Transcription
It was in the first century when Emperors Bernice were on the throne, who were committed to turning things backwards. The people of God got weary; some wanted to go back rather than press forward. The Apostle Paul himself got weary, but in his weary moments, he decided to preach.
To the Hebrews who were considering turning back, he said in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, "Let me remind you who and whose you are." He declared, with Emperors on the throne who liked to put their names on buildings and had narcissistic attitudes about who they could rule, Caesars who controlled the Senate and were funded deeply by the money of ancient Rome, "Let me tell you who you are and whose you are."
In that 10th chapter, around about the 30th verse, he said, "The just shall live by faith." Then he said, "I know you feel tired. I know you're concerned about tomorrow, but remember who you are because you can't help a schizophrenic nation if you don't know who you are."
He said, "We are not of those who shrink back unto destruction, but we are those who persevere unto the salvation of the soul." Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. I heard from some reading that that was one of the scriptures Bernice, of your father, last night. He was with us, according to the testimony. He was grieving your father; he was grappling when he gave his last sermon in Memphis.
He didn't get to preach the one, "America may go to hell," but it was on the docket. He was hurting. Despite a declared war on poverty, he saw America's great wealth going to wage war against brown people in Vietnam. He was grieving because, in the language of the new report from the Kerner Commission, America's cities were burning because we were a schizophrenic nation moving toward two societies: one black, one white, one separate and unequal.
He was grieving because, despite the incredible demonstration of the nonviolent power in the Civil Rights Movement, the movement was fragmenting under the pressures of competing ideologies and the counterintelligence operations waged against them and him by Hoover and the FBI. While he was grieving, he decided to preach that last night—not a lecture, but a sermon deep down in his soul.
In the midst of that, he was honest with us and gave us the cure. He said, "The nation is sick," and yet he also said, "In the midst of the sickness, God is at work." He said that we must build multicultural alliances, multiracial alliances, excuse me, that come together where the desperate and the destitute all come together to stand against the injustices that were yet hounding the reality of the American progress.
Then he said, "Right now, when you're at your most worried, nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn around at this point." That's what Dr. King said, facing the contradictions of his day, facing the fact of an extremist government probably being elected that year.
And here we are. We need to hear those words: "Nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn around at this point." Because we see that schizophrenia yet on the move. On the one hand, Lady Liberty's statue stands in the harbor, beckoning the tide and the huddled masses who are longing to be free.
But at the same time, people who say they love freedom are talking about mass deportation. The truth is, the rules that they are talking about using, if they were used a hundred years ago, their own grandmas couldn't have gotten in.
On the one hand, every public official, particularly in Congress, swears to uphold the Constitution, puts their hand on the Bible, and swears to establish justice and promote the general welfare. But after they swear, they pass laws that prey on the very people who need justice the most.
When you look at the desperate impact of those policies, you wonder if they know what's in the Constitution or what's in the Bible. They use either trickle-down economics or neoliberalism, both of them, as Pope Francis has said, create a kind of magical evil that does not address the issues of our time.
Here we are talking about saving TikTok, and we haven't saved 140 million poor folk in this country. Did you know that poverty now affects 140 million people? That's 43% of the nation, 51% of our children, and 60% of Black folk are poor and low wealth.
That's 26 million people. Thirty percent of white people are poor and low wealth; that's 66 million people. The truth of the matter is, when it comes to poverty, if you can't pay your light bill, we all black in the dark. If your children don't have anything to eat, they don't grow white; their stomachs don't grow black; they growl hungry.
Did you know that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in America today? Yes, we remember brother Cornelius Taylor, who died just across the street. But let me also tell you, 800 people died yesterday from poverty. It's one of our worst forms of policy murder.
Eight hundred people died yesterday from poverty; 250,000 will die this year from poverty. In the midst of this schizophrenia, one moment we have child tax credit, the next moment we take it back. We haven't raised the minimum wage since 2009—$7.25 an hour, $2.13 an hour for tipped workers.
The March on Washington called for the minimum wage to be raised to $1.75, which would have been about $18 an hour today. Fifty-two million Americans make less than $15 an hour, and in 2021, every Republican and eight Democrats blocked an increase to the federal minimum wage.
But I bet you they raised their salaries. Here we are talking about buying green land; we better pay people what they deserve. One hundred million Americans have medical debt burdens. Bernice, 7 million families were behind in their rent in December of 2023.
Seven hundred thousand people are homeless; millions are on the brink of homelessness. When we look at these realities, we have to say that, in some ways today, the nation is still sick because the nation has not fully gotten over the infection of poverty, racism, and militarism.
In this moment, we must remember whose we are and who we are. We are not of those who shrink back unto destruction, but we are those who persevere until the salvation of the soul. Somebody ought to look at your neighbor and say, "Do you know who you are?"
I heard somebody today say about the coming inaugural in a few hours or so that somebody had a mandate. Well, first of all, less than 50% of the vote is not a mandate. Only 49.9% of the vote is not a mandate. But I don't care who you are; if you win by 60% of the vote, you never win a mandate to violate justice.
You never win a mandate to hurt people with your power. And so we come today to remember Dr. King, but more so to recommit ourselves to the spirit, to the commitment that we will, every day we got life in our bodies, tell America who she is supposed to be, whether she listens or not.
We don't come here with a dark message, but we come here with a determined message—not with a hateful message, but a hopeful message. We come in the tradition that knows that the right time to tell the truth is always right now, and that telling the truth is the most radical and prophetic moral action you can take in a season of lies.
We come here in a tradition that remembers that we cannot stop until the poor are lifted, until the sick are healed, until humanity is respected, until our children are educated and protected, until civil rights and union rights are never neglected, until love overcomes hate.
Nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn around at this point. This is no time to be at ease in Zion. We must go forward together—black and white and brown and Asian and Native and young and old and north and south and east and west and gay and straight.
We are America, and we must declare we ain't going nowhere but forward. That's because we know who we are. We come from a tradition in 1854 when the Supreme Court ruled that a black man had no rights that white people had to respect.
Frederick Douglass said, "Perhaps this decision, as monstrous as it is, is a necessary link in the chain of events to the whole downfall of slavery; therefore, let it embolden and intensify our agitation." Somebody asked Harriet Tubman, "What do you think about the decision of the Supreme Court?" She said, "Is God dead?"
When women didn't have a voice, black and white women joined together and stayed in the struggle. They didn't turn around. When black and white coal miners in Appalachia faced the vicious and violent corporate bosses who hired planes to drop bombs on them from the sky in 1920, they didn't turn around.
But they declared with Mother Jones that they would fight until hell freezes over and then fight on the ice. When greedy robber barons tried to work children until their fingers were mangled by machines, the social gospel movement didn't turn back.
Walter Rauschenbusch, who actually helped inform Dr. King, was asked, "Which side are you on?" They joined with a president named Roosevelt and walked this nation out of depression. He said, "The only thing you got to fear is fear itself."
They didn't turn back when lynching and segregation looked like it had made white supremacy a national doctrine. White and black and Jewish people built civil rights organizations. They raised up Charles Hamilton Houston and Ella Baker and Pauli Murray and Thurgood Marshall and so many others to shake the foundations.
When racists shot and mutilated, Rosa Parks didn't turn back. She went to Highland and learned how to engage in nonviolent action, came back to Montgomery, and sat down that a movement might stand up.
When Democrats, Dixiecrats, and moderate Republicans were slow and racist, Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph and others, with Dr. King, called the people to go forward together at the March on Washington. They won the Civil Rights Act when the country refused to honor the 15th Amendment.
Black people and white people and Jewish and Catholic and Orthodox and Protestant and Muslim and young and old faced off Jim Clark in Selma and refused to turn around. When they got to Montgomery, Dr. King stood at the steps of the Alabama State House and turned it into a pulpit.
He said, "Ain't going to let nobody turn us around." He said, "His truth, God's truth, is marching on." Then he said these words: "Understand that the greatest fear of a racist oligarchy in this country has always been for the masses of Negroes and the masses of white people that are poor to come together and form a new voting block that can fundamentally shift the economic architecture of this nation."
This is not the time for us to turn around. Now we must refuse. We must refuse. Tell your neighbor, "We must refuse." We must finish the work. We must finish building out a Poor People's Campaign.
We must refuse. We cannot turn back now. We are not of those who shrink back unto destruction, but we are those who persevere until the salvation of the soul.
Well, Bernice, they tell me that your father, when he preached that night, even when he didn't feel like preaching, when he got to the end, the Holy Ghost really took over. He said, "I know we got some difficult days ahead, but my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. I might not get there with you, but we as a people will get to the promised land."
And you do understand how you see the glory. When you meet hate with love, you can see the glory. When you meet meanness with mercy, you can see the glory. When you meet evil and greed with Sabbath economics of giving, you can see the glory.
When you meet lies with the truth, you can see the glory. When you meet treachery with triumphant love, you can see the glory. That's when we see the glory. Oh, Hallelujah!
One of the writers, Jurgen Moltmann, said you see the glory when people of faith see things that are wrong and they decide to put their hands and their bodies to work to change that which is wrong. That's when hope comes.
Hope comes when you go to work. Tell your neighbor, "Hope comes when you go to work." Tell them, "Glory will fall on you when you go to work."
So I come here to remix Common, and the remix: "One day when the glory comes, it will be ours. It will be ours. One day when the war is won, we will be sure."
Glory, glory, hands to the heaven. No man and no weapon formed against us shall prosper. Yes, glory is destined. Every day, women and men become legends.