Michael’s funeral, held in a local Black Baptist Church, was reminiscent of so many familiar rituals of Black cultural home-goings: raucous preaching, the call and response of the audience emboldening those in the pulpit to “make it plain,” and “tell it all,” while the truths being affirmed received “hearty amens.”
Black churches are a central part of the 20th century story of American racial politics. Dr. King was the consummate preacher, flanked by peers like Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Rev. Joseph Lowery, and protégés like Rev. Jesse Jackson. Last century, Black churches were the locus of a kind of narrative authority in Black communities – the way Black preachers, mostly male, told our story to us in light of the story of Jesus Christ gave us hope, inspired change and helped us to make sense of Black suffering, to believe that God had a grander purpose in the sure and steady sacrifice of Black bodies, namely the fashioning of a better, more just America.
It is within that context, that of the Black church and its relationship to Black politics, that we have come over the last three decades to know the person of Rev. Al Sharpton.