Strange Fruit: On the Execution of Troy Anthony Davis

Like so many others, I greeted the news on Tuesday that the Board of Pardons and Paroles for the state of Georgia had refused to grant Troy Anthony Davis clemency with shock and sadness. Wednesday morning I awoke with feelings of even deeper sadness and physical malaise. I knew that just at about the time when our congregation would be concluding our weekly prayer time and beginning our time of study, prison officials would place Troy Davis in the death chamber, strap him to a gurney, and administer a lethal cocktail of drugs that would first anesthetize him and then paralyze all his muscles, including his heart. I hoped against hope that the outcome might be different. I prayed and cried with my wonderful church family and kept vigil, sighing with relief momentarily when the clock struck 7:10 and he was still alive. Later, at home, I learned that following the refusal of a stay by the United States Supreme Court, that lethal cocktail had been administered and at 11:08 p.m. on 21 September 2011, Troy Anthony Davis was pronounced dead.

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I can remember. In 1995, while I was in seminary, I preached a sermon at Judson Memorial Church based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 7 “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” The sermon was titled "Strange Fruit" from the song about lynching that Billie Holliday made famous. In that sermon, I made the point that resonates even more powerfully for me today: our system of capital punishment is a bad tree and no good fruit can come of it.

Patricia J. Williams made the point poignantly in a review essay called "The Executioner's Automat" published on 10 July 2005 in The Nation magazine: "But it is democracy that dies when we become a nation of heartbroken vengeance-seekers. The seduction of the “string ’emup” mentality is not that it’s “frontier” Justice in some cruel, cartoon-ish way. Its appeal is precisely that it is a response of insatiable sorrow, immediate payback; it is heroically grief-stricken rather than reasoned. Moreover, the rage for retribution risks obscuring the possibility of innocence, the need for due process, the presence of mitigating circumstances and the dubiety of crooked informants. And in its most extreme forms, the bloodlust risks being used to justify thestate practice of sadism upon all those guilty bodies so needing to be beaten, so asking to be broken. We despise murderers, we hate. But there is some point at which the despising takes on a life of its own; when the death-dealing actually becomes satisfying and eventually pleasurable. "

The execution of Troy Davis involved all of the dangers that Williams suggested, from the real possibility of innocence to the lack of due process to the dubiety of informants. The state's act was bad fruit from a bad tree. All state-sponsored murder is bad fruit. Racially biased sentencing is bad fruit. A vengeful public, evinced in the gleeful cheering of Governor Rick Perry’s woeful record of death in Texas by the audience at the Republican debates, is bad fruit. A disinterested public, demonstrated in the lack of attention to two other executions this week, is bad fruit. No ultimate public good can come from such a bad tree. It is making something of us and our democracy that is grotesque and evil. The only solution for us as a nation is to cut down and uproot the tree of capital punishment.

The Help: In Praise of Labor Done with Excellence

After a couple weeks avoiding it and another couple of weeks resigned to seeing it because I promised someone I would, I finally got to the movies today to see The Help, the blockbuster film based on the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett. Turns out Labor Day was exactly the right day for me to see it, because it helped me to focus on what The Help really was about, that is, work done well.

I avoided the film initially because I am persuaded that these feel-good treatments of black life and racism are actually counterproductive to real discussion of race relations. Sharper minds (and pens) than mine have eloquently articulated exactly what is wrong with the book and the film beginning with its ahistorical assumptions and its light treatment of the civil rights struggle.

For those of you who have been under a rock for the last few months, The Help focuses on a young white woman known as Skeeter (or Miss Skeeter to all the black characters) who after graduating from Ole Miss in the early 1960s is trying to make her living as a writer. Motivated in part by her grief over the unexpected loss of her own nanny, she choses to confront in subversive ways (never overtly) the racism and injustice inherent in the relationship between her junior league friends (perniciously headed by their president Hilly Holbrook) and the women who work in their homes. To prove yet again that the pen is mightier than the sword, and implicitly to suggest that it might even be mightier than the civil rights demonstrations, Skeeter interviews "the help," the community of African American women who make their living taking care of white people like herself. Please note that I said that the book and the movie are about Skeeter, not about the black women. Although Viola Davis renders the most noteworthy (Oscar worthy?) performance as Aibileen, the central black character and one of the narrators in the novel and the movie, this movie is decidedly NOT about black women or their perspective, since everything about her and her life, including the things we hear in her voice, focuses on white people. How we are told she feels about her work, especially about the children for whom she cares, is a obviously a figment of the fantasy life of white people like Stockett who hope that the black people who worked for them loved them.

This brings me to the primary point of this blog posting, that is, the under-appreciated and under-paid but powerful and life-giving professionalism of people who care for other people for a living — a fitting subject for Labor Day. This struck me particularly forcefully at the the end of the film (spoiler alert) when Aibileen loses her job taking care of the Leefolt family. The film focuses on the goodbye between Aibileen and the toddler Mae Mobley with tear-jearking melodrama that implies heartbreak for Aibileen who is losing a(nother) beloved child. What I realized, though, is that however much the child may be heartbroken at having lost the one person in the world who understands that she (and all children) has inherent human worth (too bad her parents didn't figure that out), the caring between Aibileen and the child is born of the WORK of caregiving done so well that it looks and feels like love to the object of the caring, whether it is or not. In another instance, the work of Skeeter's caregiver Constantine looked and felt so much like love that Skeeter actually imagined that her maid Constantine died of heartbreak at having to leave her to live with her own daughter.

That's the beauty of caring work that is done with excellence; it always looks so much like love that it is easy to forget that it's work, sometimes back-breaking, soul-numbing, spirit-exhausting hard work. Ironically, because of this beneficiaries of the labor end up devaluing it. Because it is so well done that it looks easy, they take it for granted and oftentimes resist remunerating it for what it's actually worth or even for what was agreed upon.

The teacher does her/his job with such grace and love that we imagine simply that she/he was born to teach and refuse to acknowledge the painstaking attention and even special study required to deliver lessons that make sense to individual children. The pastor ministers with both fire and gentleness and we acknowledge that the Lord has called and gifted her/him, but we forget that she/he has invested a lifetime of study (with degrees and student loans to prove it), along with hours of prayer and the burden of being on call as well as being called. The list goes on and you can feel free to add to it in the comments section.

By pointing out that work can look like love, I don't mean to suggest that professionalism and genuine human love and affection are necessarily mutually exclusive, only that the latter is nearly totally irrelevant to the point if the working person does her/his job well. I want to know that daycare providers will make a child feel loved whether they like that child or not. I want to know that teachers will teach every student whether their personalities jibe or not. I want to know that hospital and nursing home aides will treat vulnerable patients with kindness and compassion whether or not the patient elicits warm feelings. Finally, I want to insist that those who do this work and all work that makes our lives possible should be treated with dignity and have their professional excellence honored with decent pay and benefits. Happy Labor Day!

Some Thoughts about Education

It has been a long time since I have had the mental energy to attend to this blog. This is in part because as a pastor who preaches most every Sunday, a lot of my creative energy goes into the work of reading, listening, and developing preachments for the congregation with whom the Lord has called me to serve. It is also because I have a hard time putting things out that are not fully formed and thought through. Today, however, I just have a few things that I want to get off my chest.

For the last few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about public education in the United States. Less than a month ago, I preached a sermon about brain drain, the experience of knowledge loss in students that is related to the three-month break between June and September that is a part of USA public school policy. A teacher in the congregation confessed that she tensed up when I first began talking about brain drain because she expected me to join the bandwagon of blaming teachers for every problem with students' achievement, even aspects that they do not control. That teacher has good reason to feel that way because of the ongoing discussions in the bordering state of New Jersey as well as nationally about the role of teachers unions in advancing or inhibiting essential good teaching. Last week I had the privilege of hearing a learned group of sociologists and education specialists debate the sources of and solutions for the gap between the achievement of black and brown students and their white and Asian counterparts. Finally, there's the fact that Philadelphia has, once again, parted ways with its school superintendent. After a scant three years in office but a plethora of political and administrative problems, Dr. Arlene Ackerman has taken a negotiated buyout and is leaving the helm of the School District of Philadelphia.

I have some thoughts that I want to put out.

First, we have to stop scapegoating working people, blaming them for structural, political, and economic problems over which they have little or no control. That we have come to a point in our national and local politics when our default position is to resent and penalize people who work for us, as civil servants, teachers, fire fighters, police officers, postal workers, or retirees from those positions and seek to balance budgets by cutting their pay and benefits while we continue to invest in the very corporate structures and moguls who caused the economic downturn in the first place is a scandal.

Second, while reasonable people agree that accountability is appropriate in every position, including teachers, we must acknowledge that we don't have real good ways of measuring teacher success. Criticisms of standardized testing abound and we cannot ignore the increasing numbers of alleged and proven test-cheating scandals. Diane Ravitch, a George H.W. Bush appointee and former advocate of testing makes a compelling case for the problems with using test scores punitively in this NPR interview. Meanwhile, Ravitch also points out that an enormous amount of money is going into the test project.

Third, Waiting for Superman's reviews notwithstanding, the jury is really out about charter schools as a solution. Although there are some very good charter schools, there are also some very bad ones, just as is the case in general for public schools.

Here's my concern: we're pouring money and false hope into a few faddish solutions that haven't been proven and in some senses have been disproven. We need our public policy people, our educational policy people, and our communities to get together and make sure we support things that have already been proved to be beneficial, e.g. early childhood education. We need to attend to the relationship between the structure of our school year and the loss of learning, especially for poor children who don't have interesting and enlightening summer experiences. And we need to insist that our representatives stop balancing budgets on the backs of public workers and the poorest people whom they serve. We also need to figure out a comprehensive from the cradle system of education and support for children and their parents. I know that this will cost money, but it's money that we cannot afford not to spend; we just have to spend it wisely.

My two cents as a citizen.

I. Am. Still. Waiting.

I. Am. Still. Waiting. Here again another Advent season begun, its commencement marking not only a prelude to the celebration of Christmas but also to the anniversary of my birth. And I am still waiting.

Here's the thing: When I first thought about the fact that I am still waiting for so many things, not least of which is the coming of Jesus Christ, I thought that I would really be posting an extended lament or at least a complaint, possibly a rant. I thought I would be more in the frame of mind to be saying "I can't believe that another year has come and gone and all these things still haven't happened." But at this moment, that's not how I feel at all. I feel like celebrating.

I AM STILL WAITING. I haven't given up on any of it. I am still hopeful. Still faithful. Still optimistic. Still determined. Still alert. Still watchful. My ears still perk up at the sound of approaching footsteps. My heart still skips a beat when someone or something new surprises and delights me. My eyes still tear up with joy at the very thought when we sing "O I Want to See Him." I still love love songs.

God knows that I have had some moments between November 2009 and November 2010 when I have considered quitting. But thinking about quitting and quitting are not the same thing. Despair ultimately has not won the day. I am still waiting.

And the longer I wait the stiller I am.

For Friends

I tell everybody that I am not a big fan of the holidays and yet I appreciate the opportunity that holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries give me for rethinking and reevaluating where I am, how I am, and who I am. Thanksgiving is a good time to pause and reconnect with all the blessings of my life, to express my gratitude to God and to my people for the immeasurable beauty in my life.

One such moment occurred today, as I sat at lunch with my college roommate and dear friend Debby and her family. My joy in the visit began after her 2 year old informed me that she didn't like me within the first three minutes of our meeting. Well, it wasn't her toddler thumbs down that did it; it was her mother's observation that she only dislikes "young" women, of the age when they might turn out to be babysitters. Nina thought my arrival might just represent temporary maternal abandonment. Delightful.

Later, Deb and her husband and I were reflecting on the fact that we have known one another for more than 20 years. Debby and I explained to everyone that Harvard in its infinite wisdom had merged our two chosen rooming groups together - of course without asking us. I said, "It's one of the best things that has ever happened to me." Misty-eyed, Debby jumped up to hug me - "Me too," she said. We've shared the blessings of friendship for more than half our lives. And I didn't even mention how dearly I love her husband Ian too, or how beautiful their five-year-old son Micah is - even wearing a San Francisco Giants hat. I didn't say that the very first time I had Thanksgiving with a family other than my own, I was in Brooklyn with her family.

I have more friends and better friends than anyone has a right to have. For every one of them I am thankful. You know who you are.

Remembering Dr. Dorothy Height

One of the things I learned being raised by and among church-going black folks is that often when you don’t know where to start, the best thing to say is “I thank the Lord for being here.” Yes, indeed, I thank the Lord for being here is the very best way to begin my reflections on the experience of the past two days, when I was privileged to attend the celebrations of the life of Dr. Dorothy Irene Height. I thank the Lord for the unshakeable impulse to be in the number, present bodily with those who journeyed to Washington, D.C. to celebrate a woman who spent the overwhelming majority of her 98 years striving for justice, from the anti-lynching campaigns of the 1930s to the civil rights and women’s rights struggles. I thank the Lord for the resources of time and money, strength and energy, to make this pilgrimage. I thank the Lord for grace and favor embodied in friends and strangers who provided lodging, entrance, seats, and tickets.



I arrived in Washington by train at about 11 a.m. on Wednesday, 28 April 2010, with the plan to meet a relatively new friend who would provide both company and transportation for the memorial events. As soon as I got into the car, she decided that our day should begin with a trip to 633 Pennsylvania Avenue, the headquarters for the National Council of Negro Women, the site where Dr. Height had given so much of her labor. Although the building was closed, we arrived just at the time when Dr. Height's remains were to be transported from NCNW, where she had been honored the night before.

From the NCNW building, we journeyed to Howard University’s Burr Gymnasium where the members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. conducted the Omega Omega service, the final rite of passage to which every Delta is entitled, for Dr. Height. Dr. Height had served our sorority as the 10th National President from 1947-1956, and had in that period shepherded the organization into greater public service and institutional stability. Dorothy Height was herself an institution in Delta, dearly beloved and sought after, the very sight of her at a national convention or regional conference an important event.

Her service began promptly at 2 o’clock, under the leadership of the 24th National President, Dr. Cynthia Butler-McIntyre, with the eulogy being offered by the 16th National President, Dr. Thelma Daley. Other Past National Presidents offered reflections. Bishop Vashti Murphy MacKenzie, Delta’s National Chaplain, led the prayers.

There were many highlights of the service and many memorable moments. Particularly moving was the letter of tribute sent by the 11th National President, Dorothy Penman Harrison, who had been the National Treasurer when Dr. Height was President. She told the story of the purchase of Delta’s first headquarters building, including a humorous observation about the amazement of the realtor when three black women showed up to view the property and were able to write the deposit check for $1000 on the spot. Each speaker offered her own tribute to the dignity, determination, commitment, and fortitude of Dr. Height. Several commented on her indomitable spirit and boundless energy. All agreed that it was impossible to tell her no. The 19th National President Dr. Yvonne Kennedy offered one of the many quotable statements: “All Deltas are smart. Dorothy Height was brilliant.” Interspersed in the service was the musical offering of a quartet from the Philadelphia Alumnae Chapter, three of whom I am proud to say are my line sisters. Their harmonies, like the service itself and the woman it honored, were exquisite. Especially moving and fitting was the singing of “Grateful” as the violets were placed next to a portrait of Dr. Height by former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman. Following the singing of the Delta Prayer, the service concluded with the combination of solemnity and buoyancy as the pallbearers removed Dorothy Height’s remains and the rest of us felt the inspiration and joy of knowing the impact that her life had made on Delta and on us all.

The Best of 2009

Early last year, I wrote on my Facebook page that I believed that "2009 is going to be really special." It was far more than special. It was extraordinary, marvelous, amazing, blessed. Last year was a simultaneously a year of fulfilled promise and growing expectation.

St. Paul's Baptist Church




Without a doubt, the major highlight of the year centered on my call and installation as the Fifth Pastor of the St. Paul's Baptist Church, 1000 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, PA. In reflecting on why this was a "best of" moment, I really have to start with the search process itself and the way that, because of the committee's treatment of me, many wounded places were healed, even before I received the call. To be treated with respect by a search committee, to have one's gifts and worth and dignity honored matters, whether one ultimately becomes their choice or not. By the time it was clear in April that I was one of the final two candidates, I already had much to thank God and St. Paul's for. I walked through the doors of St. Paul's for the first time on April 14th. On April 19th, I preached there for the first time and talked about God's ability to restore our faith even in the midst of our despair. Beyond our imaginations, I testified, God knows how to make believers out of us.

On Sunday, 17 May 2009, the St. Paul's Baptist Church extended to me a call to become their pastor. After I had verbally accepted the call in a conversation with Deacon Jackson, the chair of the deacons, I called Reverend Charisse Tucker, and we went down to St. Paul's so that I could take pictures of my new church. Here's one of my favorites.

I began my pastorate at St. Paul's on Pentecost Sunday, 31 May 2009. Friends from around the region came to share with St. Paul's and me as we began our journey together, and I had the blessed surprise of a visit from the venerable and legendary Rev. Dr. Henry Mitchell who offered the pastoral prayer. Thanks to the wonderful public relations work of Leslie Patterson -Tyler, we had extensive media coverage, including an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I preached a sermon titled "It's Time" about the fulfillment of God's promise in the birth and empowerment of the church. Following the church-sponsored reception after service, my friends and I went to Maggiano's for some serious eating. Below are pictures of me in the sanctuary, the congregation at worship, and my friends after Maggiano's. What a glorious day!





Just when I thought that the celebratory feeling would overwhelm me at St. Paul's, then the funeral season began. I was privileged to preside at several funerals during my first two months at St. Paul's, which allowed me to get a feel for the congregation. It also allowed the congregation to get a real feel for me. I am particularly mindful of the funeral for Mrs. Clara Gilliam Lightfoot, about whom I blogged here.

After a much busier summer than I anticipated, the time for the installation arrived. I need to admit that although I was really hearing a promise from God that the installation festivities would be heavy with the divine presence, I still had some anxiety as the day approached. We began the month of September with a series of pre-installation revival services and were blessed by the preaching of my friends Reverends Ernest Flores, Jacob Chatman, and Alyson Browne Johnson. Each brought his or her own special flavor to the moment, and the worship grew increasingly intense from week to week.

The installation weekend began on Friday, 25 September, with a youth concert designed to benefit Philabundance, Philadelphia's largest hunger relief agency. Although there were many challenges in the planning of it, even up to the last minute, once the event began it was marvelous. We were blessed with the ministry of Minister Antonio and his group. We heard Chad Sisk. Shadia Combs presented spoken word. And our own children's choir sang beautifully. We raised $1000 and a great deal of nonperishable food items. Most of all, God's presence was thick in the room. Within 20 minutes of the service's beginning, I knew that the whole weekend would be unforgettable.

I don't want to go through a blow-by-blow of every event. Let me just offer some observations. My friends who spoke, whether at the banquet or in the installation, gave a rounded picture of who I am. It was fun to hear about the Leslie, the Rev., the Professor. But they did even more than that because they helped me to remember aspects of my own self and story that I hadn't thought about for a long time and that I needed to remember. The support of my family, whose pride beamed like a spotlight, induced gratitude and healed old wounds. The preaching of Reverend Dr. Raphael Warnock who preached the temptation at the luncheon; Reverend Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr., who preached about Phoebe on Sunday morning; and Reverend Felicia Y. Thomas who preached about higher ground at the installation service, inspired, provoked, corrected, and encouraged. And the generosity the congregation, from the cards to the offering to the Phillies playoff tickets (from the installation committee) showed me how blessed I am to have become St. Paul's pastor. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

I do have to say a word about the actual service of installation: AMAZING. The turnout of clergy who came to support me, including women in ministry - some of whom I didn't even know - blessed me tremendously. I was especially encouraged by the elders: St. Paul's Pastor Emeritus Rev. Dr. Arthur Lee Johnson, who offered greetings and his blessing, and the Rev. Dr. Henry Mitchell, who prayed the prayer of installation. The support of my family reinforced the sense of blessedness and favor. The joyful worship encouraged my heart and exalted the Lord. (Perhaps those of you who were there and who read this would like to elaborate more on the specifics, but amazing is about all I can say.)

The installation really was a kickoff to the ministry. Since then, we have grown numerically. Our worship is intensifying, even though we were without a permanent minister of music for the last 3 months of the year. The work of pastoring is showing me more and more about my own strengths and weaknesses. Mostly, I am learning that this really is Jesus' show. We are going somewhere, but I am not driving. I too am a passenger, and I am enjoying the ride.

Best Sports Experience - My Beloved Phillies

My love for the Phillies only grew this past year. And because I was not the only one who was loving on them, it was very difficult to get tickets at Citizens Bank Park to see them play.
Seeing the Phillies in Pittsburgh and then in the playoffs at Citizens Bank Park (thanks to the generosity of the installation committee) was so much fun. I am only sorry that they did not beat my American League team the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Best Meals

During restaurant week in Philadelphia on September 18, I went to Amada a Spanish tapas restaurant. The food was magnificent. From the lavender-infused honey to the cafe con leche with dessert, this is just marvelous eating. I also want to give an honorable mention to Honey's Sit and Eat, which is near the church.

I have to say, though, that on a consistent basis the food, fun, laughter, and fellowship at the home of Deborah and Ernie Flores during the weekly Monday night taco nights represents the best eating I do from week to week.

Best Medical Procedure

I know that sounds crazy, but I needed to be able to say something about finally having my wisdom teeth extracted.F

Best Sermons/Lectures I Heard

I have to give a major shout out to the the Hampton Ministers Conference, where the President Rev. Dr. William Curtis, along with morning preacher Rev. Dr. Claudette Copeland and conference presenter/prophet Rev. Dr. Renita J Weems brought it with prophetic power, passion, clarity, brilliance, and anointing.

Just as I did last year, I need to note the consistent preaching of Rev. Dr. Albert F. Campbell and District Elder Brenda (Birdie) Cuthbertson. District Elder Cuthbertson brought an extraordinary word at Easter "Same Story, Different Ending." That was some preaching!


Turning Forty

My last comment about 2009 is that I turned 40 in the midst of a record-setting snowstorm that ruined my plans to spend my 40th birthday with my new church family. Despite my disappointment, I had a marvelous day, as some dear friends braved the snow to bring my gifts and take me to dinner. See me on my 40th birthday at Maggiano's below.