Stories of Baseball, Black Farmers, and the Young

I am a fan of stories. I love stories. It's been said that we live in and through our stories and that they give us meaning. We will not remember the three key points of a recent speech or sermon, but we will remember the stories told to flesh out the points. 

A long time ago when my oldest grandson was eight years of age, three generations of family sat in a favorite restaurant talking about things of interest, and then the little boy who was sitting across the table reading his book asked me a question, "Why do you work with Black farmers?" Didn't know he was listening. How do you answer a complicated question like that in words a child can answer. Was he really asking about his Poppie, or was he asking about them? I took the them route and simply told him, "because they have been mistreated." He seemed satisfied with the answer. In the years since then we have deconstructed in painful ways how Black farmers in fact have been mistreated. Here is more of that story written in 2007, if you'd care to read it.  

Several months later, the setting and topics changed but the questions remained. We were at this little guy's house and he was curious about Negro League baseball. How he landed on the topic is beyond me at this point. It might have been a wonderful book we were looking through by Kadir Nelson, "We Are the Ship," the history of Negro League baseball. The grandson wanted to know about Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and others. For a young child, he wanted to know why Black baseball players could not play in the major leagues against white ball players back then. So, we had a simple conversation about race and justice and inequality. To memorialize the conversation, or so my memory reminds me, he actually drew for me a picture of Paige standing on the mound. That book by Nelson and that work of art by my grandson are prized treasures in my collection. Here is the rest of that story. You can even see the cover of Nelson's book and the drawing of Satchel Paige. 

And then just last week another question came from an eight year old grandson. It shocked me. For some reason, I was showing him some photos of the March 1 protest event in front of the White House. He was impressed that his Mema was carrying a sign. I showed him a picture of Reverend Binion and told him a little of his story. I pointed out Lawrence Lucas and shared a few details about him and my relationship with him. I pointed to Willie Head and told about meeting him a lot of years ago and talking with him. I pointed in several pictures to the White House in the background. 

You may remember a story about this little guy from a few years back. You can read the letter that I wrote to him back in 2019. You can even see his little hand holding up the sign, "Black Lives Matter." If you saw the complete picture, you would see him chanting that phrase with intensity on his face. 

I wrote to him these words: "You have been a part of something huge. You are only five years of age, and you likely do not get it now. You do what five year-old kids do, you read, run, pretend, build forts, play with your sisters, eat Poppie Snacks with me, sit next to your Mema and watch Paw Patrol, and make pretend things out of your food."

But on this particular day, some four or five years after marching in that protest march, he asked me a heavy question while we looked through the photos on the web: "Poppie are you and Mema important?" I was stunned by his question, so I stammered a couple of minutes about knowing people and them knowing us and all, and simple left it there. Then, a few minutes later, I talked to Charla, his Mema. Her reply to me was simply put: "we're not important but the Cause is." Wish I had had those words at the moment. 

The next morning, over breakfast, I reminded him of his question. He remembered asking it. It was then that I said, "Mema and Poppie are not important, but the Cause is important." I had his attention so I attempted to say in words and phrases he could understand that Black farmers and white farmers are not treated the same. White farmers get all the money they need to farm, but Black farmers don't. When Black farmers cannot pay back their loans, men come and take away their tractors and sometimes even sell their houses and their land. I think in his young, innocent way he got it. 

I have a feeling that this young man and I will talk again. 

Sometimes the young grasp things more quickly than us older folks. 

Until we have the next conversation, my grandson will continue to read things, watch videos with his Poppie, play with his sisters, skate out front in the street with his dad and sisters, and other kid things.

I can be patient. I can wait for the next conversation. He is already good at asking perceptive questions. 

Dear Grandson

Dear Grandson:

You have been a part of something huge. You are only five years of age, and you likely do not get it now. You do what five year-old kids do, you read, run, pretend, build forts, play with your sisters, eat Poppie Snacks with me, sit next to your Mema and watch Paw Patrol, and make pretend things out of your food. 

So, I do not expect you to understand what a big thing you have been a part of. Some day, though, when you're older, I suspect that we'll have a conversation about you, the movement, and your place in it. I look forward to that day. Your one act of speaking up, walking in the crowd, holding up a sign, and yelling to the top of your lungs, those were huge. 

It all started back on Monday, May 25, 2020, when a police officer held down a Black man, George Floyd, by the neck with his knee on him for 9:29 until he died. A courageous young man, an MMA fighter stood there, yelled at the police, bearing witness to the brutality of it all, and a young woman stood there, seventeen years of age, and recorded it all with her phone, bearing witness to the brutality, the murder, that she was watching. Her nine year old niece stood beside her. 

Some people try to make that story complicated. Some try to make George Floyd out to be a villain. I say that's ridiculous. It all started with what ostensibly was a fake $20 bill. Perhaps it was fake, but whether it was or wasn't is beside the point. It did not merit George Floyd dying. He did not have to die.

Since that time, since the courageous young woman posted the video to her Facebook feed, the world has seen the struggle to breathe, crying out that he couldn't breathe, crying out for his mother, all multiple times, with the police officer's knee on his neck, long after there was any threat. He was handcuffed and lying on his stomach on the street. The cop had his knee on his neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds. And then he died. He actually died while the knee was still on his neck. 

The world cried out. The world cried out loudly. 

Protests were held across the country in big cities and little towns. In cities where there was a large population of Black people and in parts of the country where there are no Black people. The protests were largely civil. People wore their masks, protested loudly with words and with signs. Yes, there were some ugly things that happened after dark, but I think those were opportunists, and not true marchers for justice. 

No Justice No Peace; Black Lives Matter; Am I Next; George Floyd's Life Mattered; I Can't Breathe; and all manner of other signs were seen around the country. 

One of those protests took place here in our city. Your mother, father, sisters, and you participated. You held up that "Black Lives Matter" sign and from the look on your face in a photo that I do not have permission to post, you were obviously yelling something. I suspect it was "Black Lives Matter!" I saw that picture of you in the newspaper and I wept. 

Since George Floyd's death there have been multiple protests; a sort of reckoning is going on in America. People are beginning to realize that Black Lives Do Matter because they have never mattered from enslavement, Middle Passage, the plantation days, freedom, Jim Crow, and all the way up to now, Black lives have only mattered when their bodies mattered to us economically. 

One of the people that we have worked closely with is a staffer in Senator Booker's office. He said a while back that there has been nothing like this in the history of the US, that there is a racial reckoning happening. As a result of that reckoning, people that I care about deeply, Black Farmers, have a potential new lease on life with debt relief that is now signed into law and with the hope that The Justice For Black Farmers Act of 2021 brings if and when it is passed. 

On Tuesday of this week we listened with much anxiety to the judge's words. Actually, we had watched much of the trial of the murderer of George Floyd. We were hoping for a conviction, but we have seen many times before when a person guilty of  murdering someone walked free. Your Mema and I were afraid to hope. But then we heard the judge's words, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, and we were excited. We pumped the air, your Mema honked her horn as we drove down the highway. We were ecstatic. When we got home, we watched again as the cop who had kept his knee on George Floyd's neck for 9:29 was handcuffed and carried away to prison. We watched as the family and lawyers joyfully spoke. We watched as the protest there in Minneapolis was held peacefully. 

From Mr. Floyd's murder to the guilty verdict of Mr. Floyd's killer, people have lived in anguish. We have protested, written letters, marched, wrote blogs, spoke openly about police brutality, and pointed out the lack of value placed on Black bodies in America. We have lived hopefully for the passage of bills for Black farmers. 

You, my young grandson, were a part of something huge. You walked. You protested. You carried a "Black Lives Matter" sign. You yelled at the top of your lungs.  Yes, you were a part of something huge. 

Someday we will talk. We will make sense of it all. 

Until then, I'll just be your Poppie who loves you. We will build forts, watch Breath of the Wild or Mario videos, eat Poppie snacks, dig in the dirt and build imaginary things, and all manner of other things. 

Someday we will talk. 

Yes, someday we we will talk. You'll know that you were a part of something huge. 

And you can continue to be a part of something huge. 

Yes, we will talk. 

It's Friday Here in the Land Before that Great Gettin' Up Mornin'

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that too many Christians think about Heaven and not as much time about doing right here on the earth. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against going to Heaven, I'm just like the song, "everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now." I am not drawn theologically to think much about Heaven. It'll take care of itself. 

I do think a lot about what's going on in the world and about the varied responses of Christians to it all. 

Richard Rohr in his book, Dancing Standing Still, addresses "three basic levels of social ministry," as comparable to a flood. At the first level, we rescue people from drowning, giving them food, lodging, clothing, funds for their rent. At the second level, we show people how not to fall into the river, providing education and support and healing. Therapy is one of those gifts. At the third level, we address the problems that prompted the flood in the first place by shoring up the dam, reforesting the landscape to avoid runoffs and the like. Advocacy and legislation fit here. 

He says that these things could be analogies for doing good in the world. We all have different gifts, and our obligation is to do something for the world, at least in one if not more of those levels. Feed the poor, teach and heal the wounded, and develop policies that prevent such from happening. 

All of this is laid alongside what Paul and Peter the Apostles have said about the second coming in 1 Thessalonians and 2 Peter. Perhaps put a different way, some of us remember singing the song, "There's a Great Day Coming," with its lyrics, "There's a great day coming, there's a great day coming by and by, when the saints and the sinners shall be parted right and left, are you ready for that day to come?" and then there's a bright day coming and a sad day coming, both with the question, "are you ready?" 

Then, there is that wonderful song, "In That Great Gettin' Up Morning." You've heard it. Maybe by Mahalia Jackson? "Let me tell ya 'bout the comin' of judgment; (fare ye well, fare ye well); let me tell ya 'bout the comin' of judgment; (fare ye well, fare ye well), God goin' up and speak to Gabriel...." Mahalia was the best, but Jim Chester of Memphis Harding Academy also does a stirring rendition. 

How to place all of this during this season of Advent is the question. The Christ child is coming, so how should I live? The Christ child is coming, so how shall it shape my engagement with the world? 

Here at this house, we do social justice stuff. My Beloved cooks food and serves people. She loves her grandchildren with a grand sort of love. She sews masks, yes, those kinds of masks, to keep us safe and others safe in this pandemic. She sews fidget blankets for alzheimers patients and she sews fidget squares for restless children in elementary schools. 

Here at this house, I write and I consult. The invitation to serve as "advisor" for the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees and the Ag Coalition is important to the cause of justice and to my soul. Working alongside Shoun Hill as "co-producer" of "I'm Just a Layman in Search of Justice: Black Farmers Fight Against USDA" is a heart touching, soul shaking, and, hopefully, change making effort. Engaging with staff members of Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker around The Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2020 has been an amazing experience for a whole bunch of reasons. Serving on the board of BFAA is important to me. Collaborating with people like Jillian Hishaw of F.A.R.M.S. is important to me as well. 

So, I'm not really worried about going to Heaven. I'm not really living my life because of Heaven. I'm living my life in a way that flows out of the gifts God has given me in a variety of efforts to serve people here in this life. 

Heaven will take care of itself. It is earth and its people that I am concerned about. It is those people who have been kicked to the curb for centuries, whose stories go all the way back to the shores of Africa, it is farmers who can trace their ancestry back in clear, precise ways to slavery and then to freedom. Those are the people and that is the movement for which I pour out my life in this life. 

I hope and pray that we all do the same. I know some folks who do: Spencer Wood, Gary Grant, Lawrence Lucas, Lloyd Wright, Marti Oakley, Michael Stovall, Richard Chowning, Basil McClure, and many, many others. 

Yes, there's a better day a comin', and I want it to be in this life and in the life to come. 

Jesus coming. He is coming soon. The stable is just over the horizon. 

Worlds Still Colliding

This morning my wife and I do what we normally do on Sunday mornings at our house. We worship online with our church family here in Denison, then we listened in on our old church home in Ada, OK, and then we enjoyed the worshipful music from The Hills Church in Ft. Worth, and then wrapped it up with an old, old church of ours, the Highland Church in Memphis, TN. We don't always do that much worship time with other churches, but we did today and it was rich.

Why am I sharing this with you? Here's why. I found myself terribly preoccupied with what is going on in the world, brutality, injustices of all sorts, BLM movement and who loves it and who despises it, and other things. I was especially burdened by what is happening on the political scene. Our current president does not have a civil rights plan, and he does not have a workable plan for farmers, nothing for small family farms of our land and especially nothing for Black farmers of our land. We have hope with what can happen with the Biden/Harris presidency. They have a plan, though some of us working in a couple of different areas find the plan woefully lacking.

Woefully lacking is an understatement. That is why we wrote the "Open Letter to Vice President Joe Biden," and we are pleased that Politico picked it up and that one member of congress has picked up on it. We hope for more. That is why there are several projects going on, a book soon to be released that talks about land loss, a documentary that tells the stories of mistreatment of Black farmers by the USDA, and another expose of larger matters after the election. 

That still is not the point of this post.

There was an emotional collision this morning as on the one hand I was preoccupied with the politics of the day around civil rights and Black farmers on the one hand and on the other hand I was trying to worship with Christian sisters and brothers in our region. The two collided as they often collide. 

The collision is something like, Waymon, why do you do these things. I have never known you to be a political sort of guy. Well, the truth of the matter is that I have typically had the philosophy that I don't have to be in charge, but if nobody is, I'll take the reins. So, from high school to college to graduate school to work on various campuses and now to the Black farmer movement, I have maintained a "political" stance. Politics, after all, is what happens when more than one person is in the same space. But now, I am not in charge of anything. I am trying to be a good ally and to create space where stories of Black farmers can be told with all of their truthfulness. 

While the Black farmer movement is a deeply political movement with its roots in racism that go back to the very start of this country all the way up through the antebellum south, the Civil War and the attempts to maintain slavery, into reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Black Codes, and all the way up until now. 

Politics must of necessity be involved as those in political power work to maintain the power that is in their hands, and they work to keep policies going that marginalize people of color and women and children. 

For me, these issues are political and they are personal and they are deeply spiritual. The God who created us has a better way for people to be treated. The God who fashioned all of these things we see in the universe, however that all happened, has a better way for us to relate to one another. 

So, when I see the tears of a Black man whose farm was stolen from him, when I see the angst in the face and voice of a Black woman who did not know if her husband was going to return from the farm at the end of the day, and when I see the tears and hear the sadness from three sons of a Black farmer and wife who died too early because of the relentless pressure of discrimination and the fight for justice, then, I take it all very personally. It is very personal and it is a spiritual battle. 

Such mistreatment of people is wrong. From the halls of congress to the Oval Office in the White House, to the campaign trail, to the rows of cotton and wheat and peanuts and soybeans, treating people in unjust ways because of the color of their skin is just plain wrong. 

In my files are copies of documents in which the USDA acknowledged wrongdoing, which coincidentally no one has ever gotten fired for doing, so this thing is real, and not just in the minds of a few misguided social justice advocates, including me. No, it is real, and when I read those documents, I see the blood, sweat, and tears of men and women who love their country and farming. 

So, I do what I do because it is the right thing to do. I follow the lead of brothers and sisters who have been in this fight for years, even decades because it is the right thing to do. 

On the Day of Judgment, I will stand before God and if I am asked why I spent my life doing what I did, I will simply say, because it was the right thing to do. Yes, Lord, it was THE RIGHT THING TO DO. 

Prophets Come Wearing T-Shirts and Masks

Dear Lord:

I have a lot to learn. 

I have a lot to discern. 

I have many a thought to share. 

I have many a burden to bear.

So, please hear my yearnings. 

Please listen to my longings. 

Please consider my mental wanderings. 

Please find me under your wing pondering.

So, please if you will. 

Please comfort and my heart to still. 

Please guide me in the better way. 

Please lead me into the light of day.  

That I your face may see. 

That you may offer grace to me. 

That we may behold the lamb of God. 

While upon this land we trod.

Did the prophets receive pushback from their prophetic utterings? Is it true that shalom existed in the garden and that we messed it up? Is it true that we yearn for shalom and that it won’t be delivered until your face we see?

Is it true that prayer is a glance toward heaven? A yearning of the heart? A moment of joy in the midst of trials and tribulation?

Are there prophets upon this land? Do they come wearing masks and t-shirts that say, “Black Lives Matter,” “No Justice No Peace,” “Act Justly Love Mercy Walk Humbly?” Do they come chanting, marching, protesting? Are there people on the sides of the streets hurling curses upon them with ugly words and taunts of injury or ill will?

I think so.

Give me courage to speak the truth even when it is not well received. Give me wisdom and understanding to grasp how best to live and speak and love and hope and pray and wonder and wander and ponder and pray and pray and pray.

Amen