Ancestral Wisdom Can Help Us Resist Authoritarian Politics

Monuments, memory, and movement power collide when we sit down with Pastor William Lamar IV of Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC. We start with Abolition April and why faith-based abolition cannot stay theoretical when regressive policies and public violence keep targeting Black communities, especially Black women. From the first minutes, this conversation is clear: abolition is not only a practice, it is a way of life that forms what we believe, how we worship, and how we organize.

Pastor Lamar takes us deep into the spiritual technology of ancestral veneration through his book “Ancestors: The Names That Bless Us, Curse Us, and Hold Us.” We unpack the difference between ancestors of light who bless and hold us and “shadow ancestors” whose energy can reinforce white supremacist culture, even through the architecture and rituals of Washington, DC. We also talk theology with our whole chest, from unlearning who is “in our head” when we read scripture to challenging harmful church teachings like gendering God and the violent logic of penal substitutionary atonement.

Then we get concrete about strategy: how to organize in an authoritarian political climate without being rattled into burnout, what it meant for Metropolitan AME to sue after the Proud Boys attack, and why building power is not optional. We close with hard-won fundraising and philanthropy lessons on relational grantmaking, transparency, and expanding the table so the work can last.

Subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review to help more people find this faith-based abolitionist conversation, then tell us in the comments: what would an abolitionist sanctuary look like in your city?

Transcript

Meet Pastor William Lamar IV

SPEAKER_00 0:05

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. Welcome to the Abolitionist Sanctuary Podcast. I am your host, Reverend Dr. Nakia Smith Robert. I am excited to bring this very special episode in our abolition April. Abolition April is a day that recognizes and raises awareness around abolition on the fourth month of each year. And we welcome communities and churches around the country to join us as we celebrate Abolition April. This year we are headed to Washington, D.C., where we will celebrate Abolition April in community for a building abolitionist sanctuary teaching at the Warner Building in Washington, D.C. on April 11th, followed by a direct action to advocate for the 300,000 Black women who were forced out of the workplace because of regressive policies and Donald Trump's executive orders. We will also join on April 12th for our National Sunday, where we will organize churches around the country to reimagine their worship service through the lens of abolition. And we are so excited for our host church, the Metropolitan AME Church, also in Washington, D.C., with the pastor William Harmon Lamar IV, who we have the privilege of inviting as our special guest today on the Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast. Pastor William Harmon Lamar IV is the senior pastor of Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C., where he has served since 2014. Under his leadership, Metropolitan has expanded its historical witness through community-centered ministry, including the Sankofa Christian Parenting Project, a Lilly endowment-funded initiative rooted in Black faith and cultural traditions. Previously, Pastor Lamar was the managing director of leadership education at Duke University Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. Through his association with Duke, he convened and resourced executive pastors of large churches, denominational finance executives, young denominational leaders, Methodist bishops, and the constituency of Lilly Endowment Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Program. For nearly 15 years, Pastor Lamar has been actively involved with organizations like DART Direct Action Research Training, Industrial Areas Foundations, and Washington Interfaith Network for Faith-Based Community Organizing for Justice. More recently, he has collaborated with Repairers of the Breach, the Center for Community Change, the People Improving Communities through Organization to enact a social justice ministry in surrounding communities and to exhibit a real embrace, the beloved community. Under his leadership, Metropolitan remains committed to worship, liberation, and service. A 1996 Magna Kuhn Laud graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, AM, Pastor Lamar earned the Bachelor of Science degree in public management with a minor in philosophy and religion and a certificate in human resource management. In 1999, he earned the Master of Divinity degree from Duke University. Pastor Lamar is currently a doctoral student in the inaugural cohort of Christian Theological Seminary for their PhD program in African American preaching and sacred rhetoric. An avid reader and writer, Pastor Lamar's writing has appeared in major publications, including The Washington Post, where his op-ed following a white supremacist attack on his church helped lead to a$3 million judgment. His first book, Ancestors, The Names That Bless Us, Curse Us, and Hold Us, is published by Broadleaf Books. Uh, and he is happily married to Dr. Dana Williams. I am so excited to welcome to the show Pastor Lamar Williams.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Well, it is a pleasure to see you, Dr. Nakia, and I'm thankful to be here. My pronouns he him hears. And today is Green Day, I guess, in honor of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a green dudes boy cap, green hoodie, a forest green blazer. This probably be the last time I'd be able to pull it off before it gets warm. And my life member, Florida AM University Alumni Association Pan. So we're doing it real big with uh kind of circular frames and beard and all that stuff. And my people, who are my people? I am always surrounded by my ancestors, my great-grandparents and my grandparents, surrounded by aunts and uncles who made the transition, surrounded by those whose names I do not know, but who dance in my imagination and in my body, my African ancestors who knew a world without America's bondage, extraction, exploitation, and oppression. They are with me. And because I believe that the first ancestor is the divine, the prime ancestor, that reality is one unique knowledge that we're all made in the image and likeness of the divine, and the divine is the first and primary ancestor, as our African ancestors taught us. Glad to be here.

Childhood Self And Daily Joy

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Well, thank you for being here and welcome to the show. My pronouns are she, hers, and I am wearing a white v-neck t-shirt with a woman in black shadow with her fist pumped and an afro representing the logo inscribed in a circle of abolitionist sanctuary, as well as a black blazer with embroidery, silver-ish, and blonde braids, pearl earrings, and full beat face with Fenty MVP lipstick. That is not an endorsement or advertisement. And I am in front of a backdrop representing the branding of the Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast. My people are nine siblings who hailed from Williamston, North Carolina to New York City, where they migrated and settled in Harlem, New York. I am the daughter of Carol Mercedes Smith, a single poor Black mother who raised us in very tumultuous times, but through it all had this really strong faith in God and community with the church that helped her to make it over. And so I am the proud daughter of Carol Mercedes Smith. As we start this interview, Pastor Lamar, help us to get to know you better. Who is the younger William Lamar? And do you spend time with him? And what would you say to him as your adult self?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

So the first thing I'll say is someone put out large from this information that my middle name is Herman. Somebody, it's H-A-R-M-O-N-G. I don't know where that came from, but it is William Herman Lamar IV. And what shall I say about little Billy, those who know me best, my family, they call me Billy. I would say that in a time of crisis, about 22 years ago, a dear friend was staying with me and with my then wife. And he said something to me that was profound. He said, That little boy in you has helped to make you who you are and will make you who you are becoming. And a practice to help you is to embrace him every day, to tell him that he is loved and embraced, and that you know that nothing you do is done apart from him. So the that Billy inside of me, I am thrilled when that child emerges to correct me when I am too wed to adult behavior, that is, not taking risks, not using imagination, not playing, not uh being thankful. I was listening to a podcast of a gentleman who used to write for the food section of the New York Times, and he had changed his eating habits, and he talked about savoring one single raisin. It took him 20 minutes to eat one raisin. I want to live that kind of slowed down, purposeful, playful, imaginative, risk-taking life. And that I think is embodied in the young Billy who lives in the 51-year-old man with a gray beard.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

That sounds fabulous. And it perfectly leads us to the second question. Now, as that 51-year-old man, what do you do to enjoy yourself? What, particularly outside of the scrutiny of the public eye, what hobbies or interests bring you peace, happiness, and fulfillment?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

The list is myriad, and that's a good thing. But the first thing I'll say is music. So the music that was being played while we were waiting for the podcast to begin, man, I was just grooving. It was just beautiful, lovely, lilting, took me on a ride. So I love music. Uh the way that I operate is I do not have a playlist. Part of it is because of my extreme ruditism. But the other part is when something hits me, I just find it on the musical app and I play it. I don't I don't want to get into that thing. I like the spontaneity. So music, I love words, which means I like to read, I love podcasts, documentaries, and the way my brain works, even when I'm watching a movie, I see text in my mind. I'm thinking about dialogue, I'm thinking about framing. So we're and and language, speech is truly the lingua franca of human beings. And of course, even those who may not have the gift of vocalize, we still communicate. We still have ways of engaging speech beyond words. So music, words, and the thing that brings me most joy here recently is being in the presence of people whom I love. Man, that's beautiful. You realize in a certain age that the greatest gift we have is time, and to spend that time with those whom I love really is a gift. And I don't have the language to describe how incalculable its value is. So music, words, and talk with those whom I love, family, friends, and those who are whom I am whom I am learning to love. Those, those are the gifts.

Writing Ancestors And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Thank you for sharing that, especially in the days that we live in. Community is so important. Life is so incredibly hard. So it's special to be surrounded by people who love you. That becomes a form of resilience. I want to shift to your recent book. You wrote a book, Ancestors, the Names That Bless Us, Curse Us. What is the premise of this book? And what do you hope for your readers to walk away with?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

I just had a conversation with our wonderful seniors here at Metropolitan about the book. It was fabulous. And one of the guys said to me, Man, we we thought you were going to give us a presentation, and you have this interactive storytelling thing going, because I don't believe in that sage on the stage. I opened the space and heard ancestral stories, and that's part of the purpose of the book. But let me get at this. Those who have written know that often the cover art, which in this case is beautiful, and I'm glad they didn't ask me anything about that. But the title, the subtitle was not my original thinking, but it was the right thinking. Ancestors, those who bless us, curse us, hold us. So the blessing comes from what I describe in the book as ancestors of light, who lead us in a human path where we can live together without exploitation, oppression, or extraction. The curse, and I know some persons who do ancestral work would disagree with me, they would only privilege as ancestors, those whose lives were human. I talk about shadow ancestors because I think that their energy helps to create the dastardly tyrannical, hegemonic white supremacist reality we see in America and elsewhere. The same way we lift up our ancestors, those who want to create misanthropic, dehumanizing spaces also generate bears. And that energy affects us. So ancestors of light bless us, ancestors of shadow curse us, and beholding us is a double entendre of sorts that shadow ancestors try in their energy to hold us back from flourishing. But ancestors of light hold us as in embrace us, encourage us, give us the love we need to go back and to fight to design to be joyful another day. I want others to lean into their own ancestral stories and veneration. One of our sisters upstairs told me that she has a plant, a vine from a plant that belonged to her great-great-grandmother. And that plant is producing in her home, and she said it is her place of prayer and reflection. I want those stories unearthed because I believe that they have the energy to help us for the fight that we're engaged in and will engage in for years to come.

Shadow Ancestors And Monumental DC

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Thank you. Say more about your construction of shadow ancestors.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Who were they?

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Who are they? How do they manifest? How do we carry or resist? Tell us more about the shadow ancestors.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

It's a wonderful question in the beginning. Many will reject that premise, but I lifted it up for this reason. I write in the book about maybe one of my most palpable experiences with Shadow Access was happened when my family visited Washington, D.C. for the first time. I had no idea I'd be living here. It was 1990. I was 16 years old. And we were visiting all of the sites that one comes to Washington to visit. And I felt profound unease, dis-ease with these places. Because I knew that the liberty that they proclaimed was never for me or for my people. I knew that the United States Capitol was built by my ancestors who were not paid for their labor. And in the words of Tony Morrison, not even a bench was there to remind us of their labor. I felt when walking around Statuary Hall, an energy from people who were segregationists, enslavers, misanthropic, dehumanizing, rapist. I was surrounded. So where others were venerating, here's John C. Calhoun, here's Thomas Jefferson, I was like, hell no, to all of them. I felt that energy. And moving around Washington, D.C., which I call in the book and say often, is a world capital of ancestor veneration. The statuary, the Lincoln, the Jefferson, which are built architecturally on styles of temples. That reality, that spirit, that energy of anti-human, anti-democratic people, their rhetoric may have been so, but their practice was not. And I'm more concerned with your practice and your rhetoric. I had to name that energy because I believe that that energy is a big part of the moment in which we find ourselves. I believe that the same way that the bones of my ancestors rattle to keep me loving, joyful, hospitable, I think the bones of their ancestors were rattling to say we must return this experiment, this imperial experiment, back to what it was. It was for, by, and designed with white men for themselves. That is exactly what we are seeing today. And that energy cannot just be explained, and if we can do first names, Nikia, that that energy cannot be explained by history, by journalism, by politics, by economics and theology alone. There is an epistemic privileging of the mysterious that we must also return to if we're going to fight this.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Very interesting. I would love to continue this conversation online because I'm interested if these shadow ancestors serve an adversarial memory, we represent an adversarial memory of past contested even evil figures. Why call them ancestors and not evil spirit or monster or so? I would love to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Oh, it's and I just you dangle that I gotta say. Because if you are here in America, as my family has been, their blood is in you. And that has to be named. And even beyond that, I think that they are ancestors because, in my definition, like the definition of matter, it can neither be created nor destroyed. I think that even though their humanity in many instances was doubtful, they still were those who went before us. And if you take some ancestral practice seriously, it may be possible that they could be healed. I'm not spending a lot of time on that. But I refuse to give them another name because they were diabolical. Because also, what we know, I mean, if you read Alan Busak's blood on both sides of the blood red sea, I can't remember the name, but he's talking about what happens when you are released from apartheid, pharaohs on both sides of the blood red river, and the pharaoh is black. So, what I also don't want to do is to exonerate us from the reality that we and many of us have can become just like that. So I was just very, very careful. And I definitely I appreciate the question and those who challenge it.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

That's that's really good. Uh, our participation in some of those evil systems as well is important. And I'm wondering the ways in which you may ground the language of ancestry in African religious cosmologies, and how, as a Christian pastor, do you help people understand or embrace the connection of ancestors and African religious cosmology with Western religions such as Christianity, particularly in the black church?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

So I've got to name my teacher, Mamma Ichihari Tore, who has journeyed with me and been kind enough to bring me and others into the house of Tere. Many of her teachings resonate and are present in what I have shared. One is that everything has spirit and energy. There's no such thing in our cosmology as inanimate objects. So we start there. And then I think we need to understand that we must privilege indigenity. The way that we have read Christianity or we've been taught to read it, it is you must destroy the indigenous practices of a people in order for them to become a part of this way, this movement, this Jesus movement, if you will. In Metropolitan, there are two African deities in the church, in the physical space. Because what I share with folks is we knew the divine, and the divine knew us before churches, Bibles, seminaries, Jesus. We've always known and been known by the Divine and any people who would sever themselves from the ways their ancestors knew God, that that's a people group that I would not respect nor wish to belong to. And what's interesting is what black Christians forget is that our mothers and fathers never exorcise all of indigeneity. It shows up in the way that we sing in our tradition on the first Sunday, let us break bread together on our knees when I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun. Who faces the rising sun as they pray? Our Muslim brothers and sisters. They kept in the tradition the reality, the fact that many of us come from within the Islamic tradition. They did not exorcise or demonize that. They put it in the liturgy. Here are other cultural pieces. What we eat on New Year's, that ain't in no Bible. The fact that in Macon, Georgia, where I'm from, on the on the first day of the year, when we come back from watch night, the first person to walk into a home had to be a man. And I had one uncle, Uncle Norman James Lamar. It was his job to walk into every house because a man had to be the first one to cross the threshold. When I, that's not in anybody's Bible. When I would travel with the elders, when people were making transition, becoming ancestors, the mothers and fathers would cover mirrors in black cloth so that when the transition happened, they would not get caught in this realm. Our mothers and fathers never believed at our best that we were to get rid of things that came with us on our journey to this place. And so it is all around us. And those who are scholars and think it's a religion must privilege the fact that all faith is syncretic. We borrow, we merge. And so I would never ever give myself or my energy to a faith that would demonize, call evil, call witchcraft the ways our mothers and fathers have known and still know. And if you read the text, neither did Jesus.

Unlearning Harmful Church Teachings

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah. Yeah, you're pivoting. And I appreciate this redirection towards theology. And what I appreciate about you is that you are a thinker, but you are also a believer, that head and heart comes together in the work that you do as a thought leader in the academy. You are working towards your PhD, you have published your first book, but you are also leading congregations in the church. And you connect both the teaching and your believing or your thinking and believing to doing with the activism that you are immersed in. So I would like to talk more about pastoring. You mentioned that you pastor Metropolitan AME Church. And as you trouble some of the teachings of the church, share more about what are some harmful teachings of the church. Yeah. And you're going to talk about this a bit. So you do a phenomenal job of problematizing and troubling some of these theologies that are rooted in sacrifice and violence and harm. Talk to us how you are confronting those harmful theologies.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

So let me give you a very clear example. Our communion liturgy uses masculine pronouns for God. When we lead the liturgy here, we mix or we say parent. We say Mother God. We say God our parent. So there was a gentleman, tangentially related to the congregation, often those are the ones that cause uh challenges, sent me a letter saying that he was tired of hearing me saying that I was going against the scripture. It wasn't in the Bible, it wasn't in the discipline, that he was going to reach out to the presiding elder and the bishop. They need to deal with me. I think this may be a family show, so I will not say what I said. But that part of what I said was, man, you can send them anything you want to all day and every day, because as long as I have the appointment, I am the pastor of Metropolitan. And I will move as spirit, as ancestors, and as my own thinking and reading and community, I'll move in that direction. And I shared with him, sir, you need to read this article by Pauly Murray, where Paulymur writes about the fact that any gendering of the divine is not rooted in Afro-Hebraic languages or Asiatic languages. It is rooted in a politics. There is no gendering of that word in the text. He said it's in the Bible. I said, sorry, your translators had a politics. They wanted you to imagine God as a man, as a human with a penis, so that you would imagine all leaders, secular, and I don't even like that phrase, but let's say it within the church, outside of the church, as men. I said, Do you have a daughter? I said, Yes, don't you want her to imagine the divine as she exists? And he just, you know, he didn't like that. So that's a very practical example. I try to teach it, then I try to embody it in the liturgy. Too many of us go to seminary and are afraid to embody what we have learned within the context of the congregation. I was clear. I never wanted to pastor and pervade ignorance because I do not believe in Gnosticism. If I could learn this, everybody in Metropolitan can learn this. We trouble all of that stuff together, and what happens is Metropolitan is not the place for some people, but it is the place for a lot of people. And I'm very, very thankful. So that's one instance of a troubling doctrine. Another one I'm doing my work on is around penal substitutionary atonement. That is a very, very violent doctrine. It is not the only way that the church has read the crucifixion. One scholar says there are at least 12 ways, and there may be even more. And beyond that, that penal substitutionary model that God desires sacrifice is a model that moves into our politics and our economics such that people can use the imprimatur of the divine to kill people like us in the furtherance of their projects, because they say either implicitly or explicitly, this is the way God works, this is the way nature works. So indigenous people, queer people, black people, immigrants, your demise is the cost of doing business. And we don't understand that giving that theological ground allows for politics that does just that. The last thing I'll say about this is we know, according to the great work of Orlando Patterson, that white creatures presided at the communion table and then walked outside and presided over lynchings. That is because of a penal substitutionary atonement reading, and that reading must be obliterated within our churches.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I hope you read, if you haven't, an article that I wrote, I did my master's thesis at Union Theological Seminary. Dorian, Gary Dorian was the first speaker.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

I love that guy. Love that guy.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah. And it was titled Penitence Plantation and the Penitentiary, a Liberation Theology for Lockdown America. And I published a shortened version of that in the Harvard Graduate Journal. And I'm looking at sacrificial theology, particularly all the various atonement theories that are coming from Paul in the early church, and really asking the question: how does Jesus' first century crucifixion reveal something about the modern-day scapegoating of black and brown bodies to the U.S. carceral state? Looking at Anselm and making the claim that he has this hegemonic hold on our understanding of Jesus' death and this idea that there has to be a sacrifice and that Jesus was the perfect satisfaction because he was fully human and fully man. And so, you know, some womanist thinkers have problematized that essentially God becomes a sadist, that the focus on the cross is to glorify suffering and vicarious punishment, and it is death dealing. And Dolores Williams, who I like to see myself in the tradition of, in terms of my theology and thinking, is how do we shift away from the cross and death and the glorification of suffering to life-generating alternatives that we see modeled in the life and ministry of Jesus, this ministerial vision. So I'm really excited about your work and the constructions you will contribute. But I hope you take a look at that article.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

I will gladly. I'd love to have interlocutors such as yourself, my friend.

Organizing Under Rising Authoritarianism

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yes, yes, yes. So we talked about you as a thinker and as a pastor, and I want to hold those in place as we also introduce your role as a community organizer and your activism as the pastor of Metropolitan AME Church. Speak to the challenges you have faced in this current political climate, led by an authoritarian regime and a fascist playbook.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

You know, it's very interesting. The first term, the energy was frenetic. I mean, people, we were holding rallies, vigils, organizing, marching. I got arrested in the night in jail. This time, people have approached it differently. I had to write a reflection, I can't remember for what publication, about the election of Trump. And I was I was sitting outside of our home, and we've got a kind of a park space behind us, and there were two deer bedded down in front of me. When I opened the door to go out, they were bedded down, but they craned their necks. They knew I was there. I was probably maybe 50, 75 yards away from them. Very aware of my presence, but they did not move. They kept watch for one another, one from the east, one from the west. And they did not move, though danger was in sight. Possibly, I could have been anybody. Danger was in sight, they did not move until together they decided it was the right time while keeping watch. Those deer taught me something. In the second Trump administration, we must always be aware of the danger, but not be rattled by everything they say, everything they do. Not be rattled enough to move without a rich strategy and building the power to protect as much as we could protect and to keep and hold as much as we have won. I feel like the first time we were behaving like deer, that every sound we run, run, run, run, run. And while there is something ancestral about that, there's also something ancestral and holy about holding ground and leaving together when we discern, moving together when we discern the time is right. That is the difference. Because if you move at every piece that they release, every word that they say, you will lose energy. You will faint. We will faint. And so the second administration for me, for many of us, has been more about watching, more about privileging systems, trying to figure out how we counterbalance the systems they create. What are the stories we need to tell? What is the narrative that we can tell and unleash that will cause people to want to draw toward one another and not rip us apart? And I've been having a lot of conversations about how philanthropic concerns work to help us build an alternative that is beyond the next election, but that will grab hold of the culture. We've been talking about what it means to build power, because we see now we have not had the power to keep everything that we want. And you must build power, as A. Philip Randolph says, to keep what you win. So those are some of the things that we're thinking about. And I don't do it in isolation. I'm working with a number of people, religious groups. We're doing a lot together.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Yeah, thank you for that. I want to talk specifically about the horrific terror that your church experienced with the Proud Boys and the work that you did to fight back. Can you say more about that?

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Yes. In December of 2020, our church was attacked by the Proud Boys. They just defaced some of our property, uh, the Black Lives Matter sign. And we were in COVID church at that time. I was leading worship from my basement, which is something I hated and never, never trained for, but I was told by my wife and others that you can't let this keep looking like a hostage situation. You got to lean into it. So we heard about it. I was preparing to preach and lead my text messages and everything, so just buzz, buzz, buzz, jump, jump, jump. And someone sent me news articles and coverage about what had happened. I knew I had to gather myself to do what I called to do and must do on Sundays. Afterwards, called a meeting. In the interim, we heard from the NAACP, Cornell Brunson, others, would you be willing to sue? When I proposed that question to the leaders of Metropolitan, it was a unanimous yes. We want to fight, we will fight. Sue these persons for$1.4,$1.5 million. And the reason we now say more than$3 million is because interest is tagged in. We sued them and they would not pay the initial payment. So we took them back to court and sued them to owe their trademark and copyright. We won a suit for the money and for the trademark. So legally, we own the Power Boys logo. And we're going after their Bitcoin and their cryptocurrency as well.

Building Power Through Faith Organizing

SPEAKER_00 36:39

That deserves some celebration and applause for your leadership and for the victory. And for the victory. What formed this faith-based organizing? And does the history of the AME church play a role, particularly within abolitionist and liberationist movements?

SPEAKER_01 36:59

I would say so. One of the things to consider about our founder, Richard Allen, is that he did not allow AMEs to purchase goods that have been manufactured with slave labor, the labor of the enslaved, rather. So I think that they are hand in hand. I think the reason that Richard Allen and many of my ancestors were Methodists is because Methodists were abolitionists. Now, to be abolitionists, does that mean you're for equality or you were for the prospering of black life? But our mothers and fathers said it's many of them, it's better for us to join this plain religion that is anti-slavery than to get down with somebody else's thing that's not, right? So I was formed by that tradition, but also formed by this gentleman whose picture you see to my right, James Melvin Proctor, now an ancestor. He told me many years ago that, Bill, you can be an advocate, an activist, or an organizer. Now, we need activists and advocates, but he said based on where you are and where you're going, you need to be a part of this organizing effort. You need to build relationships, have one-on-one conversations, excuse me, and build the power that is necessary to make no's yeses and yeses no's in the service of justice. I didn't realize that organization and organizing are written into the scriptures themselves, Moses and organizers, Schifra and Poole organizers. People speak of Jesus Christ as organizers. So, and I believe all of those things. So I fall into that tradition, but also the grand and beautiful tradition of civil rights organizing, of ecclesial organizing in black spaces. That is my home. That is who I am, and that is who I am becoming. And I am becoming more and more radicalized around the idea that we must build power. Too many of us are afraid of that language, afraid to say the word power, but you cannot get any of the things that you want to get in life for yourself or for your community without the power to make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

That is really, really good. That is a phenomenal response. There are advocates, activists, and organizers. And you are not just an organizer, but a faith-based organizer from Moses and the other traditions, biblical traditions that you pull from. And I'm wondering how do you use that training to mobilize the church? What are you teaching your congregation that they're able to say yes unanimously, we will sue the Proud Boys?

SPEAKER_01 39:42

One of the things I did when I got here is I was wise enough that was, I came to Metropolitan, and Metropolitan was my fifth pastoral appointment. And I've been a pastor for 15 years or so. So I was smarter, I hope, I think. I like to imagine. And I said, you know, you really can't study the Bible until you unearth your interpretive regime. So I said, we ain't reading this book. We first got to realize who is in our head teaching us how to read this book. So I tried my best for a number of years, reading James Cole, Kelly Barrell Douglas, Aubrey Hendricks, Judy Fentress Williams, the list goes on and on, of people whom we read to get out of our heads those white supremacist interpretations that were living rip-free in our heads, our preaching, our prayers, and our singing. Exorcising those people is a lifelong call because many of us still nurture and nourish ourselves based on what they say. The freedom that many people got here was I began to teach that about interpretation, about with whom to interpret, whom not to interpret, all that stuff. But people who are members got hold of that and they began to tell their friends. And that's really the interpretation of text comes from that moment. And it really kind of spread like wildfire here.

Centering Black Women In Leadership

SPEAKER_00 41:12

That's really good. So thinking about who is in our head when we interpret text, doing that kind of destructive work, the unlearning before the teaching. I wonder if you could say something about the significance of black women's leadership in the church and in these secular social justice movements and the ways in which patriarchy has attempted to derail their contributions.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Listen, the patriarchy is very, very real. I know, and I have said and I will say, that if I were a young woman born in 74, out of seminary in 99, 15 years later, I probably would not be in disappointment. Now, some things have changed, but more than likely. The church for 200 years, and in our instance or longer, and still today, is steeped in, formed and shaped by a vigorous and rigorous patriarchy, a rigorous and vigorous heteronormative space. Oh wow, I'm loving I'm capturing my in the background my Proctor Conference logo. Anyway. So in this congregation, they are used to the leadership of women. My executive minister and colleague who helps me at every level, we help one another, Reverend Cosette Thomas, very much a black woman, uh, leadership elsewhere. And this church would not have been built without black women's sacrifices. We have sort of a black woman who worked selling flowers in front of the Capitol and took that money and used it to help with the construction of Metropolitan. I am empowering women to lead a number of ministries and helping them to see themselves as leaders in the church and beyond. I am very clear. You would have nothing at this place were it not for the women. The seniors upstairs, there's a room of about 40. There were four men, right? And if I were to look at the percentage of our income that comes from sisters as opposed to brothers, women presenting focus approaches, I would probably say 70 to 75, 80 percent. So I want our leadership in the contemporary moment of Metropolitan to really be weighted in the direction of those who do the service. That's how you make, I think, for a healthful, healthy local congregation. So we do not run from that massage noir that exists in the black church, and that's still, I'm sure, in some spaces, exists even in Metropolitan. But people don't say that to me, and they don't say that to others because we know that we are inhospitable to all manner of speech and action that denigrates women, that denigrates gay folk, trans folk. We absolutely don't tolerate that. And what I have found is living that way attracts people to us. And also saying we haven't figured it all out. So where you see the patriarchy, where you see heteronormative stuff that's offensive, let us know because we want to get better. We want to be a house for all people.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

Yeah, that's really good. I'm thinking about earlier abolitionist movements that were headlined by Frederick Douglass and W.E. Dublas and the women who were behind them. You mentioned Paulie Murray or Nanny Burroughs. And then I'm thinking about the civil rights movement leaders like Martin Luther King held in the four, but there were women behind like Ella Baker and Mahalia Jackson and others, right? Who even Coretta Scott, who are kind of sidelined in the historical retelling of these movements. I'm thinking about more recently the target FAST that has modeled itself after the civil rights movement and this heated conversation that's happening between the protest and the FAST and the leadership between both of those entities. And I'm just thinking about how the struggle for Black women to be seen and given ownership of movements that were so pivotal and instrumental to building, including the church, and the ways in which patriarchy seeks to sabotage and undermine those contributions. And I'm thinking about you as a leader, located both in the church as an organizer, but it seems like you're doing something that is really venerating and centering the contributions of women, that you're unafraid to give credit to say women are a primary stakeholder in this.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

I just impossible for me to imagine this space contemporarily or historically without the contribution of our mothers and our sisters. And I think that we need to be very clear that we come from cultures, some of them were not made patriarchal but matriarchal, right? We need to understand that there are ways to envision being together that don't look for people to oppress, that don't look for people to dispossess. And I don't know how many models there are in the church space, but I think that the models are growing. And what's happening now, too, is fewer and fewer people that look like me are coming forward to do this work. And the people whom the leadership will send to pastor these churches in our community will be more and more women. And they should not enter hostile environments. What the hell does that mean? But you know, as many have said, women were the first to proclaim the gospel. They had upon their lips the proclamation, the preachment that he's alive.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

So I I don't I don't know. I mean, you know, this is not a popular person to quote in America, but I don't care. Mao says that women hold up half the sun. Like, who would you be? Take your hands off of those who hold up half the sky, rather.

Abolition April Invitation And Host Church

Fundraising And Philanthropy That Lasts

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Yeah. I'm really grateful for your partnership as we are launching Abolition April and bringing programming to Washington, D.C. on the 11th with our teaching, where we are gathering faith leaders, community organizers to explore this faith-based abolitionist approach or how to build abolitionist sanctuaries. And having you in the room is really important because you, in my view, you embody being an abolitionist sanctuary and the work that you're doing in unlearning those harmful teachings, but also providing new interpretive lens for our believers to see the gospel through liberation and abolition and inclusively without the horrors of patriarchy. On the 12th, we're also gathering our National Sunday, where you are our host church. I say this because you aren't just speaking it, but you are living it and you are demonstrating it in partnership with me and the organization. So grateful for you serving as host church on April 12th at Metropolitan AME Church, where we can reenvision the worship service through the lens of abolition and become the living abolitionist sanctuary refuge where people can find healing and restoration. And so we invite people to sign up to register for our teaching on April 11th in Washington, DC, and also to sign up if you are a pastor, to sign your church up to become an abolitionist sanctuary as well as participate in our national Sunday. Pastor Lamar, as we look to close out, just a couple more questions. Every movement has to be funded. And you have sat in the seat of philanthropy, particularly in your role as director of leadership education at Duke University Divinity School. What insights can you share about grants, philanthropy, and fundraising that could help nonprofits and other faith communities to build capacity and fund the mission for long-term sustainability?

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Well, before I do that, my dear new friend, Dr. Nakia, you neglected. This, my friend, is a gaping oversight. We must return. You cannot tell the good people who the preacher will be on that Sunday call.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

How about you introduce the preacher?

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Yes, yeah, the recruiting. Yes, no, you will be the preacher. And that and I think that again goes to your earlier question. Making sure in the pulpit that we center the voices of preachers like you, Melba Sampson, so many others who have come. And it's extraordinary. I mean, I still have women and men who talk about the gift that the sisters who preach here with regularity. Many of them are from traditions when that's not where that's not the case. So with philanthropy. One of my challenges, and I think it's probably the case for you, is if you try to live in intellectual spaces, you have to turn a thing like a jeweler turns a precious stone. So philanthropy is gift and challenge. It is light and shadow. Dr. Arnand has written a book about how people, he and others consider philanthropy as standing in the way of true transformation because those who are in philanthropic organizations have the power to not just throw money at problems, but to really fix them. So there are people who talk about what if these corporations and people actually pay taxes? I want to do that framing because part of being in philanthropic spaces, and this is going to be very challenging, of course, you will have to discern with the power of the spirit and the power of ancestors when to bring this up. But philanthropies value those who think and push. The kinds of philanthropies that will fund the abolitionist movement and that fund Metropolitan are looking for people who will speak truth, who will speak it also in humility. And you notice I didn't say speak truth and power because one of my interlocutors said he was troubled by that phrase because it is as if you have all the truth and they have all the power, that there is truth and power to go in both directions. So I say all that to say philanthropy and being able to move philanthropic realities, Dr. Nakia, it is always, everywhere, yesterday, today, tomorrow, relational.

unknown 53:00

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

One must know and be known. One must acquit oneself with the utmost dignity and with the utmost transparency when receiving the funds of others. Unfortunately, I know people who did not understand that when you receive these funds, your accountability must be impeccable, unimpeachable. Because scrutinies do not live the same in all cultures. That actually sounded good. I need to write that down. Yes, scrutinies have different afterlives as scholars, like you say, Dr. Nakir, in different spaces. So, what I know, and I actually was on the phone with a funder today, we had an hour-long conversation. This funder and I have become friends. And here's the thing funds and funders grow in a number of ways. But let me give you two. Philanthropies talk with one another. And if you do good work in one place, that can redound to your favorite others. And then two, philanthropy also talks with people with whom they have partnered and they help them to guide grant making. And those of you who are listening, if you have friends that are in these ecologies, you should speak with them, but also know that in this world, Dr. Nakia and Bill Lamar, we you we could love you, you could be our friend, but if we know you're unaccountable, and if we know that you ain't about that life, you ain't about that business, we are not going to use what we have been gifted and squander it. Last thing I'll say that I have learned from watching the Reverend Dr. Reginald Blood, whom I call guru. What you do in these spaces, if you have an abolitionist mindset, is you do not take these relationships and hoard them. That is not who we are. We are a people of abundance. I seek to bring to the table others who share my vision. And if we do these things, we can expand what philanthropy is willing to invest in us. Metropolitan,$5 million from Lily in one grant,$1.25 million in another grant,$1.25 for our climate work, CDC-related stuff. And we have now a plan for at least$20 to 30 million in the next seven to 10 years to grow what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

Wow. Wow. Did you drop some nuggets for us? That was profound, and I really appreciate it. And when you are in those funders' room, please speak our name. Apple thank you.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

Yes, yes. I just want to say there's a great prophet who says, say my name, say my name.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Say my name.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

I will follow the great prophet and share your name.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

You know that's all right. And you mentioned you said the name of some of my favorite people. So shout out to my Soror, Melva Sampson, and Pink Robes Chronicle. If you are not following that prophetic broadcast as a digital hush harbor, rush to Facebook and follow her and do that as soon as you can. And Reginald Blunt, I just want to always give my public praise for the work that he does and for every door he has opened for me to walk in. So thank you so much. So yes, we are in good company.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

I will not share with, you know, I was thinking the other day when I grew up listening to the radio. The DJs would say folks out there in radio land. You're probably too young for that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Or look, or they would say, they say people out there in TV land. I don't know what you call this people out here in digital land or YouTube land. I will spare you the Arctic chill of the shade coming from Dr. McKay when she first met this guest. Arctic shade, but we'll let that aside. But beyond the shade, the warmth comes from Dr. Blunt, who, you know, we were at a table and Reggie was like, Bill, you don't know the key, and the key you don't know Bill. Like he was just like the universe is some there, there is a disturbance in the forest because we had not met one another.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

He doesn't like it, but I call him fairy godfather.

Welcome Table Economics And Mutuality

SPEAKER_01 57:43

He is that for sure. That brother, I'm gonna tell you, if you want somebody, here's here's what we gotta understand. People embody ancestral power in so many ways. And Reggie's embodiment doesn't look like yours or mine, but it is so very potent and powerful. And Reggie believes in expanding the table.

unknown 58:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

And I am so thankful. I write about this in the book, that image of welcome table. Yeah, that our mothers and fathers, like he, that's who we are. And if there will be salvation for us in this age, it will come from those who have the tools and who are building that welcome table. That's it. And and I'm and I'm just so glad that you and I got a chance to sit down together at the table. Though I must say again to those listening, the chill of the shade.

SPEAKER_00 58:35

Let me stop.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Let me stop. I'm gonna stop.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

The table that Reggie Blunt built, and what I like about him is the table that he opens up for others never takes from the table that he sits at. And that's the ethic right there. If you give, you will never be without, right? And so I mean we could that's we could go into a whole but we must doc. We must we must quote capitalism and how it wants to use each other's competitors and individualism, but our ancestral ethic is communal, right? It is always work together.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Listen, the great Mac Keen Carter, great Pope Teer, he called Jesus the nappy-headed Negro from Nazareth. Here the Negro from Nazareth said, give and it shall be given. We cannot interpret that from within a capitalist mindset. That's not capitalist. What he is saying is if you live and exist within this way of radical mutuality, you will not suffer lack. So, for example, people don't understand that. I tell this is very granular. Hopefully, somebody's listening who may be going off to college. If you are going off to vocational education, going off wherever you may go, be going to build your life, if you find a community and you contribute to that community with your presence, your love, your energy, you won't lack. I tell these students to come to Metropolitan, if you will make this a community and not just treat the community like a side piece, but treat the community like your main squeeze, like your partner, like your spouse, I tell them, I promise you, you will never be hungry. The community will take care of you. And that's that's I think the story of our lives. And to build all the theological and ancestral, the community that cares for us is beyond the piercing of the veil, as Du Bois would say, beyond time and space. I've been spending some time with Sun Ra. And just that kind of cosmology, when he says we're not from here, he's saying something. He's saying that who we are is not bound to this. And if you really know who we are, you cannot connect us to these systems because of who we are foundationally. So, yeah, anyway, space is the place.

Rapid Round And Final Blessing

SPEAKER_00 1:01:01

Yeah, that's right. And and shout out to Tracy Blackman for providing a space for us to meet at Faith Out Loud and the the wonderful work that she is doing, making resources available for all of us at the table to fund the vision with training as well. Doc, as we close out, I want to do a rapid round. So I'll say a word and you will respond with the first thing that comes to mind. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

Before you see my Malcolm behind me, you know, I call it Tupac X. He looks more like Tupac than Malcolm. I just had to get that out. So anybody judging my Malcolm, somebody gave it to me, and being of just being a good Christian. So already, Doc.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Let me just clear up the Arctic shade that you reference. So at the Faith Out Loud convening that Tracy Blackman led, and Reverend Reginald Blunt introduced Pastor Lamar to me. And one of the demands, one of the asks of Reverend Blackman, Reverend Tracy, was to dress casually, okay? To dress casually. So when Reverend Blunt introduced me to Pastor Lamar, I didn't think he looked so casual. And so, you know, many of us were in sweats and hoodies, and he had the three-quarter zip and, you know, looking still very dapper. And so the shade is that I called him on it, that he in fact was not compliant or obedient to Reverend Blackman's requests, and he was not casual at all. But according to him and his wardrobe, okay, not everyone has the same budget. According to his wardrobe, he was in fact dressed down. So that's the Arctic shade he's referencing is me calling him out.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

And this is why black women need to run the church and the world, because they speak true and and they and exactly right. And and the and the love affair commenced. And everybody who knows me will tell you clearly, I'm not good at following rules. So I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna do better.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

We're in good company then. All right, so here are the words. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

Making Georgia.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:26

Love.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:27

It's a rapid round, Doc. Rapid.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

I'm sorry, I you stunned me with that, but because no word came, I was in a space of just joy. So I'm just like, I'm gonna do better. Wow, I'll do better.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

Okay. Rattlers.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

Fam you, fam you, fam, goddamn you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:48

Music.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

John Coltrane.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Marvin Gay.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Make me wanna holler, throw up both my hands.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:57

All right, love.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

Joy.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

Black women.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

Ancestors. Holy The Church.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:12

Help us.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

Freedom.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:17

Is never given by the oppressor, must be demanded and taken by the oppressed. And it has no grandchildren. Your favorite has no grandchildren.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Your favorite food?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Peach cobbler right now. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

Mine too. Favorite church song?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

Today I would say Jesus keep me near the cross for many multi multiplying complex reasons. Because though I have that, I have aught with penal substitutionary atonement. You can read that is keep me in the place where there is suffering, but also you are fighting like hell for redemption and resurrection. Keep me there.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:09

Alright, favorite color?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:11

Blue.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

Favorite thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

Sweet. Right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Biggest pet peeve.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:24

Liars.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:27

Greatest fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

Dying in unlived life.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

Turn up or Netflix and show.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

I binge watched found those two seasons with that sister. That was incredible. So the turnout with me definitely would be binging something good. And I haven't done it as much recently, but a fine, complex. Island Scott. Just a little bit, not a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:05

All right. Dana Williams.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

Damn. All the things. I know. All the things. All the things.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

Beautiful wife. Abolition of Sanctuary.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

Possibility. Oh my god. Like unending possibility.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:25

Thank you. And finally, Abolition April.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

Make sure your face is in the place.

Closing Resources And Ways To Join

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

Wonderful. Well, thank you for joining this conversation on the Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast. For our listeners and viewers, please download and share this episode on all platforms. Again, I am your host, Reverend Dr. Nakia Smith Roberts, founder and executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary. Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and download our social mobile app. Also enroll in our courses and become certified at abolitionistacademy.com. Don't forget to become a member and subscribe to our mailing list at abolitionistsanctuary.org. As we conclude this episode, remember that abolition is not only a practice, but it is a way of life. And for me, abolition is my religion. Let's lead a faith based abolitionist movement together. Pastor Bill Lamar, thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:26

Honored to be a guest, and thank you for your great work, Dr.

unknown 1:07:28

Niki.