A Religious Aphorism and/or Thought out of Season

The Southern Black Church is a religious, cultural, economic, and political force in Black America that has withstood the test of time and proven itself over and over again in African American history. The Southern Black Church as ‘The Invisible Church’, hidden away in brush arbors and other secluded spots on the plantations and in the countryside where slaves could repair themselves, using cultural remnants of Africa, mixed with the European Christianity they were exposed to. This is much like Caribbean and South American Catholicism, when it encountered the African descendants of Haiti, Brazil, and Dominica etc. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, it was the Southern Black Church that defined the aspirations of the newly freed Black people and spearheaded the establishment of schools (Sunday Schools) and the promotion of educational resources to segregated Black students. This is why many, if not most of our most relevant HBCU’s were established in the aftermath of the Civil War. I think nearly all of the AUC schools got started in the basements of local Atlanta churches. This close relationship between Black progress and self-development and the Southern Black Church continued during the dark days of Jim Crow, Black Codes, Chain Gangs, lynchings, and other coercive measures of restricted Blacks as the local community based Black church and the network of Black communities they represented was at the center of Black social, political, economic, and entertainment life. This gave us the tradition of spending all day Sunday at one local Black church or another for one program or another, where everybody from our children to our seniors performed in one way or another, and got a chance to shine and articulate their talents. And White folk weren’t culling the best off the top either for ‘their’ schools, because segregation wouldn’t allow it. During the Jim Crow/Black Codes era, the Black church also incubated strong, segregated, and even prosperous Black areas like ‘Black Wall Street’ (Tulsa, Oklahoma). Here in Atlanta, segregated Black progress and prosperity, largely generated by strong Christian values in the Black community, inculcated by strong Black churches and denominations, engendered White resentments causing the Atlanta Race Riot as well the burning down of Tulsa’s ‘Black Wall Street’. Isn’t it amazing how when Black people progress and prosper independently, White people resent it, and then when we progress and prosper due to Integration, Affirmative Action, DEI, etc., that causes White anger and resentments (ergo Trump) too! For more information the idea of Black progress and prosperity during segregation, see this brief introduction on the web.

  The Forgotten Black Wall Streets: How Thriving Black Communities Were Destroyed

And yet when the time and political opportunity to ‘integrate’ did come, in the wake of the Cold War, and the White mainstream political embarrassment of trying to prove to a world impressed by Communist and socialist ideals and rhetoric, that how White folk treat Negroes in the South was not good for international PR purposes in the fight against the forces of Marxism, integration was led by the ideals, leadership organizations, and personalities of the Southern Black Church! Thus it was not primarily White folk’s conscious, noble as it is, and such that they deserve credit for that led the fight for integration, that so many later immigrants to America took advantage of, but the Southern Black Church. The leadership of Southern Black Churches in the SCLC and other similarly aligned organizations was largely Black preachers and pastors, and they put themselves on the front line of the Civil Rights Movement. Thousands of their members in these same Black churches followed them into protests and demonstrations where they knew the attendants, dressed in their Sunday best and singing Kumbaya and other Negro spirituals and hymns, would be assaulted by angry White mobs, the law enforcement community and their attack dogs, and even the Fire Department would turn their firehoses on them.

Safe in the arms of the political and economic victories won by the Southern Black Church for the past 50 years, and the legacy of the Southern Black Church that sustained us during Slavery and Jim Crow Segregation days, we have watched how in the post-modern age, Black culture called down upon itself all the curses Moses said would happen if we ‘got to the promised land and grew fat’ (the land it is presumed Martin Luther King Jr., looked over into when he made his famous ‘I have a Dream Speech’).       

Deuteronomy 28:14 And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
Deuteronomy 28:15 ¶ But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:
Deuteronomy 28:16 Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.
Deuteronomy 28:17 Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store.
Deuteronomy 28:18 Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.
Deuteronomy 28:19 Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
Deuteronomy 28:20 The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.
Deuteronomy 28:21 The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it.
Deuteronomy 28:22 The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
Deuteronomy 28:23 And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.
Deuteronomy 28:24 The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.
Deuteronomy 28:25 The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.
Deuteronomy 28:26 And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.
Deuteronomy 28:27 The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.
Deuteronomy 28:28 The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:
Deuteronomy 28:29 And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.
Deuteronomy 28:30 Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.
Deuteronomy 28:31 Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them.
Deuteronomy 28:32 Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand.
Deuteronomy 28:33 The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway:
Deuteronomy 28:34 So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.
Deuteronomy 28:35 The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.
Deuteronomy 28:36 The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.
Deuteronomy 28:37 And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee.
Deuteronomy 28:38 Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.
Deuteronomy 28:39 Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.
Deuteronomy 28:40 Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast his fruit.
Deuteronomy 28:41 Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.
Deuteronomy 28:42 All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.
Deuteronomy 28:43 The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.
Deuteronomy 28:44 He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.
Deuteronomy 28:45 ¶ Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee:
Deuteronomy 28:46 And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever.
Deuteronomy 28:47 Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;
Deuteronomy 28:48 Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.
Deuteronomy 28:49 The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;
Deuteronomy 28:50 A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:
Deuteronomy 28:51 And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.
Deuteronomy 28:52 And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
Deuteronomy 28:53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:
Deuteronomy 28:54 So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:
Deuteronomy 28:55 So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.
Deuteronomy 28:56 The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,
Deuteronomy 28:57 And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.
Deuteronomy 28:58 If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;
Deuteronomy 28:59 Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.
Deuteronomy 28:60 Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee.
Deuteronomy 28:61 Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.
Deuteronomy 28:62 And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the LORD thy God.
Deuteronomy 28:63 And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.

Beloved Sons and Daughters of Ham, it is time to repent, humble ourselves, and seek the Lord. The Southern Black Church renewed, reinvigorated, restored, and revived must be at the forefront of this new Post-Modern Movement, the true inheritance of the noble legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, and the generations that sustained and nourished Black African American culture and Civilization during Antebellum Days, Post-Reconstruction Days, and Jim Crow-Black Codes-Segregation Days.