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A meditation by Rev. Susan K. Smith:
When the horse-drawn wagon
carrying the body of Rep. John Lewis began to make its way
up the Edmund Pettus Bridge, it felt like there was a
stirring of the ancestors, those in that “great cloud of
witnesses” whose spirits are ever with us and who were with
a young John Lewis the day police officers nearly killed him
for daring to march across the bridge as part of the work to
get black people the right to vote.
Many, myself included,
broke down as that wagon moved slowly across the bridge
strewn with red rose petals to remind everyone of the blood
that was shed by many on that day, especially and including
the man in the casket.
The journey from Brown
Chapel AME Church to the bridge is not a long one. Those who
left that building on that day in 1965 knew that they faced
harm and danger as they began to move out, after praying and
singing. I don’t know how many in that group had been
trained in nonviolent direct action, but Lewis had. He knew
that in that movement, he had to be ready to be beaten, be
arrested, and/or to be killed. Rev. Jim Lawson had taught
him well.
So when Lewis and Hosea
Williams led the trek across the bridge and the police began
assaulting the peaceful assembly with batons and tear gas,
they were prepared. Blood fell on the bridge as marchers
were beaten, sprayed with tear gas, and nearly trampled by
horses proof of the disrespect that was being shown to God
and to the fight for justice.
That John Lewis practiced
nonviolence, in the most violent of situations, bound him to
the ancestors throughout life as he was often beaten to try
to shut him down. It was as though the ancestors looked down
upon him and encouraged him, perhaps making him hum the song
to himself, “I don’t feel noways tired” although he had to
have been exhausted.
So when he crossed that
bridge for the last time, the wheels of the wagon rolling
over those rose petals, even as the wagon-driver stood up
and took his hat off to honor Lewis’ sacrifice and physical
pain he endured on March 5, 1965, it was not difficult to
feel the respect for this man and difficult not to think of
how blood shed for worthy causes has a different scent, one
which lasts forever. Droplets of Lewis’ blood will forever
sprinkle on that bridge, sweetened, perhaps, with the scent
of crushed rose petals.
W.E.B. DuBois once said
that the religious life of Americans “did not begin in
America because it was built…on the religious heritage of
Africa.” DuBois said that the Black Christian church which
came to be in this country was not Christian, but African,
placing a “veneer of Christianity upon the ongoing
adaptation of indigenous African and beliefs under slavery.”
The ancestors kept us all
connected, the “earth family” to the “cloud family.” The
Yoruba of Africa “believed in God [and] made that divinity
the foundation of organized political belief and state
building.” Throughout the history of black people in this
country, the ancestors shared their very breath with those
who fought against hatred and bigotry, their breath giving
the children on the ground the strength they needed to carry
on. The ancestors reminded the children on the ground that
over their heads there was a God. They let them know that
the scent of their blood had reached the nostrils of God and
that God was with them.
The ancestors let the
children know …that they were not alone.
The rose petals on the
Edmund Pettus Bridge were a reminder that blood had been
spilled, and that their scent would forever reach the
nostrils of God. The scent of the blood spilled by all of us
ever reaches God. On Sunday, the wheels of the wagon
carrying Rep John Lewis’ body crushed some of the petals,
but neither the wheels nor the wagon were able to crush the
scent of suffering; it cannot be erased or diluted. God is
and has been the foundation of our organized political
belief, as DuBois noted, and God will not only always see
our suffering but will also smell it and in
response, send the Holy Spirit to strengthen us for the
work.
Amen and amen.
Rev. Dr. Susan K Smith is an ordained minister who is also
an author, writer, and speaker, who concentrates on the
intersectionality of race, politics and religion. Currently
working on a biography of Rev. C.T. Vivian, she is the
author of several books including "Rest for the
Justice-Seeking Soul." She is the communications consultant
for the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc., and also
co-chair of the Minority Outreach subcommittee for the
Nonpartisan Ohio Voter Outreach Committee (NOVOC). Smith is
available for speaking, and can be reached at
revsuekim@sbcglobal.net.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org |
