“REMIX”

REVEREND DR. ROBERT CHARLES SCOTT

We are about to celebrate the birth, legacy, and ministry of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For many African Americans, this is a significant date because of what King means to so many. His life and ministry transcend race, religion, culture, and ethnicity because what King did continue to reverberate around the world.

However, one of the problems that I have when we celebrate this day is that many have tried to extrapolate King from the cauldron of the African American church and from the praxis of ministry. This is a dangerous because we are living in a time when the African American church is taking on less significance in the African American community, in particular, and in this country. Nevertheless, if we look closely at Dr. King, we will realize within his psyche, he had a faith that sustained him and allowed him to transcend the narrow constrictions of time and cross over into the limitless expanses of eternity. 

Therefore, this faith has to be inculcated into the lives of African Americans in this new millennium. African Americans are faced with a myriad of challenges and a variety of concerns that test the essence of our personhood and the validity of our humanity. We are constantly bombarded through the media, the negative images that destroy our personal and communal identity to the point that many African Americans believe the unfavorable press. We must deal with the challenge of rising above oppressive conditions and continue to maximize and optimize our potential, presence, and passions. Most Americans know only those African Americans who appear on the nightly news (and oftentimes diametrically opposed) - super rich entertainers and car jackers; incredible sports figures and rapists; minority leader in the House of Representatives and a liquor store thief; and a female black Vice President and a woman selling her babies on the internet. But America does not witness the fact that most of us are law abiding citizens. We go to church; our children overrun our HBCUs; we maintain a decent income and investment dividends; and we preserve our homes with a sense of love, order and deep devotion. 

Sadly, racial stereotypes obscure from the public African Americans who have remained true to themselves and our ancestors who rose from slavery with a sense of purpose and dignity, who pursued education instantly, who kept hope alive, and battled the vestiges of segregation and Jim Crow. They have refused to give in to otherworldly cults, ignored separatist movements, and spurned the disdainful theories about being inferior. African Americans continue to fill buses, taxis, highways on their way to banks, schools, factories, construction sites, and hospitals, stores where they serve the public, contribute to society, and pump the economy. We have made viable contributions to America, and yet, we are still trying to rise above the challenge of oppression. 

Thus, within the psyche of King and African Americans, we have a persistent faith linked to our purpose and destiny. This faith sustains us because we must saliently conclude that racism is not dead. There is still this move to disenfranchise African Americans through gerrymandering. Black women continue to be mistreated with obnoxious justifications. Young African Americans tend to be disregarded politically. 

We must have the faith that Dr. King had. His faith was a faith in God, in faith in our own self-worth, the dignity, and in the concept that America’s 330 million diverse people can create the beloved community that has ethnic and cultural differences, and yet, give allegiance to values of justice, freedom, equality, and compassion. We are still striving for the community that is reflective of Dr. King’s dream where we will not be judges by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. As African Americans, we have overcome political misfortunes, political setbacks, educational pitfalls, and social backlash. 

When one thinks about Dr. King and his tenacity, in the pit of Birmingham jail and within reach of Bull Connor’s dogs, he either had to be crazy or have faith in God that will rescue him out of such extreme situations. Just like King, we have survived obstacles and continue to press forward toward helping America reach an unprecedented role in human history as a melting pot. 

But like Dr. King, we, as African American, are living betwixt and between. Our collective reality is shrouded in contradictions and ambiguities. On one hand, so many African Americans have dealt with the burdens of discrimination, the problems of poverty, and poor education, and seem to make it in society. On the other hand, there are failures in black life seem to be on the news every night, handcuffed and stuffed in police cars. These powerful images project a disturbing future where angry alienated African Americans seem to live in perpetual chaos. Thus, many Americans believe the spiral of racism and violence has gotten to a point of no return. With this type of mentality, the vitality, validity, and veracity of African Americans are in grave danger especially in 2023. 

Yet, the faith of Dr. King and our faith are remarkable. It is a faith that transcends the myopic religious perspective and goes into the soul aspect of our being. It is a faith that was intrinsic in our fore parents. This faith empowered ancestors to change the conditions that prevented the full reality of black personhood and potential into a positive reality. What our ancestors did and what Dr. King did was take the symbols of white racism and oppression and translated into meaning for our culture and heritage. Dr. King’s faith put backbone into Civil Rights movement to endure racial slurs, jail cells, water hoses, sore feet, bombings, and other dehumanizing acts. Faith allowed Dr. King’s mind to be illumined to have hope for better days, to envision brighter tomorrows, to overcome insurmountable odds, to go to the mountaintop, and to maintain his sanity in the midst of an insane reality. Faith gave Dr. King a sense of the eternal that authorized him to take nothing and make something out of it. Because while Dr. King did not live to see a lot of the things he fought for to come to past, his enabled him to believe in the possibility of dignity, education, compassion, justice, freedom, and love for all. It will be this type of faith, the faith that Dr. King had, will demonstrate that we are more than composite definitions of others defining us, more than a reflection of dismal governmental reports and negative data in sociology books, and more than the sum of our deprivations and deficiencies. We are created in the image of God with the same human equipment and intellectual potential evenly distributed on the same normal curve. 



Therefore, if we apply Dr. King’s faith to our reality, we can continue to rise. It is the same faith of Momma and Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa, and our ancestors. It is the faith that called upon the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and Joseph and Mary. This faith… the faith of Dr. King can be the force of change in our reality and creates an awareness that refutes and rescinds the dehumanizing and degrading aspects of racism and oppression. This faith will empower us to do the work of justice, liberation, redemption, and freedom to create the positive change so warranted in a deeply divided country and a fractured world. The struggle continues and it will be the young ones who will bring about the change with the wisdom and insight of the elders. A luta continua!