Abolitionist Sanctuary

From Pulpit to Protest: Dr. Jamal Bryant on Faith, Organizing, and Black Futures

• Nikia • Season 3 • Episode 4

Share episode

Send us a text

We trace Dr. Jamal Bryant’s journey from family roots and grief to a movement-facing ministry that blends sermon craft, organizing, and economic imagination. We press into DEI rollbacks, leadership succession, and building power that feeds, houses, and employs our people.

• personal roots, parental influence, and grief as teacher
• love, accountability, and prayer as intimacy
• sermon craft for an unscripted, attention-thin culture
• Target Fast strategy and reawakening the Black church
• community organizing beyond Sunday metrics
• economic empowerment, land use, and viable revenue
• DEI rollbacks as financial violence against Black women
• shared agendas for elections and policy lanes
• leadership succession and youth pipelines
• abolitionist building alongside reforms

Please share this episode and download on all platforms
Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and download the Abolitionist Sanctuary Mobile app to connect to a faith-based abolitionist movement
At abolitionistsctuary.com, you can enroll in courses and become certified in abolition at social change
Visit abolitionistsanctuary.org to give, become a member, and subscribe to our mailing list


Support the show

Sign-up and join a social media platform for abolitionists
Enroll to take courses at Abolition Academy
Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Abolitionist Sanctuary Podcast, where we talk faith, abolition, and Black Motherhood. I am your host, Reverend Dr. Nikia Smith Robert, the founder and executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary. We are a national coalition leading a faith-based abolitionist movement. Thank you to our audio and visual audiences for joining us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and all streaming platforms. Let's build abolitionist sanctuaries together with this critical and candid conversation for today's episode. Hello, I am excited to be with you today. I am your host, the Reverend Dr. Nakia Smith Robert, and today I have the honor of introducing our guest, the Reverend Jamal Harrison Bryant. Dr. Bryant is a visionary civil rights activist, community organizer, presidential lifetime achievement award recipient. He is the two-time Grammy Award-winning artist. Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant combines sound biblical teaching, business acumen, and political insight to propel the body of Christ to action and greater levels of faith. Since his youth, Dr. Bryant has prevailed against the odds, rising from a GED to a PhD. Before pastoring, he served as the National Youth and College Director of the NAACP for six years, where he helped to mobilize over 70,000 youth worldwide in nonviolent campaigns. Dr. Bryant, a third generation minister, was the founding pastor of Empowerment Temple A Church in Baltimore, Maryland, acclaimed as the fastest growing AME church in the denomination's 200-year history. With an undeniable gift to bridge generations from the civil rights movement to the Black Lives Matter movement, Dr. Bryant incites change in the faith community. His ability to reach across social, economic, and political barriers has helped people experience the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ and activate success in their everyday lives. His ministry has become an incubator for entrepreneurs, homeowners, and the like. Additionally, programs under the guidance have aimed to spread the gospel, develop strong leaders, empower the economically disadvantaged, and challenge social injustices. In December 2018, Dr. Bryant was appointed as the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stone Crest, Georgia. His leadership efforts have strengthened the multi-generational bond among members, cultivated families, and expand community outreach as well as the church's cultural significance. And something not included in his bio, but of extreme significance that I would like to add is that Dr. Bryant is the architect of the Target FAST in response to DEI rollbacks, which is the largest and most effective boycott that our country has seen since the civil rights. It is indeed an honor to welcome Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be a part.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for joining us. So let's begin with setting the atmosphere, if we will, by telling us what are your pronouns and give us a visual of how you are showing up in this space and who are your people.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I am showing up in the fullness of who I am. I am the son of a womanist theologian. I am the brother of a practicing clinician. I am the son of a retired bishop and considered the father of Neopentecostalism in the mainline denominational Methodist Church. And I am the proud husband of a phenomenal woman. I am invited to be with you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, amazing. And I am privileged to know you in many of those capacities. And so they say the personal is political. So let's start with the personal. Who is young Jamal before becoming an Episcopal family, before preaching your first sermon, before your first girlfriend, before your first Shimmy.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Before the degrees in Alcalaise, tell us the earliest memory of you knowing who you are.

SPEAKER_02:

My earliest memory is my first day of kindergarten where I wore a three-piece suit with a bow tie and a briefcase. I had always seen my day addressed, and in my mind, I was going to work. And my parents obliged me and let me go to school for my first day of kindergarten. That's my earliest memory. And I have been that little boy ever since.

SPEAKER_00:

You remain a fashion icon.

SPEAKER_02:

Listen, I am a runway model for grace. God has consistently put mercy over my vulnerability. There's no reason that I should be where I am today, but for the grace of God. All of the things that you said is really just the echoes of the mercy. And so I'm grateful.

SPEAKER_00:

I received that if it wasn't for God's grace.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

So you mentioned Bishop Bryant. Tell us about your relationship with your father because we've also seen the movie American Gangster, where we learned that Frank Lucas, the Harlem drug dealer.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

My cousin was Bumpy Johnson, who my family rolled with. I remember as a little kid going into the basement to see white men count money.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Bishop Bryant is the rare gift. Many people meet their heroes. Very few are raised by him. And so everything that I aspire to be as a black man, as a Christian, as a front-facing liberation theologian is embodied in my dad. I'm grateful for 81 years of life. My dad, as we are recording this, is on his way on a Norwegian cruise. And so when I grow up, I want to be like him. I'm grateful a lot. That he modeled the quintessential example of what it means to have integrity, character, and honor. I tell everybody everything I've done well in life, I learned from him. Everything I did bad, I learned on my own.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. That's fair.

SPEAKER_02:

Bishop Frank Lucas on the other side of the family. That's my mother's.

SPEAKER_00:

So tell us about your mom. What was your relationship like with your mother? And perhaps you can share a bit about the grieving process.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I am coming up. Thank you for asking. I am coming up on one year of my mother transitioning. And I think what has brought me through this grieving process has been my bride. My mother was funeralized 30 days before my wedding. I don't know how I would have been able to cope and manage single, but I married an intercessor. And somebody who is mission-minded and is full embracing of every dimension of her womanhood. So I told her I almost didn't marry her because I thought I was marrying my mother. And I think the hardest day days was my wedding. I had three hard days.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Where she is. I have peace and knowing that we did everything that we could while she was alive. I don't have any regrets or any do-over buttons that I need to press.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing. I lost my mom December 31st, 2012. And wow.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I didn't value it at the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

My mother be up three, four, five in the morning travailing, going through. When my mother would call, I had to take a deep breath because I don't know if she'd understand in the holy of holies. Yeah, I mean, what she's seeing in the spirit realm. So no, this side of it. I'm grateful that I got somebody in the throne room who I know is whispering my name.

SPEAKER_00:

Listen, we grew up poor, single parent.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

VCR broke. And this VCR was the only thing that kept my brother off the streets.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Watch movies. That VCR broke. She prayed that thing right back to life. But type of it's accessory prayer.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, no, it's great.

SPEAKER_00:

All dead situations. But we give God thanks for the witness of our mothers.

SPEAKER_02:

Your mother's got to be proud of you. And I didn't know her. But for all of the grace that you exude and all of your confidence, I just want to say to you that you are the kind of, and I don't mean it in a pejorative way, you're the kind of girl a mother would be proud of.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02:

Great.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. So it's something about a woman's love. You talked about your wife, Dr. Carey. Yes. Would love to know more about your relationship, what love has taught you from women. What is some relationship advice you can give us and what you have learned about yourself as a partner that could perhaps help someone else, particularly another brother?

SPEAKER_02:

Most men don't want to be challenged. They want to be comforted. And so what pushed me away from my wife is my wife held me accountable. And an immature man will see that as oppositional friction. Every billionaire will tell you that who you marry is the best financial decision you'll make. Because they will either elevate you or tank you. You have to figure out who I use an analogy. A woman for a black man has to be in the NFL. She has to be a blocker. She has to be a cheerleader. She has to be a fan. She has to be the medic. And she has to be the quarterback. A man is at his optimum best when he is a black woman who knows the game. When she knows the game and can help you pivot, but he also has got to know what his role is, got to know what his position is. You're only watching or listening to this podcast if you're a secure black woman. There's no way you're gonna listen to some podcast called the abolitionists, and you don't know who you are. So this is not Wendy Williams. This is not that kind of stuff. I want to say to you, run as fast as you can from an insecure man. And insecurity, he can be degreed and insecure, accomplished and insecure, wealthy and insecure. But find a man who understands that your success is our success.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right.

SPEAKER_02:

That wherever it is that God elevates you, he elevates us.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

When you get that, you'll be able to move. And then lastly, I'll say, my late mother, Dr. Cecilia Bryant, somebody's gonna need this. Yes, praying with somebody is more intimate than sleeping with somebody.

SPEAKER_01:

I can't go with you die.

SPEAKER_02:

This is grace for grown-ups, is for somebody to be able to take both of your hands and pray with you and die, and food ain't involved. That's a form of intimacy. Seriously, that's a form of intimacy. Yeah, it really calls into accountability how in the world was I comfortable getting in the bed with them, but not going in throne with run with them.

SPEAKER_00:

Listen, we're gonna talk candidly. Yes, the tongues is a very similar language.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm out. I'm out that you got me. I didn't know it was this kind of party.

SPEAKER_00:

I knew this would go last.

SPEAKER_02:

You drove it there.

SPEAKER_00:

It's true. So my husband and I, we've been married for 18 years on October 7th. And I'm so grateful that I have a secure man. I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for his support. So that partnership and being equally yoked is very important. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02:

Exceedingly.

SPEAKER_00:

So you are the pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Prior to that, you founded the Empowerment Temple. And so you've been pastoring and preaching for a long time. I remember in seminary at Union Theological Seminary, my colleague and I, Reverend Jay Williams, took a cab uptown to see you preach at St. Luke Amy Church, somewhere between 2006 and 2009. You are a preacher exemplar. Tell us your preaching process from preparation to delivery.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. I am a creative. In this space, I will tell you I am a spoken word artist. So the mind frame that it takes to create is I am not reading commentaries and Scottish theologians. I have to find a space of inspiration and see the portrait from finger painting the spray paint. And so I start with what the late Charles Edward Booth has said find the uncommon revelation in a common text. And so I am trying to see what has not been seen, or what has not been spoken, what has not been shared. And so mine is a more creative process. Dr. King wrote his sermons from the close of the sermon and then went backwards. I'm trying to build that tension. I watch a lot of movies. And in watching movies, I do it on plot development, on the development of characters. And how does that really eke itself out in that visual expression of an audible platform? I try to make a movie with words. And in making a movie with words, I am a stickler for sentence structure of word usage. I have, I don't have a PhD, I have a D-Min. I try to make sure in my sermon I touch those with a D-Min and a GED. So in my sermon, you are going to hear Aristotle, you'll hear Kierkegaard, you'll hear Thurman, but you'll also hear Tupac, Wu Tang, Biggie, because it brings all of who it is that I am. I try to practice my unwritten book is the anthropology of theology, of knowing what is the culture, what is the embodiment of where it is that I am trying to deposit and where it is that I'm trying to go, and does it really mesh with that subculture? So my process is the carriage to be disliked. I'm saying the unpopular thing. I want to take the bravado of James Baldwin. I want to take the intentionality of Claude McKay. But I want to take the sacred vulgarity of Zane and bring all of that together and say, yes, I said it, but here's the justification on why I said it. When Donald Trump ran for president the first time against Hillary Clinton, the exit polls said something very important. That nobody thought Trump was smarter than Hillary. Nobody thought he had more experience. Nobody thought he had greater diplomacy. They thought he was more relatable. I'm an 80s baby. And so I grew up on the Cosby Shaw. I grew up on a different world. Saturday nights I'm watching Love Boat and then A Fantasy Island. I got to watch the news, and then after that, it's Saturday night live at 11:30. This is, Dr. Roberts, the very first time in television history where the preponderance of television is unscripted. But our preaching out of seminary is scripted for a generation that feels unscripted. I now have evolved in my preaching that I preach from an exhaustive outline, but I'm a manuscript preacher. I'm right out the full manuscript. When I shift it to an I understand that the ear is different.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

The attention span now of the average listener is 2830. Our sermon should be at 26, but I have preparation for 45. So how do I preach without the listener cheating on me with TikTok or having an affair with Instagram? In that 26 minutes, how am I grabbing? So the title has got to make sense. I'm not going to read a whole lot of scripture. I'm usually going to read one verse, even though the composite of the message is going to be four to five. I'll only read one because what nobody wants to deal with is you're dealing with a generation who has spiritual longings but scriptural illiteracy. You got to figure out how do you do a mixtape that introduces them to things that you and I will presume people to know. The average listener on a Sunday morning doesn't know the difference between a disciple and an apostle, nor do they know the difference between being Pentecostal and being apostolic. And so with that, you are the best way I can say it, you are a professor for summer school.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You are the proctor for remedial class. And so you've got people in the class who are gifted and accelerated, and other people, this is my first time here.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm here because my sorrow brought me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So you got to bring all of that to the table and figure out is it tweetable and is it brunchable to know that the majority of people who are listening to me now, different than when you caught a KF 15 years ago, the majority, and this is painful for me to say, the majority of people who listen to my sermons don't listen to it in a sanctuary.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

They listen on a treadmill.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

They listen to it in the bed. They listen to it on Mondays that work. Okay. Yeah. So you gotta shift that whole dynamic of us doing a colonial pilgrim presentation to an AI age. And so to that, we have to be more mindful of that presentation. You opened up this podcast on people who are listening to it, not the people who are seeing it. So the people listening don't have the benefit of your amazing strand of pearls.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

People who are listening don't have the conundrum I'm in trying to figure out what that 22 is on your lapel. So seriously, those are different variables that we have to bring through in terms of our physical presentation and our audible presentation. There's an amazing woman of God who I won't speak her name. She is amazingly gifted. She's great. She's anointed. I hate her voice. I want to read her notes. I want to read her notes. And we spent so much time on presentation in terms of the physical, but we're not dealing with how much of it is translated in audible space.

SPEAKER_00:

That's good. So you are not preaching for the church, you're preaching for the culture.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm assigned to the culture.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And then let me say one last thing for the preachers who are listening. Two things, and I may have to come back and do a part two to this show, but two things I want to say to you. Nationally, only one hooper in America has a mega church. Number two, no hooping clips ever go viral. I'm dropping the mic right there.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you consider yourself as a hooper?

SPEAKER_02:

No. I hoop, but I am not a hooper. I only got one key. I am not musically inclined at all.

SPEAKER_00:

For Cosby? He modulates.

SPEAKER_02:

Modulates, but nobody who's a real hooper considers Cosby a hooper. Let's not do that now. Okay. The only hooper in the classic black preaching tradition form I consider a hoop would be E. Dewey Smith.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. I mean, he's also a psalmist.

SPEAKER_02:

He can get in his throat.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I got a pack of holes right now, get ready for Sunday.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. So this 22 represents the best sorority ever to exist.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And the 22 founders who founded Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And the pearls just, you know, match the illustrious swag of our organization. Just quickly, how long does that process take you? When do you start your prep to finish?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm telling you, I'm a creative, so sometimes it'll downpour.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And then other times it's gonna fight. And not lectionary. I'm allergic to the lectionary. No, I only did the lectionary while I was at Duke.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Because they made us do it. But you know, Anieba said you had to have a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Bart. Bart, thank you so much. I love intelligent black women. Thank you so much. And I received a correction. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

So I was an MC growing up. And so much of my sermon prep process is listening to the sound of the sermon as well and the sentence structure. It definitely comes out in my preaching process as well. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

So we went through the personal, we went through the pastoral.

SPEAKER_02:

Really? It's a set of.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to now hit the political. You are an activist. Tell us about the work that you have done to lead the Target fast and where are we now with this?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Some amazing, brilliant sisters at Minneapolis started the Target board, kind of on record and gave homage to black women. They started it. People like Nina Turner in Ohio were doing it. Tamika Mallory, my sister in New York. I carved out a space called the Target Fast because I was afraid the Black Church was no longer a Bible voice. This was a call for the Black church to become involved and engaged, where we have been separated for almost 25 years. And this generation, by and large, does not look to the Black church for prophetic proclamation of speaking truth to power. I thought that this would be an on-ramp for the church to reintroduce itself, and it has. And I'm grateful for that. This is the large demographic of black people who don't go to the church, who self-identify as atheists, large demographic of black people who claim to be spiritual but not Christian. And so this was a tactical move of how can the church become involved as a consequence. I am embarrassed to tell you.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_02:

The Progressive Baptist Convention. One. We've got to take away the Walt Disney imagination that everybody supported the civil rights movement. They didn't. That everybody supported Dr. King. They did not. We've got to move with the remnant of those who are able to push. The intention was to get the black church black and get black re-engaged. I'm thankful for nameless and faceless pastors and congregations around the country who have pushed the barrel up the hill.

SPEAKER_00:

So tell us about the importance of community-based organizing. At Abolitionist Sanctuary, I started the nonprofit to respond to the church's inactivity towards civic engagement and how can we harness our historical roots that is grounded in freedom movements, particularly the black church that was born out of the freedom movement and as leaders in abolitionist movements. So what is the cause of the inaction of the church? And what do you see as the hope for us to become organized and amass more political power?

SPEAKER_02:

The first thing I'll do is a quote from Desmond Tutu, who said something that has riveted me as a pastor. He said at the end of every year, the poor people in the community should vote to see if the church should be open in next year. And if the poorest people in the community voted, how many of our churches would remain open? So that has been my guiding light. I think what happened is your grandparents would use an expression, our grandparents would use an expression to black people who achieved, who excelled, who graduate. The expression was, you are a credit to the race. We moved from community development to personal achievement. I'm debt free. Not the community is. To see their mama, but didn't feel any real connection. I remember a time I was preaching for TBN some years ago. I got off the telephone and my dad called me. I'm in the green room. He said, Doc, I just watched you. I said, Yeah. He said, Man, you really preached. I said, Thank you, Bishop. I called my dad Bishop. He said, TBN is global, isn't it? I said, Yes, sir. He said, Tell me how you think it translated for the people in Kenya when you said they gotta give a thousand dollar seed to get blessed. It shot me in between my eyes. That I realized I was proselytizing a colonized gospel.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And that I really had baptized dissociative disorder. That I really wasn't even connecting to who I was called to. And so I needed to stop looking out the window and look in the mirror to figure out what blood dripped from my own hands, preaching a commercialized gospel that was really not indigenous to my own environs.

SPEAKER_00:

My God. So much of the church has reproduced this capitalist value system that prioritizes the individual.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And we have seen how that same value system has harmed our community, this value system of self-responsibility. If I could just pull myself up by my own bootstraps, I would make it. And we know that not everyone has access to boots, right? And so it's not about meritocracy, it's not about self-responsibility, it's about access. It's about access to resources. And so my dissertation, my research in this organization is doing the work of retraining the black church.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

And I would love for us to partner in ways in which we could get you with our abolition academy to teach a course that we will do virtual to learn from the organizing work that you've done.

SPEAKER_02:

Be honored to do it. It is sorely and desperately needed because I'm grasping for straws.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Looking for a needle because we don't have a template in this space. Can you imagine in order for the work that I am called to do, I have to look at a 1957 blueprint of SELC. I don't have anything from the last 30 years to glean from. So no, I'd love to be a part of it. Just know transparently that I'll be drinking as I'm pouring.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So it'll be as much of a benefit for me as it is to uh those in whom you want me to pour into.

SPEAKER_00:

It's crucial what you said. I appreciate your transparency and the evolution of your ministry and where you are now. So we're grateful for your leadership. And when I think about the work that you do in the justice space, a lot of it has to do with economic empowerment. You have this innovative idea to use the church as a site to source cannabis for economic empowerment. Where are you on that initiative and what challenges you may have received?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so let me say a couple of things. That was on a podcast that I said, and the context was I am embarrassed. New birth, the church that I passed, is the largest landowning black church in America. I sit on a continuous 365 acres, continuous. And the only thing I had on my campus is a sanctuary and a gym. I come in as pastor and I met with$35 million worth of debt. So we're trying to figure out how we're going to pay off this debt because Dr. Roberts four months from foreclosure. So what I said in the podcast is you know, with all of this greenery, I need to look at the cannabis industry because we've been victimized by it, but there are some medicinal properties, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm nowhere with it to answer your question because I was raising it as a hypothetical because cannabis is not legal in Georgia. Yeah, so it's not even an option. So I was brokering that at the time that Stacey Abrams was running for governor because that was one of her platforms. So it got spun. I'm gonna be selling weed in the Bible bookstore. So it has gone nowhere because our present governor Kemp is not for the legalization of it. So it's not even an option for us at this time.

SPEAKER_00:

It was controversial. I did raise it to Amy Bishop and we had a conversation around it. I thought it was a great idea.

SPEAKER_02:

The views expressed about our hosts.

SPEAKER_00:

But you aren't the only person who's moving for that. There are other movements looking to combine the church with the cannabis industry for the purpose that you have stated, is that black populations have been criminalized based on marijuana use. And so it is a way to perhaps redeem or repair, restore that process by having Black communities benefit from the legalization of it. So I hear you. I'm still stuck on the fact that you're saying only one denomination signed up to support you on this Target FAS. We're gonna have to change that. We're gonna have to change that. So whoever's listening, whoever's watching this podcast episode, and you belong to a black church, speak to your bishop, your pastor, episcopal supervisor, whoever it is, and let's talk about how we can support Dr. Bryant in the Target FAS and show our solidarity in the Black church. I'm thinking also about the 300,000 Black women who have been forced out of the workplace. And your work as an activist, your work in economic empowerment. How do you feel about the challenges that Black women face with this Trump administration?

SPEAKER_02:

It's egregious. Black women are the most educated in this country.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

For Georgia, where I live, are the number one homeowners for the state. And so this is domestic violence against Black women. Violence has nine different categories. Physical is just one of them. This is financial violence against black women. The church is going to have to be intentional on how we do incubators to curate entrepreneurship. We've got to create our own web of employment opportunities that may be advantageous and strategic for our sisters, but this is crisis. 350,000 black women have lost their jobs since March. And 364,000 white men have gotten new jobs at there's a direct correlation between the spurring of black women and the elevation of white men.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and quite a disparity, an economic disparity. One could argue that the work that you're doing with the target fast to fight for DEI is work that benefits the Black community, particularly Black women, right? Yes. And so that's really powerful. When you think about this presidential election and all the degenerative policies that are a part of Trump's executive orders and legal precedents, a lot has been weighing on my heart in terms of the fraction within the movement. It seemed that there hasn't been a consensus on the strategy to defeat Trump and to win back our democracy, right? During the 2024 presidential election, there were a plethora of pressing issues, including Palestinian genocide. And we've seen various responses. Some people opted not to vote, some people voted independent, and others reluctantly voted Democrat. But ultimately, Trump won, we lost the U.S. democracy. I want to know what are your thoughts on the past presidential election and the urgency of us to find mutual ground to move forward regardless of our disagreements.

SPEAKER_02:

Fitly spoken, I think one, just like there's a project 2025, what is the ask of the black community? We're a few weeks away from the Congressional Black Caucus. The midterms are a stone throwaway. What is our issue? And I think that we've got to get into a closed door because we have become so conditioned to be reactionary that we don't know how to plan. And so, what is the plan for us in terms of our throughout three things? SNAP benefits a year from now, there'll be no free lunch in schools. So I just speak from the lane I'm in. Are we gonna send all the church mothers to take over the cafeteria at the middle school? Or are we busing all the kids to the church for them to eat at lunchtime? Or are we sending vacation Bible school boxes to plant? We already know that there'll be no snap, which is big, beautiful bill. Number two, Dr. Roberts, in 18 months, we will see the largest amount of homeless black senior citizens in America's history. Because in the conversation of Medicaid and Medicare, we've not done the aggressive conversation on seniors being evicted from senior housing, evicted from assisted living. Where is the black church's position paper on AI? Where's the black church position paper on data centers coming into the black community, extracting the water, and leaving remnants of land? So those are just three issues. It's very hard for us to do it because our black mainline civil rights organizations will not pick a lane or pick an issue because, to our own peril, we reduced civil rights to aggressive policing. So we had hashtags every other month and didn't deal with no other issue. The safeguarding of HBCUs, the gentrification of our communities, medical or medicinal apartheid, the housing crisis, food insecurity. If everybody got in a room and said, okay, you deal with this, you deal with this, you deal, because the whole model of there being one leader or one organization or one denomination is archaic and it will not last. I was lecturing at a college a couple of weeks ago, and I asked them, they were all doctoral students, I asked them, do you all believe that there is a viable LGBTQAI plus movement in unison? They all lifted their hands. I said, Great. Let me ask you who is the leader of LGBTQ AI plus movement? These are doctoral students. No answer. I said, You identify that there's a movement but can't find a leader. The black community has got to evolve that leadership does not necessitate a microphone. It can't just be the one person speaking at the press conference. We've got to figure out how do we move the needle and not do it under an old paradigm structure. But it's got to be so many voices. When they came to arrest Jesus, they didn't know which one he was because all of them were dressed in the same thing. And so our leadership models have got to shift and they've got to evolve in order for us to go into this space.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, you said a lot there. I agree that our focus should be multidimensional, that there isn't a single issue. I think there needs to be a strategy around prioritizing issues. Yes. I don't think our focus on policing undermined our collective power. I think it was important for the time because of what we had seen in the volume of numbers, the imminence and the pervasiveness of state violence against black and brown bodies that it was.

SPEAKER_02:

I agree. I just think that the prism should be larger. We spent all of our energy, and I was on the front line from Traffund to Freddie Gray in Baltimore, George Floyd. I was involved in all of those. But at the same time that that was happening, some other tributaries needed to be carved. And we've looked up, and we don't have anything in the pipeline. The other thing that has to happen that I have to say, yeah, and I may be chased off of the cliff from saying it, this is the oldest leadership Black America has ever had. I'm 52.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

It is embarrassing that I'm considered a young leader.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

I've outlived Malcolm Martin Marcus at 52. So it needs to be a whole nother group that is coming, but there's a bottleneck from as of late. And you all hear me, we're in a clinical intellectual conversation. So I don't want you all to take this as shade. Debate just this week on whether the representative in DC should step down or not, or whether a new person should come. And at 84 years old, they won't move aside. And so we've got to have some real family meetings on black privilege and leadership. But because you're in it, don't mean you should die in it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Mexico just elected their new Supreme Court. And here's what's amazing and novel in Mexico, you can only be on the Supreme Court for 12 years and you can't run again. That's it. I think we need to really re-evaluate what leadership looks like in civic space. And less I banish myself to Gilligan's Island, what it looks like in spiritual cleric space.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

On how do we change that guard and how do we pivot?

SPEAKER_00:

And it's an important call to the black church, particularly to revitalize our youth ministry so that we are preparing our youth to lead these social movements.

SPEAKER_02:

And the youth ministry shouldn't be 45.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Agreed. But there is another side to what you're saying. I think what we're talking is a reformist conversation, right? How can we fix the system? There's also the revolutionary side or the abolitionist side. How do we dismantle this system and build something better in its place? And as a creative, I encourage us to also think about how we can create something better. There is in Georgia, in fact, I think it's called Freedom Georgia. A group of 70 families came together.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, and bought 5,000 acres.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So I think that we've got to see it differently. And famous line, the revolution will not be televised, is that being an abolitionist does not always find itself synonymous with a picket sign and a race fist. What they are doing is abolitionist work, is freedom fighting work. We have to reimagine what leadership looks like and what the fight looks like. It is not good enough for us to just boycott target if we're not advancing black entrepreneurship. So there's several different ways that we've got to do it, but I think they're just spot on.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much. As we conclude this episode, let's end on some lighter notes. Tell us what you like to do for fun and relaxation and why is levity important to you. We see all the viral reels and content between you and your wife, and you guys love to pick on each other. So tell us what is the importance of that type of levity.

SPEAKER_02:

You have got to find a way to live.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Of going to the movies, traveling, going out to eat.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Going with my wife shopping. I don't like to do it, but that's what we do. So yeah, I mean, we're going to flea markets and thrifting, watch a whole season of Netflix in four days. I think finding self to not become a slave to your phone, not becoming a slave to social media, not being a slave to text message, but Shakespeare to thine own self be true.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Who is it that makes me who it is that I am? What makes me tick when I don't have to perform?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And so finding that can show up in many different ways.

SPEAKER_00:

What's next for you, Dr. Bryant?

SPEAKER_02:

I am going to be at the Abolition Freedom Academy. I think that's the Abolition Academy. Abolition Academy. Yeah, I got to sit down and finish a book that is long past overdue. And what's next for me is figuring out who I can support in these midterm elections. This election is going to be so critical, so vital, so important that we're really going to have to dig in. I got a whole lot of work to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, likewise. Include us as co-conspirators in that work. Call on that.

SPEAKER_02:

I love it. I'm using that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

So as our wrap it round and our closing, I'm going to mention some sentences and words, and you just tell us the first thing that comes to mind. You ready?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00:

A hip hop song on your playlist that's on repeat.

SPEAKER_02:

Started at the bottom. Now we're here.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey. Name three living people you want in the room to change the world.

SPEAKER_02:

President of Bikina Faso. President of Nigeria. And Jasmine Crockett.

SPEAKER_00:

My soror. Yes. Favorite food?

SPEAKER_02:

Soul food. I can eat fried chicken, yams, and greens seven days a week. It drives my wife crazy. I'm easy.

SPEAKER_00:

Next time you come to LA, we'll have to host you because I could cook.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I'm coming. Don't tell me we're the whole time. I'm coming.

SPEAKER_00:

Most enjoyed activity.

SPEAKER_02:

Spending time with my wife.

SPEAKER_00:

Guilty pleasure.

SPEAKER_02:

Insomnia cookies.

SPEAKER_00:

Pet peeves.

SPEAKER_02:

Black preachers who support a white evangelical agenda.

SPEAKER_00:

Your childhood nickname.

SPEAKER_02:

Jay.

SPEAKER_00:

Baltimore or Atlanta?

SPEAKER_02:

Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00:

Biggie or Pac.

SPEAKER_02:

Let me say this.

SPEAKER_00:

One word, Doc.

SPEAKER_02:

I'ma answer it, but I gotta give you context.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Because they don't give me my flowers right. They don't give me my flowers right. Okay. Did you know? Because you're a hip hop head, you're a former MC.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Did you know I preached a memorial service for both of them?

SPEAKER_00:

I did not know that.

SPEAKER_02:

You didn't know it.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_02:

At that time I was National Youth Director, the NAACP, and Russell Simmons was trying to build the East Coast West Coast Peace Summit. So that we stopped divine. So all of us were in the room with all of the rappers and all of that. And I was the only preacher of the group that emerged. Lyrically wise, I play more often Biggie. Philosophically, I'm with Tupac. But as a lyricist, I'm with Biggie all day long.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. Favorite preacher.

SPEAKER_02:

Dead or alive.

SPEAKER_00:

One dead, one alive.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm gonna throw you off. My favorite dead preacher. Let me say my preaching preacher of all preaching is Martin Luther King Jr. But my favorite dead preacher is Caesar Clark.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

My favorite living preacher is John Bryan.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I love that. I love that. Fashion.

SPEAKER_02:

Call them Renaissance.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. Morehouse.

SPEAKER_02:

Best college ever.

SPEAKER_00:

A and me.

SPEAKER_02:

I have nothing but good things. Let me say, I gotta answer this. There's one answer. I gotta say, I didn't value the AME church, being dead serious. I didn't value the AME church until I left it. And I'm third generation A. I know you know that before you're listening, third generation AME. And I couldn't find a denomination or fellowship or network that does more diasporically, does more for higher education, does more for missions than the AME church. And so I I appreciate the ant for.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, New Birth.

SPEAKER_02:

New birth lives up to its name. Kappa is the prettiest men that you've ever seen in your life. What you gonna do? What you gonna do?

SPEAKER_00:

Dr. Carey.

SPEAKER_02:

Prettiest woman, the most brilliant, beautiful woman I've ever met in my life. The first woman I ever met that I didn't think I deserved.

SPEAKER_00:

We like her. She's a keeper.

SPEAKER_02:

I agree. I tell her if you leave me, I'm going with her.

SPEAKER_00:

And finally, abolitionist Sanctuary.

SPEAKER_02:

It is a safe space for critical thinkers.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for joining this conversation, Dr. Brian. It was a joy to have you. This is the Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast. Please share this episode and download on all platforms. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and download the Abolitionist Sanctuary Mobile app to connect to a faith-based abolitionist movement. At abolitionistsctuary.com, you can enroll in courses and become certified in abolition at social change. Visit abolitionistsanctuary.org to give, become a member, and subscribe to our mailing list. As we conclude this episode, remember abolition is not only a practice, but it is a way of life. And for me, abolition is my religion. Let's leave, repair, restore, and rebuild a more just and equitable society together. Thank you, Dr. Bryan.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. I'm going to download the app. I'm going to get it right now. Thank you for having me.

Head Shot

Rev. Nikia Smith Robert, PhD

Host