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The music we’ll hear today comes from one of the new leaders to emerge on the national scene from the massive uprisings against the murders of Black people by police. In the late summer of 2014, Rev. Sekou went directly to Ferguson, along with thousands of others, to participate in the extremely important uprising that was taking place in that city. He represented the Fellowship of Reconciliation (see Love in a Dangerous Time #51) on the streets, in the meetings and in jail.
He was troubled by the way the clergy was being used by the “civic” leaders to stifle the uprising, and after an open letter was published denouncing him as an outside agitator who would not forswear violence, he wrote a response that was published all over the internet explaining that the role of the clergy and the Church should be to stand with
the protesters in such an important struggle. (See the link to the letter below.) The letter was published far and wide on the internet, and to my mind is the twenty-first century version of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
In order to fill in some cultural gaps, and to provide some powerful music for the struggle, he turned to another important part of his life, music, and recorded a really great Blues album, “The Revolution is Here.”
In this episode we’ll talk about the letter and the album. Even better, Lovers, we’ll hear a couple of cuts. So fasten your seatbelts. Here comes “We Comin’” from “The Revolution is Here, by Reverend Sekou and The Holy Ghost.
Links:
Rev. Sekou’s article: The clergy’s place is with the protesters in Ferguson, (on Patheos)
The album: The Revolution Has Come, by Rev. Sekou & The Holy Ghost (on Amazon)
Sekou’s blog (on Fellowship of Reconciliation) – forusa.org/blog/osagyefo-uhuru-sekou
Facebook: facebook.com/revsekou/
Twitter: @RevSekou
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