A pastor’s reflections from Brunswick, Georgia prayer vigil for Ahmaud Arbery’s family
The trip November 18, 2021, to Brunswick, Georgia, was very important as it relates to making sure that justice will be served for all people and especially Black people facing a judicial system that has been historically unjust to African Americans. For a lawyer to call out Black pastors by saying “We don’t need Black pastors coming here” was insulting, unacceptable and unprofessional in these racially charged times.
It is not a good strategy to tell men and women of the cloth where we can and can’t go. We have heard this kind of dog whistling far too often. Once upon a time we couldn’t serve on a jury; we couldn’t vote; we were forbidden to learn to read; we couldn’t go to certain schools, hotels, or restaurants. Thank God! Those days are in the past, but there is a movement in this country to turn back the proverbial clock of racial justice, equality and freedom.
Black pastors and many White pastors were outraged by the defense lawyer’s comments. As a pastor, it is my spiritual calling to stand with our members in their times of great distress and pain. We came in great numbers, over 300 Black pastors to simply say “We ain’t going to let nobody turn us around.” What happened to Mr. Ahmaud Marquez Arbery in my opinion, was unjustifiable and unfortunate. Jogging while Black shouldn’t be a death sentence. This citizen’s arrest law has a rotten history of “rounding up” former enslaved Blacks and bringing them back to the plantation. These three White men on trial for killing Mr. Arbery, caught on video, must be held accountable.
It was incumbent upon the civil rights leadership, Black and White religious leadership and fair-minded people of all races and religions to address any form of systemic racism. Also, some Black pastors strongly adhere to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he wrote his prophetic letter from the Birmingham jail on toilet paper. He said, “I have come to Birmingham because a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Hundreds of Black pastors came to Brunswick, Georgia, to ensure that Lady Justice will remain absolutely blind.
Rev. Dr. RB Holmes is pastor at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Fla.
