Transcription
Thank you. Giving honor to God, to our pastor, Bishop Rudy McKissack, and to our real pastor, Lady Kim McKissack. Reverend Green, Reverend Newman, and all the members of the clergy, and most of all, to the family of Angela Michelle Carr—give them another hand.
I am accompanied today by some individuals that I want to acknowledge before I do the eulogy. Saturday before last, there was a march in Washington. It was focused on dealing with hate crimes, voter protection, and economic justice. We wanted to bring people of all races together. We chose that weekend because there is a rise in hate crimes against Blacks, Jews, Asians, Latinos, and the LGBTQ+ community. Though it was the 60th anniversary weekend of Dr. King's March on Washington, we talked about a dream. We didn't want it to be just a Black march; we wanted to show that we are against all hate. We put the word out, and people came—over 150,000.
As we marched, little did we know that at the same time, this killing was going on in Jacksonville, the exact moment he pulled up to the Dollar General. I was getting ready to stand up and speak at the march. We were partnered in that march by many civil rights groups, including the leading group for Jewish Americans. The president of the Anti-Defamation League partnered with us, and all of us knew we would get some extremists in our communities who would say, "Why are y'all working with them?" But we can't stop hate unless we reach out beyond our comfort zones and fight hate together. Let me tell you something: the same people who hate Blacks mostly hate Jews and Asians. A hater is a hater.
When we finally learned what happened here in Jacksonville and knew that it was a hate crime, we met with President Biden that Monday and Vice President Harris. We said that we want to deal with these crimes. One just happened in Jacksonville. A week later, I got a call from the president of the Anti-Defamation League saying, "Al, are you going down to Jacksonville?" I said yes; one of the families invited me. I'm going to go. I don't care what day they do it; I'm going to be there. Reverend Green pastors fund the families, and I said I'd come. Bishop McKissack is a member of our national board, and I believe that he and Kim will allow us to come to Bethel. He said, "Well good, I'm glad you're going. Let me know when you're going. I don't want to just march with you, but I want to represent at the funeral that we are really serious about this."
I want you to know that he flew in with me today, the president of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. Also, I'm proud that young organizers helped with that march. One of the leaders here, Deanna Burton, is with us today, seated with us is the president of EWU, where this man first tried to go in the EWU and turned around. The president of the student body, Patricia Johnson, is here as well. Bishop, today is my daughter's birthday. She said we can do the cake later. She flew down with me to be with this family, along with Ashley Sharpton. There are so many I could call, but let me say this: one of the things that I hope we don't do is have these funerals, have these memorials, and then leave the family alone with their memories. Too many times, people show up to get the attention of the moment and then move on to another photo op. I don't believe in that.
People being killed for no reason is not a prop for you to get some publicity. This woman was loved by her family. She did nothing wrong, and this family should not have to hear all of this today and see these cameras today, only to forget it on Tuesday. I would like the family, in whatever way they want, and Reverend Green to work with them, to form a scholarship in her name so that some children will go to school in her name. They’ll ask, "Who was Angela Michelle Carr? Who was Angie?" And then you can tell the story. She didn't hurt anybody; she was driving an Uber, waiting on a passenger, and hate killed her. But we can turn the hate into love by sending people to school in her name.
As you construct that, I want you to know today that my commitment is that we will start that college fund in her name. I'm giving $5,000 to get you started. So all of you who talk about coming out shopping, starting something, match my $5,000 and say whatever you want.
I want you to turn to the book of Ephesians 6:12. It reads: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against wickedness in high places." May God add a blessing to the reading of His Word.
I saw last night on the news that a man went to your governor's press conference. I don't know the man; I doubt he's a member of the National Action Network, but he brought up to the governor the responsibility regarding gun laws and how we treat and deal with people with mental health issues. The governor got defensive and snapped at him. Whether the man was in or out of order, the issue is that this woman and her father, this young lady's father, and the other third person we had funerals for will deal with their lives, and we should, and we have, but we also ought to deal with what killed them. Yes, this man had to have a mental problem, but mentally ill people should not be able to easily get military-style weapons. Mentally ill people should not be able to get AR-15s and put SWAT stickers on them. Don't say you are not responsible for one deranged man; you are responsible for deranged people being able to get military-style weapons. You're not responsible for haters, but you're responsible if you help to arm haters.
Politics is not about what we're here today for, but politics helped that young man get that gun, and you cannot be excused for that. You know, as we were marching, not knowing what was going on in Jacksonville, I remembered Dr. King's speech. Read the whole speech. Dr. King talked about governors whose lips were dripping with the words of interposition and nullification. Well, I'm not here to put the mayor in the spot talking about my opinion of the governor. I wouldn't do that today, but I do know this: the governor has interposed laws that could have prevented easy access to guns for people with these kinds of backgrounds. I do know that. I also know that he has tried to nullify Black history and other histories in the curriculum. So I can say, when I read Dr. King's words, that interposition and nullification are happening right here in Florida in 2023.
Now, he may have something smart to say back about me, but Governor, don't make this a fight between you and me. You can beat Mickey Mouse, but you can't beat our shops. We together ought to be dealing with this hate a week after this massacre. Neo-Nazis marching in Orlando are not even ashamed to hate anymore. Go to a playground where parents bring their children and spew out antisemitic words. People going through their everyday lives are shut down in front of a supermarket because of the color of their skin. Go to an HBCU. How many people have to die before you get up, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, and say we've got to stop this? We've got to bring some sanity back to this country. If we've gotten so out of bounds that we've normalized this stuff happening, look at the data: hate crimes are up. If you speak up against it, they call you the problem. If you say we need to disarm haters, they call us the problem. If you come and stand with families who are grieving for the senseless death of someone murdered, they ask, "Why is he in town? Why didn't he have to get in line to get here?" The question is, why are you not in town?
There's something that bothers me: for two days, maybe the national media talked about Angela, talked about the other two, and then they went on to something else as if their lives didn't mean anything. I hope my coming helps bring national attention because Angela Carr's life meant more than you making it some local nuisance story. But here I come to stir things up. I hope I stir you up because somebody needs to stir you up to straighten this out. We've gone to too many funerals and comforted too many families. Enough is enough. We need to stand up together.
I came to Tallahassee, joined Bishop McKissack and other ministers. Nobody is more prolific, respected, regarded, and celebrated in this country than Bishop Rudolph McKissack Jr. He put his name and reputation out there and said we are going to march because we don't want history to start repeating itself. It is not that we're trying to brainwash people; we're trying to get people out of the brainwash. Maybe, Mr. Governor, if these people with mental issues knew the whole story, they wouldn't be hating people who survived the worst hate in the history of this country. Maybe if you didn't take the parts of the story out that offended people, they would understand that they were hating the people who were the hated.
I went not long ago and took my daughters to Edgefield, SC. Why did I take them to Edgefield? About seven or eight years ago, a reporter came to me. He said, "Reverend Al, we're going to do a special." It was January of 2007. He said, "We're going to do a series in the February issues of our paper on Black History Month. We want permission from you to do your family tree because we're doing some known Black families' family trees." I said, "All right." He said, "Have you ever done it?" I said no, so I gave him permission to do it. He came back a week later with another reporter and a photographer. I said, "What's all this?" He said, "Let me ask you something." I said, "What?" He said, "On your father's side—my father left when I was 10. I never heard from him again for 20 years. How much do you know about your father's side?" I said, "Well, he was there until I was 10, a successful businessman and all that." He said, "Do you know his father?" I said, "I met my grandfather a few times. We used to go down to Wabasso, Florida, where my grandfather was. My folks were from Florida on my father's side." He said, "Did you know his name?" I said, "His name was Coleman Shop." He said, "Did you know his father's name?" I said, "No, I didn't know my great-grandfather." He said, "Well, your grandfather, whom you met a few times, was named Coleman Shopton Jr. His father was Coleman Sharpton Sr., and his father was a slave in Edgefield, SC." I said, "No, none of my folks are from South Carolina." He said, "No, no, no. Here is a copy of the papers where, when his slave owner died, her widow made a deal for indentured servitude to a plantation in Florida. That's how your grandfather was born in Florida, and your folks come from there. But Coleman Shopton Sr., your great-grandfather, was from Edgefield." I said, "You said?" He said, "And ironically, the plantation he was on was bought by a collector, almost the way it was Rachel Nordlinger, a media mogul who handles a lot of communications for a lot of people, including us. She and I flew down there; the press was with us, and I walked around this plantation where my great-grandfather used to be a slave."
Several years later, I decided a few weeks ago to bring my daughters, and it was still there the same way. We got over to the First Baptist Church, which was the white church, and in parts of the country, they have a cemetery extending from the church. As you walk into the cemetery of First Baptist Church in Edgefield, about one-third of the cemetery was Shoptons and Thurmans because Alexander Shopton, who owned my grandfather, was married to Strom Thurman's cousin. They all buried their ancestors together. It never occurred to me until then, Bishop, that Shopton was not the name of my great-grandfather. Shopton was the ownership papers on my great-grandfather. I don't know my name; I'm named after my great-grandfather's owners. His name was Alexander Shopton. And Ashley, my daughter, who's with me today, sat there at the cemetery looking at Alexander's tombstone. She said he was the first Al Shopton. Maybe if you didn't edit that out of the curriculum, maybe if you let people in Florida know that every time a Black American writes their name, they are writing the ownership that their forefathers had to go through. Maybe if you told the whole story, people would not be hating us; they'd be grateful that God brought us from a mighty long way.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That boy had his mental problems, but what put that hate in his heart? What made him think that Black folks were the ones he wanted to shoot? What taught these Nazis that it was all right to kill millions of Jews? They need to unlearn it, which is why we don't need any edited, watered-down history. Tell the whole story. Don't rewrite the story. The reason our churches are so strong is that we came through so much, and we know that it wasn't man that brought us through; it was God in the midst of our sorrow. It was God in the midst of our pain. It was God when we didn't know our names, when we didn't know where our relatives were—God brought us through. Don't reduce, don't edit, don't fix my story. Tell the whole story.
We didn't come down here to fight DeSantis. We didn't come down here to fight Republicans. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. It's deeper than that. It's principalities, powers of the darkness, spiritual wickedness. It's wicked to know people's stories and not tell the story. It's wicked to start culture wars in a divided country. It's wicked for us to tell our young Black men and women not to be criminals and not to shoot up Jacksonville and to get rid of these guns, yet you'll take a man with 91 felonies and four cases and say he ought to be the president of the United States. It's wicked. Everything this country taught us, you are trying to undo. But some of us are going to stand up for what's right. Some of us can take your blows and keep on fighting because there is a God that will give us strength. There’s a God that will give us comfort, and your arms are too short to box with God.
So I come to say to this family, I can't explain why this happened to Angela, but I can make sure that it is not forgotten, and I can make sure that in her name, we fight this fight against hate. Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of Unidos, and the head of the Urban League, Mark Morial, and all of us had a hate crime summit in the White House about a year ago. I said to President Biden with Jonathan the other day, we need to bring that on the road. We want to have a hate summit right here in Florida. I hope that all types of people come, Republican and Democrat. This is not about your party. This guy, when he shot in front of a Dollar General, didn't ask if you were a Democrat or a Republican. He didn't ask, "Do you like the mayor or do you like DeSantis?" He saw Black and shot. The Neo-Nazis see Jews and harass them. We have got to get past being divided for the dividers and celebrate, in the midst of this misery, a God that gives us life.
Yes, Bishop McKissack is right. We have National Action Network all over the country. I go everywhere I can. What gives me strength? I had a pastor who was my mentor, and I'll close with this: Reverend William A. Jones. I remember Reverend Jones told me a story. He said, "Al, I thought I was ill, and this was before his passing, about four or five years ago. I had gotten so ill, and one night I woke up in a daze. I looked up, and there was this image in my room I had never seen before. I figured out, because it was dark, that I thought death had come into my room." He said, "I've been preaching so long that I thought I could talk death out of taking me. When you've been preaching a long time, you think you can talk anybody into anything." He said, "I tried to strike up a conversation. I said, 'Death, how long have you been on the job?'" He said, "Death didn't answer me. It kept moving to my bed." He said, "I tried again. I said, 'Death, do you ever feel guilty about the work you do? You've separated mothers from their children and fathers from their loved ones. You've taken couples that have been married 60 years and divided them. Do you ever feel bad about the work you've done?'" He said, "Death didn't answer me. It got now to the tip of the bed." He said, "I tried one last time. I said, 'Death, have you ever made a mistake in all these centuries? Have you ever made a mistake?'" He said, "Death stopped then for the first time. And Death looked out on that man and said, 'You know, Jones, in all these centuries I've been out here—a long time, in fact, since the beginning of time—I took out Adam and Eve. I've taken out kings and queens, and I've taken out servants. I've taken out the rich, and I've taken out the poor. I've taken out the famous, and I've taken out the unknowns. But in all these centuries, I've only made one mistake. It was about 2,000 years ago. They sent me up a hill called Calvary, and when I got up that hill, there were three men hanging there. I reached out and grabbed the one on the left and took him with me. I came back and grabbed the one on the right and took him with me. But then I made my mistake. I came back and grabbed the one in the middle, and when I grabbed him, he grabbed me back, and we started wrestling. We started fighting. We started rumbling all over that mountain. I fought him for three long days, but after three days, I had to let him go. I never did get that man to talk.'"
I've come by Bethel to tell you today, I'm not afraid of any big governor. I'm not afraid of any politician. I went for the man in the middle of Calvary. He promised he would never leave me. He promised he would keep me safe. He promised he would walk with me, talk with me, and tell me I'm His own. Yes, yes, yes.
Let us be seated. Turn it over to Ben Crump, who is working with this family. He is stuck at the airport in New York or he would be here to do the call to justice. But the call is being made. Reverend Ron Seller, stand up, who is our Southern Regional Director of the National Action Network. He will be working with local activists around Florida. Martin Luther King III and Andrea Waters King had a conference call, a Zoom call with Jonathan and me to do a hate summit here in Florida to try to deal with hate. We also want to support all three of the families, the attorneys of the families. I'm not in the attorney business. Whatever attorneys the families choose, that's who we work with. And whatever we do, whether we help with funeral costs or whatever, we don't even ask to be reimbursed. We pay. I don't advertise who we pay for funerals because I don't want everybody calling me asking for money, but we don't even want it back. I don't care if people sue and get millions; I don't ask for that back. God gave us this work. I promised Him I would do this work for no kind of reward from men. He would give it to us.
So the call for justice: this man, after killing Angela and the other two, killed himself. But justice is making sure that all of the things surrounding his death, including the gun laws, including the security, including all the things that were put in place that aided and abetted this madman to do this—they must pay. And whatever we need to do to support, whatever you need for that child, we need to support that child. Because that child lost a daddy. And that means real Black men need to stand up and be a daddy to that young child. They lost a sister, a mother, a grandmother. They should not have to run around reminding us; they need to be able to stand up and say, "Get people like Reverend Al on the phone. We need to do this, that, or the other," and that's our call to action.
I didn't want to send a statement; I wanted to come and say that to the family and do this scholarship in her name because I don't want you to feel that this is a two-day story. This is a 400-year story that we have to stop somewhere. Angela touched my heart when Rudy McKissack told me the story of how she was just driving, trying to make a living. And as I said in my message, my father left when I was 10 and I didn't see him for 20 years. My mother scrubbed floors for me, and when I hear about a Black woman doing what she could, I think about a Black woman that did it for me. Somebody said to me coming into church right now, "I watch your television show. That's my glory." But you don't know my story. My story was a Black woman like Angela who did what she had to do to raise her children. And I'm going to do what I have to do to help Angela and all her loved ones. That's our call to justice.
Bishop, can we thank God again for the Reverend Al?