Ancestral Wisdom Can Help Us Resist Authoritarian Politics

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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?

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Welcome to the Abolitionist Sanctuary Podcast,
where we talk faith, abolition,and Black Motherhood.
I am your host, Reverend Dr.
Nikia Smith Robert, the founderand executive director of
Abolitionist Sanctuary.
We are a national coalitionleading a faith-based

(00:26):
abolitionist movement.
Thank you to our audio andvisual audiences for joining us
on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook,and all streaming platforms.
Let's build abolitionistsanctuaries together with this
critical and candid conversationfor today's episode.

(00:52):
Welcome to the AbolitionistSanctuary Podcast.
I am your host, Reverend Dr.
Nakia Smith Robert.
I am excited to bring this veryspecial episode in our abolition
April.
Abolition April is a day thatrecognizes and raises awareness
around abolition on the fourthmonth of each year.

(01:15):
And we welcome communities andchurches around the country to
join us as we celebrateAbolition April.
This year we are headed toWashington, D.C., where we will
celebrate Abolition April incommunity for a building
abolitionist sanctuary teachingat the Warner Building in

(01:35):
Washington, D.C.
on April 11th, followed by adirect action to advocate for
the 300,000 Black women who wereforced out of the workplace
because of regressive policiesand Donald Trump's executive
orders.
We will also join on April 12thfor our National Sunday, where

(01:56):
we will organize churches aroundthe country to reimagine their
worship service through the lensof abolition.
And we are so excited for ourhost church, the Metropolitan
AME Church, also in Washington,D.C., with the pastor William
Harmon Lamar IV, who we have theprivilege of inviting as our

(02:18):
special guest today on theAbolitionist Sanctuary podcast.
Pastor William Harmon Lamar IVis the senior pastor of
Metropolitan AME Church inWashington, D.C., where he has
served since 2014.
Under his leadership,Metropolitan has expanded its
historical witness throughcommunity-centered ministry,

(02:38):
including the Sankofa ChristianParenting Project, a Lilly
endowment-funded initiativerooted in Black faith and
cultural traditions.
Previously, Pastor Lamar was themanaging director of leadership
education at Duke UniversityDivinity School in Durham, North
Carolina.
Through his association withDuke, he convened and resourced

(03:02):
executive pastors of largechurches, denominational finance
executives, young denominationalleaders, Methodist bishops, and
the constituency of LillyEndowment Sustaining Pastoral
Excellence Program.
For nearly 15 years, PastorLamar has been actively involved
with organizations like DARTDirect Action Research Training,

(03:23):
Industrial Areas Foundations,and Washington Interfaith
Network for Faith-BasedCommunity Organizing for
Justice.
More recently, he hascollaborated with Repairers of
the Breach, the Center forCommunity Change, the People
Improving Communities throughOrganization to enact a social
justice ministry in surroundingcommunities and to exhibit a

(03:44):
real embrace, the belovedcommunity.
Under his leadership,Metropolitan remains committed
to worship, liberation, andservice.
A 1996 Magna Kuhn Laud graduateof Florida Agricultural and
Mechanical University, AM,Pastor Lamar earned the Bachelor
of Science degree in publicmanagement with a minor in

(04:07):
philosophy and religion and acertificate in human resource
management.
In 1999, he earned the Master ofDivinity degree from Duke
University.
Pastor Lamar is currently adoctoral student in the
inaugural cohort of ChristianTheological Seminary for their
PhD program in African Americanpreaching and sacred rhetoric.

(04:28):
An avid reader and writer,Pastor Lamar's writing has
appeared in major publications,including The Washington Post,
where his op-ed following awhite supremacist attack on his
church helped lead to a$3million judgment.
His first book, Ancestors, TheNames That Bless Us, Curse Us,

(04:50):
and Hold Us, is published byBroadleaf Books.
Uh, and he is happily married toDr.
Dana Williams.
I am so excited to welcome tothe show Pastor Lamar Williams.

SPEAKER_01 (05:03):
Well, it is a pleasure to see you, Dr.
Nakia, and I'm thankful to behere.
My pronouns he him hears.
And today is Green Day, I guess,in honor of Florida Agricultural
and Mechanical University, agreen dudes boy cap, green
hoodie, a forest green blazer.
This probably be the last timeI'd be able to pull it off

(05:24):
before it gets warm.
And my life member, Florida AMUniversity Alumni Association
Pan.
So we're doing it real big withuh kind of circular frames and
beard and all that stuff.
And my people, who are mypeople?
I am always surrounded by myancestors, my great-grandparents

(05:47):
and my grandparents, surroundedby aunts and uncles who made the
transition, surrounded by thosewhose names I do not know, but
who dance in my imagination andin my body, my African ancestors
who knew a world withoutAmerica's bondage, extraction,
exploitation, and oppression.
They are with me.

(06:07):
And because I believe that thefirst ancestor is the divine,
the prime ancestor, that realityis one unique knowledge that
we're all made in the image andlikeness of the divine, and the
divine is the first and primaryancestor, as our African
ancestors taught us.
Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 (06:28):
Well, thank you for being here and welcome to the
show.
My pronouns are she, hers, and Iam wearing a white v-neck
t-shirt with a woman in blackshadow with her fist pumped and
an afro representing the logoinscribed in a circle of
abolitionist sanctuary, as wellas a black blazer with

(06:52):
embroidery, silver-ish, andblonde braids, pearl earrings,
and full beat face with FentyMVP lipstick.
That is not an endorsement oradvertisement.
And I am in front of a backdroprepresenting the branding of the

(07:14):
Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast.
My people are nine siblings whohailed from Williamston, North
Carolina to New York City, wherethey migrated and settled in
Harlem, New York.
I am the daughter of CarolMercedes Smith, a single poor
Black mother who raised us invery tumultuous times, but

(07:34):
through it all had this reallystrong faith in God and
community with the church thathelped her to make it over.
And so I am the proud daughterof Carol Mercedes Smith.
As we start this interview,Pastor Lamar, help us to get to
know you better.
Who is the younger WilliamLamar?

(07:55):
And do you spend time with him?
And what would you say to him asyour adult self?

SPEAKER_01 (08:02):
So the first thing I'll say is someone put out
large from this information thatmy middle name is Herman.
Somebody, it's H-A-R-M-O-N-G.
I don't know where that camefrom, but it is William Herman
Lamar IV.
And what shall I say aboutlittle Billy, those who know me
best, my family, they call meBilly.
I would say that in a time ofcrisis, about 22 years ago, a

(08:28):
dear friend was staying with meand with my then wife.
And he said something to me thatwas profound.
He said, That little boy in youhas helped to make you who you
are and will make you who youare becoming.
And a practice to help you is toembrace him every day, to tell

(08:54):
him that he is loved andembraced, and that you know that
nothing you do is done apartfrom him.
So the that Billy inside of me,I am thrilled when that child
emerges to correct me when I amtoo wed to adult behavior, that

(09:15):
is, not taking risks, not usingimagination, not playing, not uh
being thankful.
I was listening to a podcast ofa gentleman who used to write
for the food section of the NewYork Times, and he had changed
his eating habits, and he talkedabout savoring one single
raisin.
It took him 20 minutes to eatone raisin.

(09:36):
I want to live that kind ofslowed down, purposeful,
playful, imaginative,risk-taking life.
And that I think is embodied inthe young Billy who lives in the
51-year-old man with a graybeard.

SPEAKER_00 (09:53):
That sounds fabulous.
And it perfectly leads us to thesecond question.
Now, as that 51-year-old man,what do you do to enjoy
yourself?
What, particularly outside ofthe scrutiny of the public eye,
what hobbies or interests bringyou 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 ismusic.
So the music that was beingplayed while we were waiting for
the podcast to begin, man, I wasjust grooving.
It was just beautiful, lovely,lilting, took me on a ride.
So I love music.
Uh the way that I operate is Ido not have a playlist.

(10:34):
Part of it is because of myextreme ruditism.
But the other part is whensomething hits me, I just find
it on the musical app and I playit.
I don't I don't want to get intothat thing.
I like the spontaneity.
So music, I love words, whichmeans I like to read, I love
podcasts, documentaries, and theway my brain works, even when

(10:57):
I'm watching a movie, I see textin my mind.
I'm thinking about dialogue, I'mthinking about framing.
So we're and and language,speech is truly the lingua
franca of human beings.
And of course, even those whomay not have the gift of
vocalize, we still communicate.

(11:19):
We still have ways of engagingspeech beyond words.
So music, words, and the thingthat brings me most joy here
recently is being in thepresence of people whom I love.
Man, that's beautiful.
You realize in a certain agethat the greatest gift we have

(11:42):
is time, and to spend that timewith those whom I love really is
a gift.
And I don't have the language todescribe how incalculable its
value is.
So music, words, and talk withthose whom I love, family,
friends, and those who are whomI am whom I am learning to love.

(12:03):
Those, those are the gifts.

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 surroundedby people who love you.
That becomes a form ofresilience.
I want to shift to your recentbook.
You wrote a book, Ancestors, theNames That Bless Us, Curse Us.

(12:27):
What is the premise of thisbook?
And what do you hope for yourreaders to walk away with?

SPEAKER_01 (12:33):
I just had a conversation with our wonderful
seniors here at Metropolitanabout 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 heardancestral stories, and that's

(12:55):
part of the purpose of the book.
But let me get at this.
Those who have written know thatoften the cover art, which in
this case is beautiful, and I'mglad they didn't ask me anything
about that.
But the title, the subtitle wasnot my original thinking, but it
was the right thinking.
Ancestors, those who bless us,curse us, hold us.
So the blessing comes from whatI describe in the book as

(13:18):
ancestors of light, who lead usin a human path where we can
live together withoutexploitation, oppression, or
extraction.
The curse, and I know somepersons who do ancestral work
would disagree with me, theywould only privilege as
ancestors, those whose liveswere human.
I talk about shadow ancestorsbecause I think that their

(13:43):
energy helps to create thedastardly tyrannical, hegemonic
white supremacist reality we seein America and elsewhere.
The same way we lift up ourancestors, those who want to
create misanthropic,dehumanizing spaces also
generate bears.

(14:04):
And that energy affects us.
So ancestors of light bless us,ancestors of shadow curse us,
and beholding us is a doubleentendre of sorts that shadow
ancestors try in their energy tohold us back from flourishing.
But ancestors of light hold usas in embrace us, encourage us,

(14:27):
give us the love we need to goback and to fight to design to
be joyful another day.
I want others to lean into theirown ancestral stories and
veneration.
One of our sisters upstairs toldme that she has a plant, a vine
from a plant that belonged toher great-great-grandmother.

(14:48):
And that plant is producing inher home, and she said it is her
place of prayer and reflection.
I want those stories unearthedbecause I believe that they have
the energy to help us for thefight that we're engaged in and
will engage in for years tocome.

SPEAKER_00 (15:04):
Thank you.
Say more about your constructionof 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 shadowancestors.

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 maybeone of my most palpable
experiences with Shadow Accesswas happened when my family
visited Washington, D.C.
for the first time.
I had no idea I'd be livinghere.
It was 1990.

(15:39):
I was 16 years old.
And we were visiting all of thesites that one comes to
Washington to visit.
And I felt profound unease,dis-ease with these places.
Because I knew that the libertythat they proclaimed was never
for me or for my people.

(16:00):
I knew that the United StatesCapitol was built by my
ancestors who were not paid fortheir labor.
And in the words of TonyMorrison, not even a bench was
there to remind us of theirlabor.
I felt when walking aroundStatuary Hall, an energy from
people who were segregationists,enslavers, misanthropic,

(16:26):
dehumanizing, rapist.
I was surrounded.
So where others were venerating,here's John C.
Calhoun, here's ThomasJefferson, 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 worldcapital of ancestor veneration.

(16:49):
The statuary, the Lincoln, theJefferson, which are built
architecturally on styles oftemples.
That reality, that spirit, thatenergy of anti-human,

(17:09):
anti-democratic people, theirrhetoric may have been so, but
their practice was not.
And I'm more concerned with yourpractice and your rhetoric.
I had to name that energybecause I believe that that
energy is a big part of themoment in which we find
ourselves.
I believe that the same way thatthe bones of my ancestors rattle

(17:31):
to keep me loving, joyful,hospitable, I think the bones of
their ancestors were rattling tosay we must return this
experiment, this imperialexperiment, back to what it was.
It was for, by, and designedwith white men for themselves.

(17:51):
That is exactly what we areseeing today.
And that energy cannot just beexplained, and if we can do
first names, Nikia, that thatenergy cannot be explained by
history, by journalism, bypolitics, by economics and
theology alone.
There is an epistemicprivileging of the mysterious

(18:14):
that we must also return to ifwe're going to fight this.

SPEAKER_00 (18:19):
Very interesting.
I would love to continue thisconversation online because I'm
interested if these shadowancestors serve an adversarial
memory, we represent anadversarial memory of past
contested even evil figures.
Why call them ancestors and notevil spirit or monster or so?

(18:42):
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 inAmerica, as my family has been,
their blood is in you.
And that has to be named.
And even beyond that, I thinkthat they are ancestors because,

(19:05):
in my definition, like thedefinition of matter, it can
neither be created nordestroyed.
I think that even though theirhumanity in many instances was
doubtful, they still were thosewho went before us.

(19:27):
And if you take some ancestralpractice seriously, it may be
possible that they could behealed.
I'm not spending a lot of timeon that.
But I refuse to give themanother name because they were
diabolical.
Because also, what we know, Imean, if you read Alan Busak's

(19:50):
blood on both sides of the bloodred sea, I can't remember the
name, but he's talking aboutwhat happens when you are
released from apartheid,pharaohs on both sides of the
blood red river, and the pharaohis black.
So, what I also don't want to dois to exonerate us from the

(20:11):
reality that we and many of ushave can become just like that.
So I was just very, verycareful.
And I definitely I appreciatethe question and those who
challenge it.

SPEAKER_00 (20:21):
That's that's really good.
Uh, our participation in some ofthose evil systems as well is
important.
And I'm wondering the ways inwhich you may ground the
language of ancestry in Africanreligious cosmologies, and how,
as a Christian pastor, do youhelp people understand or

(20:41):
embrace the connection ofancestors and African religious
cosmology with Western religionssuch as Christianity,
particularly in the blackchurch?

SPEAKER_01 (20:51):
So I've got to name my teacher, Mamma Ichihari Tore,
who has journeyed with me andbeen kind enough to bring me and
others into the house of Tere.
Many of her teachings resonateand are present in what I have
shared.
One is that everything hasspirit and energy.

(21:13):
There's no such thing in ourcosmology as inanimate objects.
So we start there.
And then I think we need tounderstand that we must
privilege indigenity.
The way that we have readChristianity or we've been
taught to read it, it is youmust destroy the indigenous

(21:34):
practices of a people in orderfor them to become a part of
this way, this movement, thisJesus movement, if you will.
In Metropolitan, there are twoAfrican deities in the church,
in the physical space.
Because what I share with folksis we knew the divine, and the
divine knew us before churches,Bibles, seminaries, Jesus.

(21:57):
We've always known and beenknown by the Divine and any
people who would severthemselves from the ways their
ancestors knew God, that that'sa people group that I would not
respect nor wish to belong to.
And what's interesting is whatblack Christians forget is that

(22:17):
our mothers and fathers neverexorcise all of indigeneity.
It shows up in the way that wesing in our tradition on the
first Sunday, let us break breadtogether on our knees when I
fall on my knees with my face tothe rising sun.
Who faces the rising sun as theypray?
Our Muslim brothers and sisters.

(22:38):
They kept in the tradition thereality, the fact that many of
us come from within the Islamictradition.
They did not exorcise ordemonize that.
They put it in the liturgy.
Here are other cultural pieces.
What we eat on New Year's, thatain't in no Bible.
The fact that in Macon, Georgia,where I'm from, on the on the

(22:58):
first day of the year, when wecome back from watch night, the
first person to walk into a homehad to be a man.
And I had one uncle, UncleNorman James Lamar.
It was his job to walk intoevery house because a man had to
be the first one to cross thethreshold.
When I, that's not in anybody'sBible.
When I would travel with theelders, when people were making
transition, becoming ancestors,the mothers and fathers would

(23:20):
cover mirrors in black cloth sothat when the transition
happened, they would not getcaught in this realm.
Our mothers and fathers neverbelieved at our best that we
were to get rid of things thatcame with us on our journey to
this place.

(23:40):
And so it is all around us.
And those who are scholars andthink it's a religion must
privilege the fact that allfaith is syncretic.
We borrow, we merge.
And so I would never ever givemyself or my energy to a faith
that would demonize, call evil,call witchcraft the ways our

(24:04):
mothers and fathers have knownand still know.
And if you read the text,neither did Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 (24:11):
Yeah.
Yeah, you're pivoting.
And I appreciate thisredirection towards theology.
And what I appreciate about youis that you are a thinker, but
you are also a believer, thathead and heart comes together in
the work that you do as athought leader in the academy.
You are working towards yourPhD, you have published your

(24:32):
first book, but you are alsoleading congregations in the
church.
And you connect both theteaching and your believing or
your thinking and believing todoing with the activism that you
are immersed in.
So I would like to talk moreabout pastoring.
You mentioned that you pastorMetropolitan AME Church.

(24:54):
And as you trouble some of theteachings of the church, share
more about what are some harmfulteachings of the church.
Yeah.
And you're going to talk aboutthis a bit.
So you do a phenomenal job ofproblematizing and troubling
some of these theologies thatare rooted in sacrifice and
violence and harm.

(25:15):
Talk to us how you areconfronting those harmful
theologies.

SPEAKER_01 (25:19):
So let me give you a very clear example.
Our communion liturgy usesmasculine pronouns for God.
When we lead the liturgy here,we mix or we say parent.
We say Mother God.
We say God our parent.

(25:40):
So there was a gentleman,tangentially related to the
congregation, often those arethe ones that cause uh
challenges, sent me a lettersaying that he was tired of
hearing me saying that I wasgoing against the scripture.
It wasn't in the Bible, itwasn't in the discipline, that
he was going to reach out to thepresiding elder and the bishop.
They need to deal with me.
I think this may be a familyshow, so I will not say what I

(26:03):
said.
But that part of what I saidwas, man, you can send them
anything you want to all day andevery day, because as long as I
have the appointment, I am thepastor of Metropolitan.
And I will move as spirit, asancestors, and as my own
thinking and reading andcommunity, I'll move in that
direction.

(26:24):
And I shared with him, sir, youneed to read this article by
Pauly Murray, where Paulymurwrites about the fact that any
gendering of the divine is notrooted in Afro-Hebraic languages
or Asiatic languages.
It is rooted in a politics.
There is no gendering of thatword in the text.

(26:47):
He said it's in the Bible.
I said, sorry, your translatorshad a politics.
They wanted you to imagine Godas a man, as a human with a
penis, so that you would imagineall leaders, secular, and I
don't even like that phrase, butlet's say it within the church,
outside of the church, as men.

(27:08):
I said, Do you have a daughter?
I said, Yes, don't you want herto imagine the divine as she
exists?
And he just, you know, he didn'tlike that.
So that's a very practicalexample.
I try to teach it, then I try toembody it in the liturgy.
Too many of us go to seminaryand are afraid to embody what we

(27:28):
have learned within the contextof the congregation.
I was clear.
I never wanted to pastor andpervade ignorance because I do
not believe in Gnosticism.
If I could learn this, everybodyin Metropolitan can learn this.
We trouble all of that stufftogether, and what happens is

(27:51):
Metropolitan is not the placefor some people, but it is the
place for a lot of people.
And I'm very, very thankful.
So that's one instance of atroubling doctrine.
Another one I'm doing my work onis around penal substitutionary
atonement.
That is a very, very violentdoctrine.
It is not the only way that thechurch has read the crucifixion.

(28:13):
One scholar says there are atleast 12 ways, and there may be
even more.
And beyond that, that penalsubstitutionary model that God
desires sacrifice is a modelthat moves into our politics and
our economics such that peoplecan use the imprimatur of the
divine to kill people like us inthe furtherance of their

(28:34):
projects, because they sayeither implicitly or explicitly,
this is the way God works, thisis the way nature works.
So indigenous people, queerpeople, black people,
immigrants, your demise is thecost of doing business.
And we don't understand thatgiving that theological ground
allows for politics that doesjust that.

(28:56):
The last thing I'll say aboutthis is we know, according to
the great work of OrlandoPatterson, that white creatures
presided at the communion tableand then walked outside and
presided over lynchings.
That is because of a penalsubstitutionary atonement
reading, and that reading mustbe obliterated within our
churches.

SPEAKER_00 (29:17):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
And I hope you read, if youhaven't, an article that I
wrote, I did my master's thesisat Union Theological Seminary.
Dorian, Gary Dorian was thefirst speaker.

SPEAKER_01 (29:29):
I love that guy.
Love that guy.

SPEAKER_00 (29:30):
Yeah.
And it was titled PenitencePlantation and the Penitentiary,
a Liberation Theology forLockdown America.
And I published a shortenedversion of that in the Harvard
Graduate Journal.
And I'm looking at sacrificialtheology, particularly all the
various atonement theories thatare coming from Paul in the
early church, and really askingthe question: how does Jesus'

(29:54):
first century crucifixion revealsomething about the modern-day
scapegoating of black and brownbodies to the U.S.
carceral state?
Looking at Anselm and making theclaim that he has this hegemonic
hold on our understanding ofJesus' death and this idea that
there has to be a sacrifice andthat Jesus was the perfect
satisfaction because he wasfully human and fully man.

(30:17):
And so, you know, some womanistthinkers have problematized that
essentially God becomes asadist, that the focus on the
cross is to glorify sufferingand vicarious punishment, and it
is death dealing.
And Dolores Williams, who I liketo see myself in the tradition
of, in terms of my theology andthinking, is how do we shift
away from the cross and deathand the glorification of

(30:40):
suffering to life-generatingalternatives that we see modeled
in the life and ministry ofJesus, this ministerial vision.
So I'm really excited about yourwork and the constructions you
will contribute.
But I hope you take a look atthat article.

SPEAKER_01 (30:56):
I will gladly.
I'd love to have interlocutorssuch as yourself, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 (31:00):
Yes, yes, yes.
So we talked about you as athinker and as a pastor, and I
want to hold those in place aswe also introduce your role as a
community organizer and youractivism as the pastor of
Metropolitan AME Church.
Speak to the challenges you havefaced in this current political
climate, led by an authoritarianregime and a fascist playbook.

SPEAKER_01 (31:26):
You know, it's very interesting.
The first term, the energy wasfrenetic.
I mean, people, we were holdingrallies, vigils, organizing,
marching.
I got arrested in the night injail.
This time, people haveapproached it differently.

(31:49):
I had to write a reflection, Ican't remember for what
publication, about the electionof Trump.
And I was I was sitting outsideof 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.

(32:10):
When I opened the door to goout, they were bedded down, but
they craned their necks.
They knew I was there.
I was probably maybe 50, 75yards away from them.
Very aware of my presence, butthey did not move.
They kept watch for one another,one from the east, one from the
west.

(32:30):
And they did not move, thoughdanger was in sight.
Possibly, I could have beenanybody.
Danger was in sight, they didnot move until together they
decided it was the right timewhile keeping watch.
Those deer taught me something.
In the second Trumpadministration, we must always
be aware of the danger, but notbe rattled by everything they

(32:55):
say, everything they do.
Not be rattled enough to movewithout a rich strategy and
building the power to protect asmuch as we could protect and to
keep and hold as much as we havewon.
I feel like the first time wewere behaving like deer, that
every sound we run, run, run,run, run.

(33:17):
And while there is somethingancestral about that, there's
also something ancestral andholy about holding ground and
leaving together when wediscern, moving together when we
discern the time is right.
That is the difference.
Because if you move at everypiece that they release, every
word that they say, you willlose energy.

(33:39):
You will faint.
We will faint.
And so the second administrationfor me, for many of us, has been
more about watching, more aboutprivileging systems, trying to
figure out how we counterbalancethe systems they create.
What are the stories we need totell?
What is the narrative that wecan tell and unleash that will

(34:03):
cause people to want to drawtoward one another and not rip
us apart?
And I've been having a lot ofconversations about how
philanthropic concerns work tohelp us build an alternative
that is beyond the nextelection, but that will grab
hold of the culture.
We've been talking about what itmeans to build power, because we

(34:26):
see now we have not had thepower to keep everything that we
want.
And you must build power, as A.
Philip Randolph says, to keepwhat you win.
So those are some of the thingsthat we're thinking about.
And I don't do it in isolation.
I'm working with a number ofpeople, religious groups.
We're doing a lot together.

SPEAKER_00 (34:45):
Yeah, thank you for that.
I want to talk specificallyabout the horrific terror that
your church experienced with theProud 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 churchwas attacked by the Proud Boys.
They just defaced some of ourproperty, uh, the Black Lives
Matter sign.
And we were in COVID church atthat time.
I was leading worship from mybasement, which is something I
hated and never, never trainedfor, but I was told by my wife

(35:18):
and others that you can't letthis keep looking like a hostage
situation.
You got to lean into it.
So we heard about it.
I was preparing to preach andlead my text messages and
everything, so just buzz, buzz,buzz, jump, jump, jump.
And someone sent me newsarticles and coverage about what
had happened.
I knew I had to gather myself todo what I called to do and must

(35:42):
do on Sundays.
Afterwards, called a meeting.
In the interim, we heard fromthe NAACP, Cornell Brunson,
others, would you be willing tosue?
When I proposed that question tothe leaders of Metropolitan, it
was a unanimous yes.
We want to fight, we will fight.

(36:03):
Sue these persons for$1.4,$1.5million.
And the reason we now say morethan$3 million is because
interest is tagged in.
We sued them and they would notpay the initial payment.
So we took them back to courtand sued them to owe their
trademark and copyright.

(36:24):
We won a suit for the money andfor the trademark.
So legally, we own the PowerBoys logo.
And we're going after theirBitcoin and their cryptocurrency
as well.

SPEAKER_00 (36:39):
That deserves some celebration and applause for
your leadership and for thevictory.
And for the victory.
What formed this faith-basedorganizing?
And does the history of the AMEchurch play a role, particularly
within abolitionist andliberationist movements?

SPEAKER_01 (36:59):
I would say so.
One of the things to considerabout our founder, Richard
Allen, is that he did not allowAMEs to purchase goods that have
been manufactured with slavelabor, the labor of the
enslaved, rather.
So I think that they are hand inhand.
I think the reason that RichardAllen and many of my ancestors
were Methodists is becauseMethodists were abolitionists.

(37:21):
Now, to be abolitionists, doesthat mean you're for equality or
you were for the prospering ofblack life?
But our mothers and fathers saidit's many of them, it's better
for us to join this plainreligion that is anti-slavery
than to get down with somebodyelse's thing that's not, right?
So I was formed by thattradition, but also formed by

(37:43):
this gentleman whose picture yousee 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 andadvocates, but he said based on
where you are and where you'regoing, you need to be a part of
this organizing effort.

(38:03):
You need to build relationships,have one-on-one conversations,
excuse me, and build the powerthat is necessary to make no's
yeses and yeses no's in theservice of justice.
I didn't realize thatorganization and organizing are
written into the scripturesthemselves, Moses and

(38:24):
organizers, Schifra and Pooleorganizers.
People speak of Jesus Christ asorganizers.
So, and I believe all of thosethings.
So I fall into that tradition,but also the grand and beautiful
tradition of civil rightsorganizing, of ecclesial
organizing in black spaces.
That is my home.

(38:45):
That is who I am, and that iswho I am becoming.
And I am becoming more and moreradicalized around the idea that
we must build power.
Too many of us are afraid ofthat language, afraid to say the
word power, but you cannot getany of the things that you want
to get in life for yourself orfor your community without the

(39:06):
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 anorganizer, but a faith-based
organizer from Moses and theother traditions, biblical
traditions that you pull from.

(39:28):
And I'm wondering how do you usethat training to mobilize the
church?
What are you teaching yourcongregation that they're able
to say yes unanimously, we willsue 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 toMetropolitan, and Metropolitan
was my fifth pastoralappointment.
And I've been a pastor for 15years or so.
So I was smarter, I hope, Ithink.
I like to imagine.
And I said, you know, you reallycan't study the Bible until you
unearth your interpretiveregime.

(40:05):
So I said, we ain't reading thisbook.
We first got to realize who isin our head teaching us how to
read this book.
So I tried my best for a numberof years, reading James Cole,
Kelly Barrell Douglas, AubreyHendricks, Judy Fentress
Williams, the list goes on andon, of people whom we read to

(40:26):
get out of our heads those whitesupremacist interpretations that
were living rip-free in ourheads, our preaching, our
prayers, and our singing.
Exorcising those people is alifelong call because many of us
still nurture and nourishourselves based on what they
say.

(40:47):
The freedom that many people gothere was I began to teach that
about interpretation, about withwhom to interpret, whom not to
interpret, all that stuff.
But people who are members gothold of that and they began to
tell their friends.
And that's really theinterpretation of text comes

(41:08):
from that moment.
And it really kind of spreadlike wildfire here.

SPEAKER_00 (41:12):
That's really good.
So thinking about who is in ourhead when we interpret text,
doing that kind of destructivework, the unlearning before the
teaching.
I wonder if you could saysomething about the significance
of black women's leadership inthe church and in these secular
social justice movements and theways in which patriarchy has

(41:35):
attempted to derail theircontributions.

SPEAKER_01 (41:38):
Listen, the patriarchy is very, very real.
I know, and I have said and Iwill say, that if I were a young
woman born in 74, out ofseminary in 99, 15 years later,
I probably would not be indisappointment.
Now, some things have changed,but more than likely.

(42:00):
The church for 200 years, and inour instance or longer, and
still today, is steeped in,formed and shaped by a vigorous
and rigorous patriarchy, arigorous and vigorous

(42:22):
heteronormative space.
Oh wow, I'm loving I'm capturingmy in the background my Proctor
Conference logo.
Anyway.
So in this congregation, theyare used to the leadership of

(42:42):
women.
My executive minister andcolleague 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 havebeen built without black women's
sacrifices.
We have sort of a black womanwho worked selling flowers in
front of the Capitol and tookthat money and used it to help

(43:03):
with the construction ofMetropolitan.
I am empowering women to lead anumber of ministries and helping
them to see themselves asleaders in the church and
beyond.
I am very clear.
You would have nothing at thisplace were it not for the women.
The seniors upstairs, there's aroom of about 40.

(43:26):
There were four men, right?
And if I were to look at thepercentage of our income that
comes from sisters as opposed tobrothers, women presenting focus
approaches, I would probably say70 to 75, 80 percent.

(43:47):
So I want our leadership in thecontemporary moment of
Metropolitan to really beweighted 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 thatmassage noir that exists in the

(44:10):
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 weare inhospitable to all manner
of speech and action thatdenigrates women, that

(44:31):
denigrates gay folk, trans folk.
We absolutely don't toleratethat.
And what I have found is livingthat way attracts people to us.
And also saying we haven'tfigured it all out.
So where you see the patriarchy,where you see heteronormative
stuff that's offensive, let usknow because we want to get

(44:53):
better.
We want to be a house for allpeople.

SPEAKER_00 (44:57):
Yeah, that's really good.
I'm thinking about earlierabolitionist movements that were
headlined by Frederick Douglassand W.E.
Dublas and the women who werebehind them.
You mentioned Paulie Murray orNanny Burroughs.
And then I'm thinking about thecivil rights movement leaders
like Martin Luther King held inthe four, but there were women

(45:20):
behind like Ella Baker andMahalia Jackson and others,
right?
Who even Coretta Scott, who arekind of sidelined in the
historical retelling of thesemovements.
I'm thinking about more recentlythe target FAST that has modeled
itself after the civil rightsmovement and this heated
conversation that's happeningbetween the protest and the FAST

(45:43):
and the leadership between bothof those entities.
And I'm just thinking about howthe struggle for Black women to
be seen and given ownership ofmovements that were so pivotal
and instrumental to building,including the church, and the
ways in which patriarchy seeksto sabotage and undermine those

(46:04):
contributions.
And I'm thinking about you as aleader, located both in the
church as an organizer, but itseems like you're doing
something that is reallyvenerating and centering the
contributions of women, thatyou're unafraid to give credit
to say women are a primarystakeholder in this.

SPEAKER_01 (46:26):
I just impossible for me to imagine this space
contemporarily or historicallywithout the contribution of our
mothers and our sisters.
And I think that we need to bevery clear that we come from
cultures, some of them were notmade patriarchal but

(46:47):
matriarchal, right?
We need to understand that thereare ways to envision being
together that don't look forpeople to oppress, that don't
look for people to dispossess.
And I don't know how many modelsthere are in the church space,

(47:13):
but I think that the models aregrowing.
And what's happening now, too,is fewer and fewer people that
look like me are coming forwardto do this work.
And the people whom theleadership will send to pastor
these churches in our communitywill be more and more women.
And they should not enterhostile environments.

(47:39):
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 theproclamation, 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 apopular person to quote in
America, but I don't care.
Mao says that women hold up halfthe sun.
Like, who would you be?
Take your hands off of those whohold up half the sky, rather.

SPEAKER_00 (48:14):
Yeah.
I'm really grateful for yourpartnership as we are launching
Abolition April and bringingprogramming to Washington, D.C.
on the 11th with our teaching,where we are gathering faith
leaders, community organizers toexplore this faith-based
abolitionist approach or how tobuild abolitionist sanctuaries.

(48:36):
And having you in the room isreally important because you, in
my view, you embody being anabolitionist sanctuary and the
work that you're doing inunlearning those harmful
teachings, but also providingnew interpretive lens for our
believers to see the gospelthrough liberation and abolition
and inclusively without thehorrors of patriarchy.

(48:58):
On the 12th, we're alsogathering our National Sunday,
where you are our host church.
I say this because you aren'tjust speaking it, but you are
living it and you aredemonstrating it in partnership
with me and the organization.
So grateful for you serving ashost church on April 12th at
Metropolitan AME Church, wherewe can reenvision the worship

(49:19):
service through the lens ofabolition and become the living
abolitionist sanctuary refugewhere people can find healing
and restoration.
And so we invite people to signup 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 upto become an abolitionist

(49:40):
sanctuary as well as participatein our national Sunday.
Pastor Lamar, as we look toclose out, just a couple more
questions.
Every movement has to be funded.
And you have sat in the seat ofphilanthropy, particularly in
your role as director ofleadership education at Duke
University Divinity School.

(50:00):
What insights can you shareabout grants, philanthropy, and
fundraising that could helpnonprofits and other faith
communities to build capacityand 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 gapingoversight.
We must return.
You cannot tell the good peoplewho 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 thepreacher.
And that and I think that againgoes to your earlier question.
Making sure in the pulpit thatwe center the voices of
preachers like you, MelbaSampson, so many others who have
come.
And it's extraordinary.

(50:58):
I mean, I still have women andmen who talk about the gift that
the sisters who preach here withregularity.
Many of them are from traditionswhen that's not where that's not
the case.
So with philanthropy.
One of my challenges, and Ithink it's probably the case for

(51:19):
you, is if you try to live inintellectual spaces, you have to
turn a thing like a jewelerturns a precious stone.
So philanthropy is gift andchallenge.
It is light and shadow.
Dr.
Arnand has written a book abouthow people, he and others

(51:40):
consider philanthropy asstanding in the way of true
transformation because those whoare in philanthropic
organizations have the power tonot just throw money at
problems, but to really fixthem.
So there are people who talkabout what if these corporations
and people actually pay taxes?
I want to do that framingbecause part of being in

(52:04):
philanthropic spaces, and thisis going to be very challenging,
of course, you will have todiscern with the power of the
spirit and the power ofancestors when to bring this up.
But philanthropies value thosewho think and push.
The kinds of philanthropies thatwill fund the abolitionist

(52:24):
movement and that fundMetropolitan are looking for
people who will speak truth, whowill speak it also in humility.
And you notice I didn't sayspeak truth and power because
one of my interlocutors said hewas troubled by that phrase
because it is as if you have allthe truth and they have all the
power, that there is truth andpower to go in both directions.
So I say all that to sayphilanthropy and being able to

(52:49):
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 theutmost dignity and with the
utmost transparency whenreceiving the funds of others.
Unfortunately, I know people whodid not understand that when you

(53:26):
receive these funds, youraccountability must be
impeccable, unimpeachable.
Because scrutinies do not livethe same in all cultures.
That actually sounded good.
I need to write that down.
Yes, scrutinies have differentafterlives as scholars, like you

(53:48):
say, Dr.
Nakir, in different spaces.
So, what I know, and I actuallywas on the phone with a funder
today, we had an hour-longconversation.
This funder and I have becomefriends.
And here's the thing funds andfunders grow in a number of
ways.
But let me give you two.

(54:08):
Philanthropies talk with oneanother.
And if you do good work in oneplace, that can redound to your
favorite others.
And then two, philanthropy alsotalks with people with whom they
have partnered and they helpthem to guide grant making.
And those of you who arelistening, if you have friends

(54:31):
that are in these ecologies, youshould speak with them, but also
know that in this world, Dr.
Nakia and Bill Lamar, we you wecould love you, you could be our
friend, but if we know you'reunaccountable, and if we know
that you ain't about that life,you ain't about that business,
we are not going to use what wehave been gifted and squander

(54:56):
it.
Last thing I'll say that I havelearned from watching the
Reverend Dr.
Reginald Blood, whom I callguru.
What you do in these spaces, ifyou have an abolitionist
mindset, is you do not takethese relationships and hoard
them.
That is not who we are.

(55:16):
We are a people of abundance.
I seek to bring to the tableothers who share my vision.
And if we do these things, wecan expand what philanthropy is
willing to invest in us.
Metropolitan,$5 million fromLily in one grant,$1.25 million

(55:39):
in another grant,$1.25 for ourclimate work, CDC-related stuff.
And we have now a plan for atleast$20 to 30 million in the
next seven to 10 years to growwhat we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 (55:54):
Wow.
Wow.
Did you drop some nuggets forus?
That was profound, and I reallyappreciate it.
And when you are in thosefunders' room, please speak our
name.
Apple thank you.

SPEAKER_01 (56:09):
Yes, yes.
I just want to say there's agreat 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 thename of some of my favorite
people.
So shout out to my Soror, MelvaSampson, and Pink Robes
Chronicle.
If you are not following thatprophetic broadcast as a digital
hush harbor, rush to Facebookand follow her and do that as
soon as you can.
And Reginald Blunt, I just wantto always give my public praise

(56:40):
for the work that he does andfor 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 uplistening to the radio.
The DJs would say folks outthere in radio land.
You're probably too young forthat.
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
Or look, or they would say, theysay people out there in TV land.
I don't know what you call thispeople out here in digital land
or YouTube land.
I will spare you the Arcticchill of the shade coming from

(57:16):
Dr.
McKay when she first met thisguest.
Arctic shade, but we'll let thataside.
But beyond the shade, the warmthcomes from Dr.
Blunt, who, you know, we were ata 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 theuniverse is some there, there is
a disturbance in the forestbecause we had not met one

(57:38):
another.

SPEAKER_00 (57:39):
He doesn't like it, but I call him fairy godfather.

SPEAKER_01 (57:43):
He is that for sure.
That brother, I'm gonna tellyou, if you want somebody,
here's here's what we gottaunderstand.
People embody ancestral power inso many ways.
And Reggie's embodiment doesn'tlook like yours or mine, but it
is so very potent and powerful.
And Reggie believes in expandingthe 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 andfathers, like he, that's who we
are.
And if there will be salvationfor us in this age, it will come
from those who have the toolsand who are building that
welcome table.
That's it.
And and I'm and I'm just so gladthat you and I got a chance to

(58:28):
sit down together at the table.
Though I must say again to thoselistening, 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 thathe opens up for others never
takes from the table that hesits at.
And that's the ethic rightthere.
If you give, you will never bewithout, right?
And so I mean we could that's wecould go into a whole but we
must doc.

(58:58):
We must we must quote capitalismand how it wants to use each
other's competitors andindividualism, 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 thenappy-headed Negro from
Nazareth.
Here the Negro from Nazarethsaid, give and it shall be
given.
We cannot interpret that fromwithin a capitalist mindset.
That's not capitalist.
What he is saying is if you liveand exist within this way of

(59:35):
radical mutuality, you will notsuffer lack.
So, for example, people don'tunderstand that.
I tell this is very granular.
Hopefully, somebody's listeningwho may be going off to college.
If you are going off tovocational education, going off
wherever you may go, be going tobuild your life, if you find a
community and you contribute tothat community with your

(59:58):
presence, your love, yourenergy, you won't lack.
I tell these students to come toMetropolitan, if you will make
this a community and not justtreat the community like a side
piece, but treat the communitylike 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 ofyou.

(01:00:20):
And that's that's I think thestory of our lives.
And to build all the theologicaland ancestral, the community
that cares for us is beyond thepiercing of the veil, as Du Bois
would say, beyond time andspace.
I've been spending some timewith Sun Ra.
And just that kind of cosmology,when he says we're not from

(01:00:43):
here, he's saying something.
He's saying that who we are isnot bound to this.
And if you really know who weare, you cannot connect us to
these systems because of who weare foundationally.
So, yeah, anyway, space is theplace.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:01):
Yeah, that's right.
And and shout out to TracyBlackman for providing a space
for us to meet at Faith Out Loudand the the wonderful work that
she is doing, making resourcesavailable for all of us at the
table to fund the vision withtraining as well.
Doc, as we close out, I want todo a rapid round.
So I'll say a word and you willrespond with the first thing

(01:01:24):
that comes to mind.
Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:27):
Before you see my Malcolm behind me, you know, I
call it Tupac X.
He looks more like Tupac thanMalcolm.
I just had to get that out.
So anybody judging my Malcolm,somebody gave it to me, and
being of just being a goodChristian.
So already, Doc.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:43):
Let me just clear up the Arctic shade that you
reference.
So at the Faith Out Loudconvening that Tracy Blackman
led, and Reverend Reginald Bluntintroduced Pastor Lamar to me.
And one of the demands, one ofthe asks of Reverend Blackman,
Reverend Tracy, was to dresscasually, okay?

(01:02:06):
To dress casually.
So when Reverend Bluntintroduced me to Pastor Lamar, I
didn't think he looked socasual.
And so, you know, many of uswere in sweats and hoodies, and
he had the three-quarter zipand, you know, looking still
very dapper.
And so the shade is that Icalled him on it, that he in

(01:02:29):
fact was not compliant orobedient to Reverend Blackman's
requests, and he was not casualat all.
But according to him and hiswardrobe, okay, not everyone has
the same budget.
According to his wardrobe, hewas in fact dressed down.
So that's the Arctic shade he'sreferencing is me calling him
out.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:49):
And this is why black women need to run the
church and the world, becausethey speak true and and they and
exactly right.
And and the and the love affaircommenced.
And everybody who knows me willtell you clearly, I'm not good
at following rules.
So I'm gonna do better.
I'm gonna do better.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:09):
We're in good company then.
All right, so here are thewords.
Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:14):
I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:15):
Making Georgia.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:26):
Love.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:27):
It's a rapid round, Doc.
Rapid.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:29):
I'm sorry, I you stunned me with that, but
because no word came, I was in aspace of just joy.
So I'm just like, I'm gonna dobetter.
Wow, I'll do better.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:39):
Okay.
Rattlers.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:43):
Fam you, fam you, fam, goddamn you.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:48):
Music.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:49):
John Coltrane.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:51):
Marvin Gay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:54):
Make me wanna holler, throw up both my hands.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:57):
All right, love.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:01):
Joy.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:02):
Black women.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:04):
Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:06):
Ancestors.
Holy The Church.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:12):
Help us.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:14):
Freedom.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:17):
Is never given by the oppressor, must be demanded
and taken by the oppressed.
And it has no grandchildren.
Your favorite has nograndchildren.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:29):
Your favorite food?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:32):
Peach cobbler right now.
I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:34):
Mine too.
Favorite church song?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:40):
Today I would say Jesus keep me near the cross for
many multi multiplying complexreasons.
Because though I have that, Ihave aught with penal
substitutionary atonement.
You can read that is keep me inthe place where there is

(01:05:01):
suffering, but also you arefighting like hell for
redemption and resurrection.
Keep me there.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:09):
Alright, favorite color?

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:11):
Blue.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:13):
Favorite thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:16):
Sweet.
Right now.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:20):
Biggest pet peeve.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:24):
Liars.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:27):
Greatest fear.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:32):
Dying in unlived life.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:37):
Turn up or Netflix and show.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:42):
I binge watched found those two seasons with
that sister.
That was incredible.
So the turnout with medefinitely would be binging
something good.
And I haven't done it as muchrecently, but a fine, complex.
Island Scott.

(01:06:03):
Just a little bit, not a lot.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:05):
All right.
Dana Williams.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:08):
Damn.
All the things.
I know.
All the things.
All the things.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:15):
Beautiful wife.
Abolition of Sanctuary.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:20):
Possibility.
Oh my god.
Like unending possibility.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:25):
Thank you.
And finally, Abolition April.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:30):
Make sure your face is in the place.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:33):
Wonderful.
Well, thank you for joining thisconversation on the Abolitionist
Sanctuary podcast.
For our listeners and viewers,please download and share this
episode on all platforms.
Again, I am your host, ReverendDr.
Nakia Smith Roberts, founder andexecutive director of
Abolitionist Sanctuary.
Follow us on YouTube, Instagram,Facebook, and download our

(01:06:56):
social mobile app.
Also enroll in our courses andbecome certified at
abolitionistacademy.com.
Don't forget to become a memberand subscribe to our mailing
list atabolitionistsanctuary.org.
As we conclude this episode,remember that abolition is not
only a practice, but it is a wayof life.

(01:07:17):
And for me, abolition is myreligion.
Let's lead a faith basedabolitionist movement together.
Pastor Bill Lamar, thank you somuch for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:26):
Honored to be a guest, and thank you for your
great work, Dr.

unknown (01:07:28):
Niki.