Who are you?

Darryl Cummings, I am the board treasurer [of Missouri Faith Voices].

How did you get to Missouri Faith Voices?

Our previous executive director who I knew also from seminary, she was very persuasive. I think is the “THING” of Missouri Faith Voices is to be very persuasive. She invited me, I couldn’t say no and here I am.

How was Missouri Faith Voices born?

Missouri Faith Voices was born in struggle. It was born in response to the needs of the community, and particularly people who weren’t getting access to healthcare like they should have. Clergy in Missouri responded in faith, you know, hence the name. So I’m gonna refer to a text in my tradition. I am Christian and Jesus tells a story about a woman who pestered, an unjust judge, who finally gave the woman justice, if nothing else, just to get the woman to leave him alone. So to me, what this, what this organization means , is that even if we’ve got to pest you, and you’ll give us justice just to leave you alone, then that’s what this organization means to me.

What is your fondest memory while being at Missouri Faith Voices?

You know, I’m tempted to say, something about a win, like a legislative win or whatever, but, that’s not what’s really sticking with me. What’s sticking with me is some feedback and just came up in conversation with somebody else affiliated with the org. And the person said to me is that it’s not about the wins, it’s about the work. And to me that just epitomized what this organization is about. You know, of course we want the wins, of course we want to see fruit and victory from our struggle . But, really what it’s about is about building those relationships.
It’s about doing the work that faith has called us to do.

I’m Reverend Susan Schmalzbaur. I’m currently on the board of directors. I became involved with Missouri Faith Voices because my pastor at my church got an email and he told me about this group that was happening in our community. And it was about really working for justice in Missouri, and he thought I’d be interested, so I went to the meeting.

And there were all kinds of pastors and people from the community, people from the Jewish community were there. People from all walks of Christianity were there. And it was people who were concerned about really doing and working for justice in Missouri. They were concerned about things like making sure people got healthcare because currently people did not have access to the healthcare that they needed.

Missouri would not expand Medicaid like the rest of the country and so we were meeting on those kinds of things. It was born because people saw pain, people saw their neighbors in pain. People seeing that people didn’t have access to healthcare. I don’t know how many pastors that I met through my work that they had. Members who were in debt and when they found out why, they discovered that they had fallen victim to predatory lending. There were things that were unjust. And so people came together based on their faith to say something about that. And so faith voices gave space for people to really see these issues, see these issues for what they were, and look for solutions. 

And one of the really beautiful things about Missouri Faith Voices. Is just the model of organization that the people closest to the pain are the ones who are needed to be responsible for the solutions.

Missouri Faith Voices gave people closest to the pain, the space, the opportunity to use their voices. And so through this work I’ve seen people share their stories to the people who make decisions and their stories move people in a way that is powerful. It’s strong, it’s mystery, it’s everything. And I think, you know, that’s why Missouri Faith Voices, it’s that connection that you don’t have to leave your faith at the door. When you see something that needs to change, that your faith can have something to say about what is going wrong in our society. That faith has space in the public square. That’s really why Missouri Faith Voices was born, because our faith has something to say about how our state, our country, our cities are run. 

I think my proudest moment in Missouri Faith Voices was seeing a woman who had been a victim of predatory lending be able to tell her story in front of the city council, and when she was speaking, you could hear a pin drop because it was only her voice.

Continuing to take the next step, continuing to be a place where people are able to voice their faith in connection with public policy. Continue engaging, persevering, continuing to stay for that next step. For that next time, continuing to stand up. What does it mean to me? Well, what it means to me as it was a place where I first heard my call to ministry the strongest. I don’t think I would be a pastor right now. I would not be in seminary right now without the experience of interacting with pastors who took their faith seriously and concerns about conditions for their neighbors here right now. So I guess it means my call.

Reverend W.T. Edmonson is the Vice President of Missouri Faith Voices and serves as Interim Pastor of Second Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Missouri. He sat down to talk to us about his favorite moments at Missouri Faith Voices and the importance of listening to communities.

I am the current Vice President of Missouri Faith Voices.I guess I’ve been on the board for 10 or 11 years. And prior to that I was on the founding group of Faith Voice for Jefferson City. And from there I moved on to the state board Missouri Faith Voices, we, we really came out of the organizing group CCO out of Kansas City who came to Jefferson City to see whether there was a possibility of establishing a faith-based group in Jefferson City.

From that we established an organizing group and we reached out to various church members and individuals in the community who we knew were interested in justice. So we were doing some basically local issues and had some success. And then as the state began to grow they asked me if I would be willing to come onto the board.

I am the former president of the NAACP in Jefferson City. Served for maybe four and a half to five years. And so after leaving there, it was. It provided a venue for me to continue the social justice work, not just as an individual, but as an organization.

And so being able to then come onto the state having a broader scale that would be able to actually impact the state and understanding that by having a statewide organization people of faith demonstrating the importance of social justice issues being able to address issues that individuals may feel that they don’t have the power to address for themselves.

And so Missouri Faith Voices, we not only speak for you, but we speak with you trying to get individuals to understand the importance of speaking for yourself and, you know, recruiting individuals, getting them to become activists in their own communities. Being able to identify issues that maybe the board doesn’t even recognize is an issue.

By having those tentacles out in the community, then they can feed back to us. We can really address some issues, maybe even short circuit some problems before they actually become major issues. And so there ‌ are many issues that Missouri Faith Voices can address that other organizations will address from their perspective. But we will be able to address those issues from a faith perspective. We were basically addressing local issues. And then as we became Faith Voice for Jefferson City being a part of a state organization, then we started to address statewide issues and get hot on the dynamics within the state at that time.

One example was Medicaid expansion. So the state had made it known that they were not going to expand Medicaid. And so visiting the capitol, sending letters sending letters to the editor, all of those things simply did, had no impact. And so the board decided to reach out to the faith community, and say, “we are going to convene in Jefferson City. We’re going to protest in the state Senate.” And so we met at First Baptist Church and received our instructions. We sent a delegation in advance to the state capitol to talk to Capitol Police saying we are coming and going to protest.

They were told, “okay, they will be arrested.” And we told ’em we were gonna be in the clinic gallery. And so they said, “well, once you start protesting for the police to come and tap you on your shoulder, that means that you are under arrest and you follow the officer.”

So we went into the state Senate to start. Praying, chanting, and singing. And the Lieutenant Governor, he was a senator at that time. And he pounded the gavel, and pounded the gavel, and pounded the gavel, and went to recess. And so we were then under arrest.

There were 23 of us, and we became known as ‌”Medicaid 23.” That had some impact, but one thing that we found is it takes more than the demonstration to impact legislators. 

They’re not concerned about being voted out. And so we have to continue to find ways of impacting everyday citizens to vote individuals out who don’t represent them. And so that’s where we are now with Missouri Faith Voices trying to galvanize individuals to understand that the decisions that legislatures make are one thing, but the decisions that your mayor and your city council people make impact you directly in the community that you live in. So being on the ground letting people know that there are people of faith who live out our faith.

And there is so much work to be done, but we have to be strategic. In the work that we select to do, if we’re going to be effective. I think our first steps are to decide on the issues that we are going to address. Once we identify those issues‌, then to do some strategic planning behind those issues.

How are we going to attack those issues? How are we going to galvanize the community behind the issues that we’ve identified? And the key is not to identify issues that the community or the citizens are not interested in dealing with. So we have to engage ‌communities to say what’s important to you.

And once we find out what’s important to them, it is much easier for us to get them on board. And so once we get on board, we will be able to then identify those issues strategically. A layout, a plan that we are going to work. And I do mean work. Setting a strategic plan on paper is one thing, but working on that strategic plan is another.

So that’s where I think our goals are now, is to really identify the things that we are going to attack. This year and the years to come. A long-range plan is very important because if you don’t have a long-range plan, issues can then distract you and you never get back to what you really want to do.

My fondest memory of Missouri Faith Voices is I protested in the Capitol and because that is something that was out of the ordinary. You do not see people of faith. You do not see pastors and ministers getting arrested for what they believe. And so we, we’ll hope that demonstration, that process of saying, I believe in what I say and I’m willing to go to jail for it.

I’m willing to take whatever consequences that the people in power say are the repercussions for what we do. We can’t be afraid to stand up because there may be repercussions. As people of faith, we know what the repercussions are. If our Lord and Savior was willing to give up his life for something. He had done nothing wrong, but he was willing to go to the cross anyway. And that’s where we have to be. We have to be able to bear the cross for people that we don’t know, individuals that we may not even know have a problem. But if the issue has come up and the issue has been elevated to the top, we have to be willing to stand alongside them and say, you are not by yourself.

You’re not alone. I’m willing to go down with you, even if it means going to jail with you.

Missouri Faith Voices is a federation of Faith in Action. To learn more, go to missourifaithvoices.org.

My name is Hajj Reza Nikumanesh. I’m the son of my parents. My father came to this country as a teenager, so I grew up in an immigrant household. What that means is you’re kind of trying to basically straddle between being enough of one thing or not too much of another. You’re told a lot of things like keep your head down and just work hard and do good and everything will be all right. We grew up in a household that didn’t really promote being active or making waves, and that didn’t really sit well with me. When I started to come into my early teens, things were happening around the world. Desert Storm was happening and that was shaking me. Mahmoud Abdulra, not that long after, is kicked out of the league because he’s not standing for an anthem. And I read the autobiography of Alhaj Malikil Shabbaz, the biography of Brother Malcolm X. These things, they start to touch me, influence me, push me to think about the world in a different way. I got into activism just because I was asked to show up at a march or asked to show up at a rally.

The particular first rally that I showed up for was around releasing Mumia Abu Jamal from death row. Obviously that still hasn’t happened all these years later. But there I showed up and I started to think about things in a different light. All of a sudden there’s these rallies around Palestine and what’s going on there. I’m getting involved, getting active, getting activated, and then I go through my studies, become who I am, get into my role, helping lead an Islamic center. And then I was approached by these two organizers, they kind of challenged me because here I was thinking I was an organizer because I was organizing rallies and protests, not understanding what organizing really was. And they started to ask me questions, and through those questions brought me into what then was called Faith in Community in Fresno, California, since merged with four other chapters to become Faith in the Valley, which is a Faith in Action Federation. And then that just took me off.

What was it like seeing what was happening with Mahmoud in basketball and stuff like that? How old were you when that happened?

So I’m talking late high school and possibly early college years. But it impacted me heavily because I can remember as early as 8th grade not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem at my school because I didn’t feel right about it. Not because I was driven by my faith or anything like that, but because I didn’t feel right about it. And then when the Gulf War took off, when I was in 9th grade, I guess, or 10th grade, seeing people stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of our class and we actually had TVs. So we were in class watching those missiles fly into targets, and it was disgusting to me, period. I hated it. I felt like people were celebrating the destruction of my people. So it was tough for me. But to see somebody like Mahmoud Abdul rahu, who was in line with the Muhammad Ali’s and the Jim Browns, the athlete activists, being able to stand up and make a change and fight and push and pride and ask the questions that needed to be asked and give answers that needed to be answered.

He did what nobody else was willing to do. I know it was said before, “he’s the Kaepernick, before there was a Kaepernick,” but imagine he’s at a time where he had no support, right? He didn’t have the support of the public. So just existing in that space and seeing what was happening to him, it was a source of power for me and a source of another realization that me as a Muslim in this country, we don’t belong. Or at least that’s what they tell us. And then 911 happens and we’re reminded again, you don’t belong. Before that, the World Trade Center bombings in 97, you don’t belong. The attack on the USS Coal, you don’t belong. Again, 911, you don’t belong. Everything that’s happened along the way has been a story of Muslims not belonging. And I was trying to wrestle through that. What does it mean to belong? Does that mean I just keep my head down like I was told as a kid that I just don’t make any waves? 

What is something you want people to know about your faith tradition?

Anybody who follows the faith tradition is going to say, there’s so much beauty. My faith is driven by justice and compassion, just like any other faith. But the call to justice, the push for justice, the scream for justice, the cry for justice is very clear in the Qur’an. Throughout the Quran, we’re called to do justice. We’re called to do justice work, particularly chapter 4, verse 135, where God states in the Quran, “o you who believe, stand up firmly for justice, witnesses for God, even if it’s against yourselves or your kin, whether one is rich or poor, for God is more worthy of both.” This call to stand up for justice is clear. It’s not an option. It’s not one of the things you could do. It’s a command. God then goes on to say, “and be aware, don’t let your own desires lead you to be of the unjust.” Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, has countless sayings about what it means to be just.

He also said, if you see an injustice in the land, then fix it with your hands. If you can’t fix it with your hands, then hate it in your speak against it with your tongue. And if you can’t speak against it with your tongue, then hate it in your heart. But that’s the least of our faith. So what kind of level of faith are you trying to be at? The greatest level of faith is to stop ‌injustice, to do something. The second level is to speak out against it, to be a voice for the oppressed, to stand up, to offer comfort to those who are struggling, and to warn those who are causing the struggle, causing the strife, causing the oppression.

So justice, the way that Islam encompasses the concept of justice as a command, as a clear command again and again and again, is something beautiful about my faith. It’s something that I’ve attached to. We live in a world full of injustice, and if we keep our heads down and do nothing, ‌injustice reigns. And whether or not we win in a little battle it’s a long game. Justice is a long game. So it’s up to everybody, particularly in these verses, to Muslims, to stand up and establish that justice, to fight against oppression.

How has your faith been misunderstood or twisted by people? 

I’m a Muslim living in the United States. I’m a Muslim living in this world, in this day and age. There’s not a point or turn or idea that hasn’t been misunderstood or twisted. They tell us you oppress your women. It’s not true. They tell us you have a violent religion. It’s not true. They tell us that you are backwards, that you are against modernity. It’s not true. It goes on and on and on. Now, some of that comes from within our tradition that some of those who claim to be Muslims, take parts of their faith and twist it to fit their own geopolitical goals. That’s the reality. But the larger reality is that for hundreds of years, I can go back to the expulsion of Muslims in Jerusalem and Jews, and then the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Spain all the way through the North Atlantic slave trade. And ever since Muslims have been in these lands, there has been a distinct sense of Islamophobia in the way that things are set up, run, operated, and instituted.

And that’s not any different today. So yes, 911 happened. It’s a terrible tragedy. One of the worst tragedies that our nation saw. However, the way that Muslims were portrayed after that as a general community and then attacked throughout the world, misunderstanding. If you look at every movie of that era, from the late nineties to the early 2010s, Muslims are the bad people, the bad guys in the movies. Every single time. If you look at the news, you see angry Muslims on the streets in different countries, yelling, screaming, angry. Never talked about why they were angry. Never talked about what brought them to the streets. Never talked to them about the economic conditions, ills, evils, and injustices that were brought upon them by white colonialism, white supremacy, imperialism, and still occupation. So my faith has been misunderstood all over the place, all over the board.

How do your days of remembrance or holy days or holidays in the month offer hope amid injustice happening throughout the world?

All right, the holiest month in the calendar for Muslims is the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is the name of a month. It’s the 9th lunar month in the Islamic calendar. And the word Ramadan is actually just the name of the month. Because we follow a lunar calendar, it comes at a different time each year. We spend 30 days fasting from dawn till dusk, from anything to eat, anything to drink, and sexual activity. Now, you might say that that’s a very personal thing. It’s a personal struggle, it’s a personal fight. It’s a personal attempt to control whatever it is that you’re trying to control in yourself. But Ramadan becomes a time of great community power. It becomes a time where people spend more time together, whether it be in prayer, whether it be in community, whether it be in learning circles, whether it be in reading the Holy Quran, whether it be in being with each other at the end of the night. And through that you start to talk about things that are happening around the world, right?

It becomes a sense that this Ramadan, the way I fasted today, the way I gave up food and drink, there’s people that don’t get to break their fast at the end of the day. There’s people around the world that don’t have food. There’s people around the world that don’t have potable water. There’s people around the world that don’t get to say, “I went one day without food or water and I get to break that fast.” They don’t get to break that fast. They have to continue. And a lot of that comes from systems, right? It’s not just that somebody doesn’t have food. There is a way that this world exists that allows certain people to have food and others not to. There’s a way that this world exists to ensure that some of us have clean potable water and some don’t. There’s systems in this world that exist to, that keep people away from basic medical needs, keep people away from access, economic success, that all of these exist. So, Ramadan, while it is a personal month of spiritual cleansing and reenergizing, it’s a public month in the way that we come together to think about the state of the world, the state of our community, the state of our affairs, and what God is calling us to do.

God is not calling us to just fast and do nothing afterwards. God is calling us to fast and pray and remember God. But why? So that we can stand up and do something about it, that we can stand up and do something to make a change, that we can stand up together as a community that are all struggling together and all going through such and such together, and now we can figure out, all right, that’s what we’re dealing with. How do we galvanize ourselves and our power to help those who can’t?

In your experience within your community, within the Muslim community, has there been a barrier in seeking justice? 

Absolutely. So the seeking out of justice is for the self and others, it’s for all of us. And the reality is that there’s just certain things that we don’t have access to. First of all, you have to think the Muslim community in the United States is very diverse. It’s the most diverse community in the United States, according to all statistics. So that means you have every kind of people represented in the Muslim community; White, black, Latinx, Asian, Middle Eastern, whoever they may be, they’re made up in these days in these united, yet to be, United States. The reality is that there are a lot in our community, or there are pockets in our community throughout these United States that are newly arrived refugee families, people that are coming as a result of the wars that we’ve inflicted in their regions, or the economic destruction that we have wrought upon their people. They then have to seek out solace, peace and safety, and then we bring them in. 

And the access to basic needs, or access to being able to just live them, being able to just set up a life and live here and move here and adapt to what’s here. I wouldn’t say it gets in the way of them being able to stand up and fight for justice. But when you can’t feed yourself, when you don’t know the language of the land and there’s no interpreters for you, because when they go to courts or social services, there’s no Arabic interpreters, there’s no Dari interpreters, right? There’s no Farsi Interpreters. Those things don’t exist for us in most of the country. So they don’t have access to the services they need. They’re struggling. They basically are just hoping that a mosque or a church can step up and help them. So when a family is in that mode, just that mode of survival, it becomes very difficult to activate them to fight for even what they need. So sometimes it becomes hard, even when you’re working with refugee populations, to tell them, “hey, we need to fight for XYZ” whatever that may be. We need to work on this. We need to try to change our immigration systems here.

And if all of your time is spent struggling so that your family can have basic needs, maybe there’s no space for them to be fighting. Which means that the rest of us, the rest of us that have the privilege of either citizenship or a green card or a permanent residence, whatever it may be, to fight for them and stand with them and be willing to stand and organize with them as soon as they’re ready.

What are the hopes for the future and what inspires you to continue to fight? What hope do you have for the future?

One of the great Muslim scholars and martyrs in these yet to be United States, alhaji Maliki al Shabaz brother, Malcolm X. He said, “we’re not outnumbered, we’re just out organized.” The reality is that we are still an unorganized people. We still don’t understand what it means to give everything that we have to give to build community power. And we need to heal. We need some healing first. The reality is that it’s really difficult to push forward before you have spent time healing whatever it is. So another saying by Brother Malcolm X, he said that if you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six, that’s not progress. If you pull the knife all the way out, that’s not progress. Progress is made by healing the wound made by the blow, and some people won’t even acknowledge that the knife is there. So the reality is that we need some healing. This system has shoved it’s ‌knife into our backs. Now, you can argue, have they pulled it out six inches and left three inches in? Have they pulled it all the way out? Are they even thinking about what it means to heal that wound? And then finally, when he says, and some won’t even acknowledge that it’s there, you and I know people that won’t even acknowledge that those systemic injustices exist. They’re unwilling to call out systemic level injustices because, hey, this is America. Everybody has the right to succeed. If you just work hard and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and all those other lies that they’ve been feeding us, the reality is we haven’t been healed yet, right? So we need to figure out how to heal. And my hope for the community and what keeps me fighting and motivated is that I want our communities to be healed. I want our communities to be able to have those knives pulled all the way out, the wounds healed. We’re going to have scars, right? That’s what happens with wounds, but at least they can be in the process of becoming a scar. So that way we can think forward, because it’s hard to think forward when you’re really so torn by what has happened in the past.

My hope, my drive is that we heal, that we heal as a society, that we heal as a people, so that we can go back to the first Malcolm saying, organize ourselves, because we’re not outnumbered. We’re just dealing with a whole bunch of trauma that’s stopping us from organizing. And my hope is that we can get past that trauma. We heal so that we can organize and then create the world that we want, the world that we all belong, the world that we all can exist, the world that you and I can just be because we are. That’s my hope for this world.

What is your advice for working with other faith traditions to work together and work toward a common goal?

People within our faith traditions don’t agree on everything. So how do we look at each other fully for who they are? By the way, I got to say this. I hate the saying, let’s just forget our differences and come to the table like, I want to be everything that’s me. So if I have to forget what makes me me to be at that table, I don’t want to be at that table. So be all you are. Let me be all that I am. Be everything that makes you you, and I’ll be everything that makes me me. And we’ll come together and figure out what we want to fight for together. And there we move into working together. The Quran. The Holy Quran. There are some interesting verses about the creation of humans. It says, “Oh, mankind, this is God speaking. Oh mankind, we created you from a single male and a single female. And then we divided you into tribes and nations so you would get to know one another.” That says many things to me.

First of all, it says that our creation was not an accident, that we were created with a purpose. Secondly, it says that the differences among us, our racial differences, our ethnic differences, our linguistic differences, our preferences, our religious differences, our ideological differences, even our political differences, those are not accidental. God said, I created you, then I separated you into tribes and nations. And then he tells us why he did it. He tells us the purpose. It’s not so that you and I would fight and figure out. God tells us that I did that so you would get to know one another, so that we would have these differences and get to know one another. And if we spend that time getting to know one another for who we are with everything that makes us us, that’s how we can build together across faith, tradition, ideology, and political lines. 

But at the end of the day, all of us want access to clean, drinkable water. All of us want access to these lands, to be able to vote right. We want voting rights for our people. All of us want our kindred to be able to migrate to these lands without having to struggle through a refugee and asylum process. We want people to be able to come because they want to build a life here. All of us want our kids to be safe. All of us want to be free from gun violence. All of us there’s so many things that all of us want. And if we can just move past those things or those mindsets that I’m trying to convince you to be on my path, if we can move past those things, then all those other things can be a reality. Like, we can end gun violence. We can end police brutality. We can end ‌prison systems and have bail reform or abolishment. We can end all of those things that get in the way of us existing in all that we want to be, but not if we’re working with other faith traditions to check a box or to tokenize or to say that we’re doing or to have some Kumbaya moment.

Denise Collazo has over 25 years of experience as an organizer and is currently the Chief of External Affairs for Faith in Action. She is a passionate advocate for women of color and the power that they bring to any space they are involved in. She recently wrote her book Thriving in The Fight as a love letter to Latina organizers. Keep reading to learn more about her experience as a woman in organizing.

Tell me about your story. What do you think guided you to this point in your life?

I remember sitting in a cold church basement, surrounded by a bunch of other leaders and grassroots folks and religious folks, and thinking, “How did I end up here?” My dad always taught me that I have been gifted, and with that giftedness comes responsibility for where you come from. That place, that little shack right there is where I come from. That’s where I was born. And I can’t ever forget that. I’ve always had that desire to help people to remember who they were at their core.

What issue areas are you passionate about and why?

I love investing in the development of other people. That is one thing that I’m gonna do no matter where I am. When you do that, you are also learning constantly. I really do believe in the mission of Faith and Action. I believe that we have something unique that could unlock some really incredible change in this country and in this world. I don’t see a lot of places that have people working together in communities across a whole bunch of different racial, sexual orientation, genders and religious demographics. 

What inspires you to continue to work in the organizing space?

Building true relationships of love and trust in communities and fighting for change inspires me. All of us get down in this work. It’s very hard. There’s a lot of things that you see that just breaks your heart. But when I look around and ask myself where else could I go, I’m reminded that this collaborative collection of amazing people all in one place is special. This tremendous collection of talented leaders in communities across the country, and at the national level, at the state level. The brilliance of the people that I have the privilege of working with on a daily basis whether it’s to win multiple million dollar tax changes that help children in Massachusetts, for example, or in New Mexico recently there was a ballot measure that allowed for childcare to be a constitutional right. We’re just getting started. When I started as an organizer at Faith in Action, I was one of the very first women to have a family. I was the first Latina to come through, I was young. So to me that just feels amazing that we’ve created a space that is welcoming and open for black and brown women, for women of color, women who might be the sole provider in their family, women who might be single moms. The ability to do this work and have a good and full life. I think that is something that I wish everyone could have. I want that for everyone. So that’s part of what keeps me here day after day after day. 

Can you share about why you wrote your recently published book, Thriving in the Fight? 

I honestly can’t tell you why I wrote the book. I just knew I had to. When I was thinking about who I wanted to write the book for, and the person that I had in my mind the whole time I was writing the book was Nancy Palacios, who is an amazing organizer in Florida. Every room Nancy walks into, she’s the one with the most courage. I remember when I said to her that I was writing the book, she goes, “Well, hurry up and get it done.” So for me that was encouragement that it’s not, you know, it’s not, it is something that young, that emerging leaders would appreciate. It’s amazing now when I get to share the book with organizers. And what I’ve found is, it’s not just organizers who are resonating with the book. It’s also women who might be in their PhD program at university or women who are the owners of their own mechanic shop. Women who get treated in different ways, discriminated against because they’re Latina, because they’re Afro-Latina, because they’re Black. And it’s just one thing that has really surprised me too is I’ve gotten some direct feedback from Black women who have reached out to me to say thank you on behalf of my grandchildren who are Afro-Latino. Thank you for putting this book out. Thank you for saying the things that don’t get said. I’m currently on a book tour and I’m excited for the opportunity to talk to students, teachers, senators, members of Congress. It’s been amazing the kind of people who have responded to the message. I just think that what shows is that there’s too little that’s been written by Latinas for Latinas, and we just need more.

Within organizing, what are some women-specific issues that you’ve seen in the communities you’ve worked with?

When I was new Director in San Francisco, we did a lot of work where we were trying to make sure that mothers and children had access to healthcare in their own community. To me, that seemed like just a basic thing. We thought that there was a clinic that was gonna close and we fought to keep it open. A lot of moms are trying to figure out how to work, take care of their kids, pick them up after school, and find a safe place to live. And so you kind of look at reality and go, you know, well we did this, but really what was needed was something much bigger. And that can get discouraging. But you also know that you’re planting seeds that will grow in the future. Here in Puerto Rico, it’s the women who are leading the charge to change things. And it’s the women that are serving as the neighborhood emergency response team. They live on the front lines of climate change, racial injustice, economic challenges, and in a community that has predominantly just ignored and left out. 

What’s one thing you wish people knew about women in organizing?

Women are the pillars of our communities. Women are the bones that hold our communities together. You know, there’s all these stereotypes that women are supposed to be more cooperative and men are supposed to be more competitive. At least that’s what has been conditioned into our society. When I first started organizing, there was still a question in people’s minds as to whether women could be organizers. I know that women generally have their finger on the pulse of community and what is actually happening. Not what should happen or what could happen, but what actually is happening. So what’s happening to kids? I’m sure other people could speak to that particular piece a little better than me, but I just think we have a special ability to speak and listen and approach things.

How does your faith drive you to organize?

I started organizing shortly after college. I didn’t know what organizing was. I grew up in church and I think college was just for me to answer the question for myself about whether this was my faith or this was the faith of my parents. I was on the run when I found organizing. I thought I was actually running away from faith, but I found myself sitting right in the center of a whole bunch of people who are doing incredible work. I feel really lucky as a person to have found this work so early in my professional career. I really kind of just felt myself drawn to it. For me, the intersection between my beliefs and who I am as a person.

What advice would you give to organizers, specifically young women organizers, that are just starting?

Yeah, organizing is really about building relationships with people and not superficial transactional relationships, but building real relationships with people. We had this old framework that was very social work oriented, and you kind of kept clinical and separate from the people that you work with, and I just don’t buy that. You’re not gonna run through fire with people that you don’t know and people that you don’t know well. Do your 15 one to ones a week. Do it in a way that you’re not just meeting with them because you want something out of them, but you actually believe in them. If you don’t have a deep curiosity and love and hunger for people and their stories and are really investing in them, then this is not the work for you. I think what keeps me in and draws me into the work and what I think will make any successful organizer is someone who really, really loves people and who is willing to deal with whatever mess they have. We all have our own stuff that we gotta deal with. You organize because you think you wanna go help people and be with people. In reality, the person who is always getting refined in this work is yourself. So if you’re down for getting to know some of the most amazing people in the universe and you’re willing to look at your own stuff over a long period of time and deal with it, then organizing is where you should be.

Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Faith in Action?

Yes. My name is Heather Cabral. I am the Managing Director of Communications at Faith in Action. In my role, with the support of my team, focus on earned media and storytelling for not just Faith in Action National staff, but for our network as well.

Tell me a bit about your story. What has your journey looked like so far?

I probably came into movement work by accident. It’s always been rooted in who I am and my DNA. But I think that I was called to this work in a lot of ways. I had been doing communications for many years and this opportunity presented itself and I feel like it’s really what I was called upon and meant to be doing.

I think that just watching my grandparents and great grandparents and what it took for them to create a better life for their children and then for my parents to create a better life for me. None of my grandparents spoke English as a first language and that never leaves me. I think about it in the work that I do. My mother’s Mexican and my father’s Cape verdean. So I think that coming from an immigrant background, particularly a black immigrant background, immigrant justice work, racial justice work has just been ingrained in my whole being.

But I think a big turning point was probably Ferguson that I remember texting a colleague and saying, things are going to be different. And I think we definitely saw a shift in the way that we do racial justice work. There had been peak moments leading up to before Ferguson, but certainly when Mike Brown was killed, that completely changed the trajectory of racial justice work in this country. Another experience that significantly shaped me was working on the Flint water crisis. I was going back and forth to flint a few weeks in a row to help do some storytelling and some earned media. And it was that experience that was also another life-shaping experience. I still text some of the folks still to this day.

I think that we do movement work to create change and it deeply impacted me to feel like we had done so much and saw almost no change. There are still people in Flint who will have the impacts of the water crisis for the rest of their lives.

Are there any people that have helped you walk into your culture or racial identity?

Yes, when I think about such a good question, because just this week I transferred twelve vhs tapes from my childhood to digital files. And in those videos were then elders who were now ancestors. And I feel like they always had gems to share with the next generation and the next generation. And going back and looking at those videos just felt so salient in a way. They shared so much of their struggle and the importance of us creating a better life. So surely watching their journey and listening to their words of wisdom have helped shape my whole life. I remember one of my great uncles saying, “Heather, you have to work twice as hard to get half as far.” I was probably twelve at the time. And that I can still hear in his voice and see his face sitting in my kitchen telling me that, and my twelve-year-old self probably only half absorbing it. And now, at a very different juncture in my life, doing movement work as a mother. Those words sit more heavily with me now.

There are so many people who have been a part of walking in my culture and walking in my racial identity. Certainly my grandparents. None of my grandparents spoke English as a first language. So I would say my elders, my ancestors, but definitely also some of my college professors. Howard University was the first time I had a Black educator in my life. And that certainly shaped the way that I viewed myself as a student and my transition from being a student into having a career. And then I’ve had a host of really amazing mentors along the way at almost every stop in my career. So certainly mentors who some are now, I consider friends and allies in this work.

When you were told, you said you have kind of digested it. Was there a moment, another moment where those words finally kind of like, fully hit you?

Yes, I think those words hit me. Probably not until well into my college career. I remember interning at ABC News at 2020 and sitting down with Olivia Bundles and her sharing her journey in the industry with me. What it’s like to be a black woman in the media and I think that was probably a big AHA moment. Like hearing her words sitting at her desk in this one of the largest news outlets in the world, and then hearing my uncle’s voice kind of in the other ear. I think I had this moment of, oh, you’ve got a lot, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

What does being Black mean to you? How has that evolved over time?

Being black means to be beautiful. It means to be brilliant. But unfortunately, it also means feeling targeted, needing to be resilient when what you actually want is rest. So I certainly sit in this tension of all of the things that I love about blackness and all of the things that pain me with the experience of moving through the world as a black woman.

I think a big part of my journey in doing movement work was my time at Howard University. I graduated in 2003. And it was there, really, that I learned Black history in an in depth way. Black history, as we know, is not taught robustly in our k-12 public education systems. So it was really Howard that I learned more deeply about black history, especially coming from a black immigrant family where cape verdian history was my black history. And at Howard University, we really run on this motto of truth and service. And I feel that now doing movement work, I’ve had an incredible career. But it’s really in these more recent years, with faith and action, that I really feel that I’m living into the idea of truth and service. And that was, of course, a big part of my journey.

Going back to kind of like, media and representation in media, why do you think it’s so important for there to be spaces for that representation, especially in, like, communications and in media, in your background?

It’s so important to see yourself in the work. Growing up in the 80s, I can’t remember seeing any local black journalists on television, and very few. I think Carol Simpson was probably one of the only primetime black women on television. And so if you can’t see yourself in it, how can you aspire to those things? It’s much harder. So I think representation paves the way for other people to say, I can do that. Whether it’s being a producer, a camera woman, an on air reporter, there has to be tangible examples of what it is.

Why do you think it’s so important, for example, at organizations like Faith in Action, for all roles to kind of step into that same value system?

I think that the hiring and promotion and investment in women of color should not be something that organizations are just checking a box for, but it should be a representation of their values. So to invest in women of color, whether it’s through professional development trainings, says that I value you. I see you; I believe in you, versus these diversity hires that are meant to ‌appease, board members, executives. So, yeah, I think that it’s important not to just be seen, but to be valued.

Could you explain the role of your faith and how it informs your day-to-day and your activism?

I probably fall under the bucket of folks who are spiritual but not religious. I grew up in a pretty traditional Christian home, and have gone to a unitarian church off and on for more than a decade. But I think that my relationship with God will always be bigger than any place that I would consider a church home. And I think it’s that spiritualism and my own relationship with God that probably drives a lot of my work. There’s just so much like if we are rooting ourselves in text, there’s so much in the Bible or in the koran or in the torah that says, this is how, as a Christian, as a person of faith, you should be moving around the world. And I think that drives a lot of how I operate.

What does faith offer to the Black diaspora?

That’s a tough one. I mean, a roadmap of sorts. A guide; a place to root your heart and your compass. Yeah, I would say faith can be a tool, a compass, if you will, for folks.

Faith can be either used as a tool to empower diaspora communities, but it’s also historically been used to weaponize and to oppress the Black community. So I think it depends on how faith is being used, because historically faith has been used to validate slavery. It’s been used to validate Jim crow laws; it, it’s been used to validate to oppress entire swaths of people, particularly Black people. But faith is also something that is used as a tool to gather people. When you think of 11:00 on Sunday morning, for me, I think of a church home where it’s a place that’s safe, it’s a space to pray; it’s a space to build power and build a community. So it can all depend on how faith is used. It can be used for good, but it can also be weaponized and used for evil.

What do you do when you feel that discouragement? How do you navigate that sometimes.

Doing movement work that will surely be a part of Black history moving forward, it can be really hard to navigate spiritually, emotionally, physically, you feel the impact of taking on trauma. So ‌prayer and therapy are probably the best ways of building community with other folks doing this work. So you don’t quite feel alone at the end of the day when you feel like, I gave this my all and you’re not seeing a change. So, yeah, it can be tough to navigate, but it’s certainly prayer and therapy.

What advice or words of wisdom would you offer to young black organizers or people new to the space who are interested in getting involved in faith-based organizations?

Depending on the state you live in, there’s often trainings that are happening across the country that we’re always looking for folks in the community to get engaged with. But it can also start if you do belong to a church, it can also start by organizing in your own community, your own community, your own church community.

What brings you hope? What keeps you in this fight?

I think what keeps me in this fight now is that I know that the work that we do at Faith in Action will be ‌history for the next generation. I truly believe that my grandchildren and great grandchildren will read about the work that our Rise and Vote program is doing, that our immigrant justice program is doing. We have the power to change policies that are directly impacting our communities, and those are the policies that we’ll read about in our history books ‌a generation or two generations from now. So I think that certainly keeps me in this work.

What also gives me hope is young people. I realize I’m no longer a young person, but I think about just, like, the young people on my team doing really amazing work that’s creating change, and there’s so much energy and excitement and hope in them that things can be better and different. And seeing that excitement and energy from them gives me lots of hope.

Young people bring fresh ideas. They bring energy, they bring excitement. They bring a whole digital skill set that I know I don’t have. I think that young voices are often discounted, but some of the best ideas and some of the best organizations are coming from folks who don’t feel like they have anything to lose. They’re like, why not present this idea to my team? They’re not overthinking things. They’re just sharing ideas, the first thing that comes to them. And sometimes those are the best ideas. So it’s definitely just this young, fresh energy.

Why is Black history important?

Black history is important because it is our truths. We know now, just watching any news cycle on any given day, how important it is for us to tell our own stories, to document our own histories, and to pass them down from generation to generation. So it’s not just the telling of Black history, but it’s the creating of Black history. So I think we have to view Black history not just as a reflection of the past, but what are we creating that will be historical markers in 50 years, 100 years, 200 years as well.

My dad’s family is from Cape Verde, and we are related to Amilar Cabral, who was assassinated for his work in liberating Cape Verde from colonialism, from Portugal. And my great uncle, my grandfather’s brother, used to always say, “don’t taint the family name. Go out there and do great things.” And that really sat heavy with me when I went to college, when I went to Howard University. Amilcar Cabral, one of his most famous quotes, is “hide nothing from the masses, tell no lies, mask no difficulties or failures, and claim no easy victories.” And I recently went back to read one of Amilcar Cabral’s books before the 2020 election because I knew that there would be gems in there that were relevant to my work. And so I would say to young folks: read the history of movement work because there’s so many lessons to learn that are still relevant to today. So when I went back and watched old speeches that Amilcar Cabral had given that are still on YouTube reread one of his books, there’s so much, so many gems in that work that he poured.

He was an anti colonial. He was battling combating colonialism, trying to get Cape Verde out of under Portuguese rule. And it feels like movement work today. It doesn’t feel so different. So history repeats itself, and there are lessons to be learned from the paths that our historians paid for us.

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John Bailey is a volunteer with Faith in Florida and is based in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is a living example of how one person can make a difference in someone’s life. Keep reading to learn more about his organizing story.

Tell me about your story. How have you gotten to this point in your life?

I wasn’t raised to be the person I became. I came from a great family; my mom and my dad were incredible. What really got me going down a bad path was moving to Tampa from Mobile, Alabama when I was 15 years old. I became the target of a lot of bullying since I was the new kid on the block. I think when you’re afraid, you’ll run anywhere you can. I got tired of running and started fighting back in the wrong way. Instead of seeking out a mentor, I found trouble. I was afraid, so I started looking for somebody that could protect me. And the gang guys found me and started saying, “Don’t worry, we got you.” I’m not going to lie — it felt like the weight of the whole world was lifted off my shoulders. So I started asking them what they needed me to do. One year later I got arrested for hanging out on the street. I was 16 years old. The guys told me to lie and say I was 19. We all ended up going to jail for vagrancy and ended up doing 10 days. That’s what started me on my path.

What inspires you to continue to work in the organizing space?

I believe in building relationships so that people can begin to trust each other. The kids here, they need and want to be a part of something. There’s not enough mentorship programs to meet the demand. They don’t want to turn out like I did, but if there’s no respectable mentors there to help them, there will always be someone on the other side that’s going to take them in. What these kids are looking for is love and protection. The people on the other side might give them clothes and some shoes, and that’s all it takes. But if good people could take a kid under their wing and teach them what they know, and show them friendship and respect, that could keep that kid from going down the wrong path. I always say that I feel like society turned its back on me and I wish someone had reached out to me. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing today.

What are some challenges you’ve faced, both personally and professionally? How did you overcome them?

The attorney helping me with my case while I was in prison said that my record was so bad she didn’t know how she could help me. But my brother encouraged me to write a letter to President Obama trying to seek clemency. I wrote about my life story, how I grew up and how I got there. I remember sitting there in prison and listening to the noise thinking to myself, “What am I doing here? This ain’t me.” My mind went back to when I was a kid. So I wrote about my life. Now the president didn’t help me, but the attorney read my letter and agreed to take my case back on. She said it was a long shot but she would try, because she saw something in me. That attorney found a way to get me back in court and now I’m free. I believe there’s a reason I was freed and why I’m here today.

If you could look into the future, what are some things you would want to see in your community? What would need to happen to get there?

I hope to see people really care about each other. When you have people in your neighborhood breaking into your house or shooting up the street, that could very easily be a kid that if you would have paid attention to or mentored, they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. It’s like the saying goes pay me now or pay me later. If you don’t reach out to your community now, you’re going to wish you would have down the road. When I got involved with Faith in Florida, I got to meet so many people that are doing work across the state. Different backgrounds, different faiths. That’s what I want to be a part of. These are people who are doing the work and making a difference. In the future, I want to see more people willing to do the hard work for free just because it’s good for their community. I hope to see it coming from the heart first.

What advice would you give to organizers that are just starting?

There’s so many different organizations around here. For someone who really wants to get involved, it really depends on what area of concern that you have. The great thing with churches being involved, the members can ask the pastor and he can point them in the right direction. Like for example, one of the biggest concerns in our community right now is speaking out on gun violence. That’s an issue that touches everybody here. It’s important to network with different organizations, because if someone calls on you for help, you can show them where they need to go.

Behind the headlines and statistics, there’s a person with a face, a mother, and a community activist…Valeria is Corazón Arizona’s Lead Community Organizer and she doesn’t just cite statistics or facts, she lives them. We got to talk to Valeria at a La Red action in Washington D.C. to demand a fight for citizenship for millions of immigrants in the U.S. She talks about what keeps her in the fight, how this work is personal to her, and her advice for future or current organizers.

What is your name and where are you from?

My name is Valeria and I am with Corazón Arizona, which is the Arizona Federation of Faith in Action. 

Tell me about yourself a little bit. 

About myself? I am a sister. I am a daughter. I love to be artistic and do anything that I can with my hands. I also just love being engaged with diverse communities.

Was there any specific moment in your life where you felt, “I have to organize, I have to help my community?”

The specific moment when I realized that I felt the need to organize was in one of the instances where my dad was in a detention center. It was around the peak of a lot of these cases being brought forth of the mistreatment of individuals in detention centers. My dad got put on a bus because they injected him with insulin and he had never taken insulin in his life. So to avoid ‌liability, like, they put him on a bus and they deported him. So I think that was one of the pivotal moments when I realized this wasn’t right. This isn’t fair for people to have to be going through this on top of already detention being such a horrific process.

What issues or areas do you work on and why?

I’m very passionate about immigration issues, but just social justice in general. I think it’s important for all of our communities to recognize that oftentimes we focus on the things that separate us. But as BIPOC communities specifically, there’s so many things that unite us and understand that we, each other, while we are constantly being divided, to realize that if we come together, we can collectively fight against the systems that are oppressing all of us.

What inspires you to continue to work in an organizing space?

What inspires me to continue working in an organizing space is the community. There are times when I feel defeated. There are times when I’m just going to throw in the towel. But seeing undocumented parents, seeing other folks still in la lucha and not wanting to give up, that fuels me to also not want to give up and show up even stronger for all of our communities.

Would you describe yourself as someone of faith? If so, how does your faith drive your organization?

I do consider myself an individual of faith, and faith definitely drives my organizing. Again, going back to those moments when I feel like nothing’s going right. We’re not winning anything. There is loss of hope within our communities. It’s that faith, it’s that hope, and that vision of living in a world that resembles what I believe is the world that the Creator has created for us to live in. And so that’s what keeps me going. Just that little seed of what we do now can make that future for us and for generations to come.

What are some challenges you face as an organizer, both personally and professionally?

As an organizer, some of the challenges that I have are definitely fueling myself and guaranteeing that my cup is full so that I can function out of hope instead of functioning out of scarcity. Which ‌can happen spiritually, emotionally and mentally. But then also providing that for all of our leaders, for all of our community, making sure that we’re not just pulling them to actions, that we’re not just pulling them to things that need to get done, but also making sure that their cups are also being full in the process.

If you could look into the future, what are some things you would want to see in yours?

If I could look into the future, some of the things that I would love to see is prophetic unity. I think there are times when we talk about unity, but it’s in a very transactional manner. And so to think of a world and a future where unity is seen in the way that we speak to one another, regardless of our ethnicities, regardless of where we come from in our path of life. Being able to see humanity within each other and knowing that that’s enough and being able to have abundance and dignity in that.

What advice would you give to an organizer that is just starting?

Advice that I would give to an organizer that’s just starting is never let your light dim. There are times when‌ I don’t know what I’m doing. But just recognizing that things take time and you’re not going to have groups in a week, you’re not going to have these massive people that you might have access to. But recognizing that relationships are important, intentional relationships are important. And those take time. And so just be patient, be gracious with yourself, and know that everything, every little step, even though it might seem that there isn’t progress being made, the work is being done.

We visited the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the Ohio federation of Faith in Action. Their goal is to build transformative relational power with everyday Ohioans for statewide social, racial, and economic justice. One way they do this is with The Amos Project, a network of congregations, clergy and people of faith organizing with the most vulnerable in our communities for racial and economic justice in the state of Ohio. We talked to Pastor Charlie who has joined the Amos Project.

Tell me about your story.

I’m a 41 year old pastor and preacher that’s been in ministry now for 24 years. Trying my best to serve God in every capacity possible. I’ve pretty much done everything you can possibly do in the church from being an usher at the door all the way up to preaching from the pulpit and stuff in between. Just being able to see how God uses all of us -young, elder, the whole 9 – it’s been the passion of my life, has been the purpose of my life for over half of my life. So just at a place now where we can see that God wants us to do more than just what’s in here but making sure that we’re active beyond the walls to reach the hurting, the maligned. To reach those that are challenged on every side. That’s how I’ve gotten here.

Why is justice tied to your faith?

Scripture teaches us there’s some things that are required of us. I know there are plenty of people that don’t want to hear the Old Testament but it’s pretty clear: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God. I can’t be a person with humility if I don’t realize that there are people that may not be in the same space as I’m in that are suffering. When I see suffering or when I see pain, or when I see people going through all kinds of different things- whether that’s economically, politically, all that kind of stuff- it’s hard to say that I am humble before God if somehow I kick up my dust at those that need the help the most. it’s not that I’m any better than anybody. matter fact if we’re honest about it all of us are one or two steps away from those that we may try to help. actually, if we’re really honest about it, depending on what we’re talkin about. Some of us are in the exact same situation but we don’t realize that we are because we think certain things make us different. The truth of the matter is if I don’t make sure that I do what is necessary for my brother and my sister, wherever they are in the world, I cannot say that I represent a God of this universe and really love the creation that God has made.

What would you say to those that feel removed from suffering, therefore feel like they shouldn’t be agents for change?

I would encourage a few things; number one, for those that feels so removed, I would tell them, “recall your own experience.” Cuz everybody that’s removed, so to speak, in some instances they were able to get away from the same thing that they don’t want to address. You have to go back and remember where you came from so that you mobilize, within your mind and in your heart, the courage to go back from what you’ve been delivered from to deliver others. Number two; people that feel that there is no connection between Justice work and their faith, you need to re-examine your relationship with the Christ that you say has called you. Or if you’re not of the Christian faith, re-examine the tenets of what you say you believe and live by. Because somewhere along that line, somewhere there’s the call to have humility, kindness, the resolve to make sure that your world and your environment is better. If you don’t do it, who is? Number three; recognize that justice work is not just a thing you do, it is a part of the DNA of who you are as a child of the creator. If you deny who you are within than you’re literally denying the one that has made you uniquely for a time like this.

Why do you think voting is essential to pursuing faith and justice?

You have been given the power to make a decision on how your environment can be better. It is not just the power of the vote. It is not just your ability to go into an area, fill out your ballot and fill out the boxes and choose a person. It is literally the reminder that even after election day, because people have come around soliciting for your vote that by their solicitation you have been given the right and authority to hold accountable those who are now in positions to control or to influence your environment. Your vote matters because it is the statement that says, “you are choosing someone to make certain that they fulfill a promise and a purpose to the environment you care about.” So it’s not just something you give away, it is something that you give with the expectation that things will be different. It empowers you to stand up and go beyond election day to let the world know that my environment has no alternative but to change.

What have you done or said as a pastor to let your congregation know and understand that voting is important?

We are connected with different organizations, specifically Amos Project. Through my personal connection with them already, we’ve talked about candidate forms. We have discussed making sure that people know what’s on the ballot. Being connected to all the issues in some way shape or form. Through preaching of the Gospel. In my tradition, and my heritage of preaching, I come from a prophetic tradition where we have no other alternative to not only preach the gospel but to speak truth to power as the gospel pertains to the things of this world. So everything is constantly brought before. From the pulpit, to voter registration drives, to training, to becoming better advocates within our community. To encouraging our congregation to have a social justice ministry that focuses on all the different matters that are at hand and making sure that the people stay informed.

You mentioned the Amos project, can you go a little bit into that and why your congregation is partnering with Amos?

One of my best friends basically hooked me. I was never the guy that wanted to be out in front and I know that sounds kind of whatever being a pastor. But I am, according to my friend, more Howard-Thurman-like than probably Malcolm or Martin. But when you read about Martin Luther King, he always read Howard Thurman. In other words, all of us have a part in what needs to be done. And it’s my opportunity now to do things that I never thought I would do. and I don’t have to be out in front. This is probably the most uncomfortable that I’m going to be right now interviewing. But the truth of the matter is, it is time for us to get over our own things. Place our uniqueness on the table, and realize that we all have a role in making sure that our environment, our communities, are churches, and all of our people regardless of age, race, sex, and whatever. We need to make sure that all are well because if all are not well, then we’re not well.

We visited the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the Ohio federation of Faith in Action. Their goal is to build transformative relational power with everyday Ohioans for statewide social, racial, and economic justice. One way they do this is with The Amos Project, a network of congregations, clergy and people of faith organizing with the most vulnerable in our communities for racial and economic justice in the state of Ohio. We talked to Pastor Stanley who has joined the Amos Project.

Tell us about your story. How did you get into ministry and what has that journey looked like for you?

I came to accept my call to the ministry at a very early age. I was born and raised in the Baptist Church in Columbus and I was always taught, you know, that God speaks to you the way that you listen and I had been wrestling some time with what it was that God was calling me to do. One Sunday I heard his voice clearly telling me that He wanted me to preach and proclaim His gospel. From that point on I have attempted to do my best to fulfill the call that’s been in my life. From that point in life I went on and started getting serious about Ministry underneath my current pastor, Reverend Derrick Holmes. He sent us through training and all that good stuff and helped take my call and help craft and develop it into what it is today.

I hear you’re also the youngest pastor in Ohio…

I think I’m the youngest at the age of 26. The youngest pastor I know of the Baptist tradition in the state.

How do you connect faith and justice?

I don’t think you can separate faith from justice. I think it goes hand-in-hand. I think there’s numeral examples in scripture about how our faith intersects and combines with justice. I believe that we serve Jesus of justice. There are numerous occasions where Jesus displays justice, and more so, restorative justice. Even when you think about the woman at the well, or just all the different moments where Jesus is presented with something and pushes against what might be the custom of the culture at the time. That way He can provide justice and restore whoever it was that was separated or ostracized or was cast out. And I don’t believe that you can separate justice from our salvation or justice from the Christ that we serve. So I think that you can’t have one or the other. I think Jesus was a Jesus of Justice and because of that, I choose to allow it to inform who I am as a preacher, who I am as a person, as an individual, my ideology is just one of justice I don’t think you can have effective ministry in the eyes of Christ and it not be about social justice, civil justice. To have it not be about the marginalized, those who are ostracized, and discriminated against. I think that that’s where ministry should start because that’s where Jesus’ ministry started.

What does that look like for your congregation?

We have the Blessed privilege of being located literally in what I would call mission territory. We’re in the middle of Windsor Terrace right in South Linden. We’re blessed to have two locations, including one up in North Linden across from New Salem Baptist. We deal with in our community a lot of the marginalized, those that are casted out, and things of that nature. So our ministry has a specific focus on how can we serve our community. If your church is what it is but means nothing to the community I think we have it wrong. When the teachers went on strike a little while ago that was right here in our community. And rather than pick sides, which a lot of folk were doing. At that moment we wanted to make sure students were getting supportive but we also wanted to make sure that we were able to support our teachers as well. So what does it look like to open up the church so they can come and use the restroom while they’re fighting for what’s fair. So they don’t have to worry about a place to park with their car getting towed, a place to use the bathroom, a place where they can come and get something to eat if they get time to sit down. How can we serve our community and really meet the needs of the people? I say all the time that help isn’t help if it doesn’t help and we want to make sure that we’re a Ministry that’s meeting the needs of our community and providing the help that they actually need.

How do you connect voting to the connection between faith and justice?

Voting controls, or allows, our voice to be heard. I think that sometimes we forget that our elected officials work for us and if they’re not working for us, then it’s time to get someone who will work for us. We do that and can express that, of course, through demonstration, though protest. But I believe that voting plays a critical role in that which is why I am very pleased with the work of the Amos Project and the blessing you’ve all been to our ministry. Helping us around the voting initiatives and getting people registered to vote in our congregations and really pushing the importance of voting. Because if it’s not working for us then it’s time to make a change and that’s the way that we can directly have immediate change what it is that we’re seeking.

You’ve mentioned the Amos project, can you speak a little more about that and why you’ve chosen to partner with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative?

Inside the church we’ve gotten the narrative that we believe that the pastor needs to know how to do everything. And the reality is I’m not an expert in every field in every arena. God has called me to preach the gospel, I’ve been blessed to have some administrative skills, musical skills, leadership skills. But I believe that we get on these small Islands thinking that we have to be the expert in everything. But when we have an organization that aligns on some of the things that we align on with our spiritual and core values, and they have a mind and heart for justice, a mind and heart for social justice, civil justice, the voting rights initiative, and they have something in place, I think it behooves ministries to take advantage of what the Amos Project already has up and running. How we can take that and incorporate that into our local churches instead of starting on ground zero and then trying to do things individually. I believe that there’s power number and joining with the Amos project that already has boots on the ground and already has some traction, being able to assist in that way, and add some more boots on the ground with them. But also learn from you all and see what that can look like in our context, in Windsor Terrace, is just a wealth of knowledge and a blessing.

What would say to someone who is discouraged and doesn’t want to vote?

We cannot complain about what it is that we see if we’re not willing to get out there and do our part. If you get out there and do your part, you register to vote and you show up to the polls to cast your vote then we have something to kind of talk about and complain about. But if we never have any skin of a game, things won’t change. Like I said, I believe that there’s power in numbers and the polls show that in the past several elections the polls show that when a certain group or mindset of folks show up and then win there’s a certain group that doesn’t show up. Results show what happens when a group of people show up in good numbers. And I would just encourage them not to get discouraged by what you see. That we actually do have the power. There is strength in numbers and keep voting until something changes. Doing nothing sitting idle changes nothing but we have to do something until something changes.