The Black Clergy and White Supremacy

The movie Harriet begins with a scene showing a congregation of slaves on a southern plantation in Maryland, USA. The short sermon presented by the Black minister is preceded by a rousing negro spiritual which spoke of slaves keeping their hands on the gospel plough and holding on as the sure route to making it into heaven. The preacher reminds the enslaved that they are to honor their earthly masters in everything whether the masters were present or absent. These remarks are made under the watchful eyes of the Caucasian plantation owners whose presence guaranteed that the Black preacher stuck to the pre-ordain religious script.

As the plot of the movie unfolds it become very obvious that the role of the Black preacher was far more nuanced than is commonly understood. Pastor Green is faithful to the script given to him by the Caucasian plantation owners by day but by night it becomes clear that the same slavery accommodating Black preacher is also a key resource when Harriet decides to make her solo run to freedom in the north of the US. The dual role of the Black preacher was known to Harriet’s father who insisted that she go pay the preacher a visit before heading north.

Black religious functionaries have always played an integral part in the struggle for Black freedom. Enslaved Africans who maintained much of their African continuity in the Diaspora were often at the forefront of the slave uprising that took place in the Caribbean and in South America. Christianized enslaved Africans in the tradition of Nat Turner led out in slave insurrections in the US. In more recent times the fight for Black freedom and dignity in the US was advanced by both Christian and Black Muslim clerics.

As I rewatched the dramatization of the story of Harriet Tubman I was forced to reflect on the assimilation/separation debate that is still very much alive especially among Blacks living in Caucasian majority countries. Assimilationists hold to the view that Blacks living in Caucasian majority countries should try to blend in with the society which surrounds them even as they strived to make the society more just and equitable. This attitude contrasts with that of the separatists who advocate a policy more akin to what Harriet Tubman practiced.

As the most successful conductor on the underground railroad Harriet Tubman led seventy enslaved Africans to the partial safety enjoyed by Blacks in Northern USA. The safety was partial because of the Fugitive Slave Laws that were passed in 1850 which required northerners to surrender fugitive slaves to southern slave catchers. The Fugitive Slaves Laws forced the underground railroad to make Canada its terminal point.

Harriet Tubman viewed slavery as a moral evil which needed to be confronted by every means necessary. The pistol that Harriette carried was not for show. She was quite prepared to use it on Caucasian slavers or on Black slavery collaborators. Harriet Tubman’s approach dovetailed more with the philosophy of Malcolm X who was prepared to combat Caucasian supremacy by any means necessary. In his early career as a civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King was much closer to the Harriette Tubman approach. It was Dr. King’s association with Ruskin Bayard that led to his embracing of the principles of nonviolent resistance.

Most Black preachers today fall somewhere along the continuum between Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Harriet Tubman. While it is true that most Black preachers today would cringe at the extreme accommodationist theology of Pastor Green in the opening scene of the movie Harriet, it is also equally true that most Black preachers today would not be prepared to take up arms in defense of Black liberation.

Many Black preachers passed by on the other side as the Black world grappled with issues as varied as apartheid, segregation, civil rights, and Black Lives Matter. Black preachers - many of whom were beholden to their Caucasian ecclesiastical superiors- simply looked the other way and hoped for the best outcome for the Black collective. Black Seventh-day Adventist Calvin Rock critiqued his own church citing radical determinism, extensive free will argument, extreme ecclesiology, and a socially lacking eschatology as the main reasons why many Black Adventist preachers stayed in their bunkers and refused to come out swinging against Caucasian supremacy.

As right-wing conservatives, Christian nationalists, Caucasian supremacists and Trumpers begin to circle the wagons in defense of Caucasian civilization, Black preachers will have to get off the fence and declare their allegiance one way or the other. Preachers who choose to continue supporting anti-black agendas should be encouraged to continue preaching but to empty pews. Those willing to follow the illustrious examples of Dr. Martin Luther King, the great Malcolm X and the irrepressible Harriet Tubman should be lifted up and honored.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of Echoes of the Ancestors: Black Spirituality in the Information Age.