realized and the pain of that relationship that was not realized or the relationship that was allowed to continue to be incredibly wounded. But when I read these figures Frederick Douglass, langston Hughes and just a number of them I see that desire for reconciliation.
Speaker 2The desire for one, Amen, amen. You mentioned Dolfo's talking about he could have went in another direction.
Speaker 3Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2Tony Evans and I ain't think King mentioned it as well that those are the options available to them. At the point Tony talks about, when he went to this church in Atlanta and he would never call an A, he said you know, when they turned him away, you know, at that point he had the option. He had the option of going a more radical way, and we all know that King talked about it in his letter from the Birmingham jail that was a radical part of the black community. That would take you in a different direction. And so, understanding black history, you understand that so many options were available in terms of how do we make things better, or at least attempt to make things better that could have made things worse.
Speaker 2And so that understanding that wisdom, you know for me, when I read King's letter or listen to his speech about a nonviolent movement and what that entails, you know research, the negotiations, the self-purification, the indirect action all of that is man. That is mind-blowing. And so I've made these presentations about Black history money. And somebody says to me Nettie. So you know, you know there are other people have contributed to Black history through violence and other things. I'm saying, OK, you're right, but how is that working?
Speaker 2How effective was that and they finally come to the clear way. You know that it was more comfortable what Dr King did and what Malcolm X did or others did. I'm saying like OK, I ought to give you a clue about the wisdom of understanding the method and the ways that Dr King, booker T Washington, not to be that man.
Speaker 3Or does that say Washington T Booker? You said Washington T Booker. Yeah, I mean Booker T Washington.
Speaker 1But yeah, if any descendants of Booker T Washington is listening to this podcast we apologize. We apologize so giving him credit.
Speaker 2We are really apologizing for giving him credit for peanut butter, but anyway, can I make? I'm going to make this point. Look at the look at the circumstances and the conditions of highlighting these accomplishments in the midst of intense and extreme opposition. Absolutely, absolutely that in many instances people died, king.
Speaker 1Evers. I was about to say make her ever. That's literally, literally who I was thinking of as you were describing the situation. Meagher Evers, another nonviolent activist, had young men and again, this is the importance of history had young men telling him, hey, why are we doing this? Why don't we take up arms and let's go do what we need to do?
Speaker 3And Meagher- Evers, let's do this Right.
Speaker 1And Meagher Evers had a conversation. Well, how far do you think that's going to go? You know how do you think that's going to ultimately end when you represent a little more than 10% of the collective population.
Speaker 2But listen now, we ended up in slavery because the people that put us in slavery had greater weapons, greater strategies than we had. So, therefore, they conquered the engines, they conquered the people of color, and we ended up under their rule as slaves.
Speaker 3Absolutely you know I mean what, especially from Germany, france and the UK, you had entire empires come out of there. I mean your administrative acumen had to be top top notch to create a global empire. Absolutely I mean, that was something that the rest of the world didn't have necessarily in the processes of their society and civilization.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 3I'm not saying that's morally neutral.
Speaker 1No, no, no, it's not.
Speaker 3No absolutely, but it was an administrative machine that was unrivaled anywhere else in the world or anytime that came before. I mean, it's been rivaled since then. But the point is, I mean the sophistication of that administrative deal that Europe had.
Speaker 1Yeah, and the point I was drawing out was that, going back to this idea of wisdom, the wisdom of king, the wisdom of evers, the wisdom of others, to say, hey, this is what we're up against, yeah, and if we use the prototypical tools, rather that you would think that you use in order to wage war, in order to fight battles, this is going to be the inevitable outcome and it won't be pretty. And so what we're going to use is the weapons, the reminder that the weapons of our warfare and our counter but they're mighty through God to the pulling down on strongholds. We're going to go back to our biblical understanding of how to fight battles, and in our biblical understanding of how to fight battles comes a timeless wisdom that allows progress to be made in ways that we would have never saw if we would have chosen alternative course.
Speaker 3There's wisdom in that, because when 300 years after Christ died, not exactly 300, 400 years in the hundreds of years I don't want to get a date Someone's going to come back and be like your date's wrong, your history's wrong. But the point is, a few hundred years after Christ died, christianity, the early Christians, were able to come in and the church was able to. After the Roman Empire fell, the church was able to provide the type of structure for civilization that it needed at the time, even to the point where it was able to advance all through Europe. It provided the only real governmental structure for a significant period of time during the Dark Ages. Absolutely Right, we always decry the Dark Ages and the hold that the church has on that Only some people do in our modern world. But at the same time, it was the church that was providing the only source of structure for civilization at the time.
Speaker 3But yet you had this fledgling, small Christian movement just in the span of a couple of hundred years, being able to provide what an entire empire was. Why did I say that? Because wisdom, Wisdom. Exactly the wisdom of Christianity allows people to organize quickly, absolutely.
Speaker 2Classical and well, that's a class of understanding, yep, as often articulated wisdom, yep, and even hope.
Speaker 1Yep, exactly, amen, exactly. That's a great way to put a bow on this episode. It's been incredible to discuss Black History Month and why we do it. I want to encourage you that if you have not taken time in the month of February 2024 to pick up a good book or to grab a good documentary to watch, let me encourage you to do that. There's still time because you have time in your day, so it doesn't have to be in February. It can be in any month, but we encourage you to go back.
Speaker 2You know they got to get it down before Jesus shows up.
Speaker 1That's what course we've got to get it down for. We want them to do that before Jesus shows up.
God Bless Living Rec and Sound
Speaker 3But we don't know the time or the place or the hour, and so do it now. Do it now. Do it now Grab a book.
Speaker 1Grab a documentary. Do it now. Go and learn a little bit more about your story. Whether you're Black, whether you're Asian, Hispanic, White, this is our collective history and we want to encourage you to dig into it. It's been great to be with you on this episode.
Speaker 2You know they can go out website and find books and video. Amen.
Speaker 1Thank you. Thank you, go to missymississippiorg and there are some resources that you can comb through and get a little bit of that history and we want to encourage you to go and check that out. It's been great to be with you on this episode of Living, rec and Sound. I am Brian Crawford, with my prodigious, incredibly impressive and incredible friends, austin Hoyle, nettie Winters, signing off saying God bless, god bless.
Speaker 2We are indispensable man, Indispensable. I just want you to know that.
Speaker 3Well, I'm just going to call myself Mr Incredible after him being declaring us indispensable.
Speaker 2Yeah, I must be indispensable here. God bless, god bless.
Speaker 1Thanks for joining Living Rec and Sound. If you would like more information on how you can be a part of the ongoing work of helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured, please visit us online at missymississippiorg or call us at 601-353-6477. Thanks again for listening.
