Renita Weems On Black Womanhood, Faith, And The Making Of A Scholar

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Start with open windows, end with open hands. We sit down with Rev. Dr. Renita Weems—writer, AME elder, and pioneering biblical scholar—to trace the unlikely roads from paper dolls and public libraries to Princeton and the pulpit. She takes us into the classrooms and kitchens that mothered her, the librarians who handed her systems and keys, and the teachers who crossed boundaries to keep a brilliant, mouthy teenager from disappearing. What emerges is a map of how ordinary people and imperfect institutions become sanctuaries.

We go deep on womanism—both the folk wisdom and the academic methodology. Renita names it as an unapologetic commitment to Black women’s thriving, with labels that signal our politics and hold us accountable. She pushes past caricatures of elitism and the “mean elder” trope, inviting a sharper critique of systems—patriarchy, misogyny, white supremacy—rather than personalities. The conversation also confronts the Bible’s patriarchy without flinching, while still mining its poetry and resistance for today’s struggles, especially where Black mothers are punished for surviving.

When the topic turns to calling, Renita reframes ministry as elder work: walking with people in grief, crisis, and ambiguity, not performing on a platform. She mourns how easily we discard the Black church, even as its songs, casseroles, and stubborn love continue to steady us in surgery rooms and sorrow. Through stories of mentors, tough love, and intergenerational repair, we explore how to be mothered—and motherable—so that movements gain discipline without losing joy.

If you’re hungry for a conversation that is tender, rigorous, and unafraid—about faith, womanism, Black motherhood, and the craft of surviving with your soul intact—press play. Then share it with the teacher, coach, or church mother who kept your window to the world wide open.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_03 (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.

(00:53):
Welcome to the AbolitionistSanctuary Podcast.
I am your host, Reverend Dr.
Nikia Smith Robert.
I am excited about this Women'sHistory Month, and the honor we
have to introduce our guest, theinimitable and legendary, the
Reverend Dr.
Renita Weems.

(01:15):
Reverend Dr.
Renita Weems is a writer, aminister, a biblical scholar,
public intellectual, andordained elder in the African
Methodist Episcopal Church.
Dr.
Weams is the African-Americanwoman, the first to earn a PhD
in Old Testament Studies fromPrinceton Theological Seminary.
Dr.
Weem has held facultyappointments at Vanderbilt

(01:37):
Divinity School, SpellmanCollege, Howard University
School of Divinity, and MemphisTheological Seminary.
In 2024, she served as the CrumpVisiting Professor and Black
Religious Scholar Group Scholarin Residence at the Seminary of
the Southwest in Austin, Texas.
Dr.
Weems currently serves asprofessor of biblical studies

(01:59):
and academic dean at GammonTheological Seminary in Atlanta,
Georgia.
Dr.
Weems has numerous books,commentaries, and articles
bridging the academy, church,and public square.
She has lectured at venuesranging from the Chattaqua
Institution to Universitycampuses and black church
pulpits.

(02:20):
Among her written works includesthe award-winning Listening for
God, a minister's journeythrough silence and doubt, which
won the Religious CommunicatorsCouncil's prestigious 1999
Wilbur Award for Excellence inCommunicating Spiritual Values
to the secular media.

(02:40):
She is the firstAfrican-American woman to
deliver the Yale UniversityLyman Beecher lecture.
Dr.
Weens is featured in BlackStars, African American
religious leaders, a collectionof biographies of some of the
most important Black religiousleaders over the last 200 years,
including such impressivefigures such as Adam Clayton

(03:02):
Powell, Elijah Mohammed,Sojourner Truth, Howard Thurman,
and Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr.
Weem's ongoing work exploresAfrican American intellectual
life, the early generation ofwomen as thinkers, and a
forthcoming memoir examining howthe civil rights and women's
movements shaped her commitmentsto church scripture and

(03:24):
struggle.
I'm excited to introduce and tojoin in conversation today the
Reverend Dr.
Wanita Weems.
Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 (03:33):
Thank you very much.
I am delighted to be here withyou.

SPEAKER_03 (03:37):
Dr.
Weems, as we begin our show, canyou share with us what are your
pronouns?
Give us a visual representationof how you're showing up in this
space, and tell us who are yourpeople?

SPEAKER_00 (03:50):
Thank you.
Let's see.
My pronouns are she and her.
I am right now coming to youfrom my home in Nashville.
And we are in my makeshiftstudio, bedroom, study, do all
things in here with I don't knowhow much more graphically I can
describe that, but it's a spacethat matters to me.

(04:13):
I may just kind of addparenthetically, just got some
brand new windows throughout myhouse, and I have a view
downtown.
The trees are still bare becauseit is winter here, even in
Nashville.
And so I am looking out at baretrees without leaves, but it is
still a very beautiful sight.

(04:33):
So I enjoy this space, and Icannot be in any space that
doesn't have windows.
That's for sure.
And black people have a way ofkeeping their curtains closed.
So, nevertheless, I can't standto stay at my friend's house and
they don't open up theircurtains.
I'm like, girl, what's going onhere?
I can't take this.
Okay, that's just a paradox.

(04:56):
I know you're black people be soscared somebody looking in.
Anyway, what was that last onethat you asked?
Who are your people?
My people are people fromGeorgia, deep down in Georgia,
Sparta, Georgia, love Georgia.
My mother and father were therein Atlanta, Georgia.

(05:17):
And I'm originally from Atlanta,Georgia.
I have not lived there since Iwent away from high school, but
very much shaped by my havingbeen raised in Atlanta, Georgia,
during a particular period.
I was born in the 50s.
I was a kid or a teenager, earlyteens, during what we know is
the civil rights movement.
So I was not a part of that, northe student or the freedom

(05:40):
movements either, but I wasdefinitely watching on
television and very much hadthose images in my head as a kid
and as a teenager who was notallowed to join those kinds of
movements.
So, and from two parents who, ifhad they had been born and
raised in a different era, wouldhave been, were in fact

(06:01):
geniuses, but they were geniusesin a segregated South in the 40s
and 50s of when they matured andcame to fruition.
So I'm sure I'm shaped by theirdeferred dreams or their dashed
dreams and the things that theynever were able to accomplish.
And I think that they did livelong enough to see their oldest

(06:24):
daughter accomplish a number ofthose things.
So I am Carrie Baker Weems andWillie James Weems senior
daughter.

SPEAKER_03 (06:34):
Thank you for sharing that.
My pronouns are also she hers.
And how I'm showing up in thisspace is a full beat face with
some Fenty MVP red lipstick andblonde extension braids with a
black sequin lapel blazer and astring of pearls and a shirt

(06:57):
that gives ode to black womenfor Women's History Month.
My people are people who hailfrom Wheelingston, North
Carolina.
And those nine siblings migratedto Harlem, New York, where I am
the proud daughter of a singleBlack mother, Carol Mercedes

(07:19):
Smith.
And my people are not only thosewho are in Harlem, but those
church mothers at first AMEBethel and strong black women
who were a part of grassrootspolitical movements from the
Tenants Association and PublicHousing to elected office.
And so I stand in theirtradition.

(07:40):
Dr.
Wings, I am so honored to haveyou on the show.
And I have the privilege to knowyou personally.
And so I know that thesequestions will guide our
conversation, but I know thatthe conversation will take on a
spirit of its own as well.
But I wanted to start with whois young Renita Weems?

(08:04):
What are some of your fondestmemories?
Who did you want to be when yougrow up?
And did you ever imagine thatyou would be where you are
today?

SPEAKER_00 (08:15):
Well, there have been several Renitas.
There's no one Renita.
There is certainly the Renita,the young girl, the kid, the
eight-year-old, the 10-year-old,the 13 and 14-year-old.
And then there's the Renita ofhigh school, and then there's
the Renita of college, andultimately going on to graduate

(08:36):
school.
So there have been differentRenitas.
The preteen Renita always had avery vivid imagination.
I lived in my head.
I dreamed in my head.
I came from a pretty chaoticfamily situation in terms of
substance abuse and violence.
That was not all, but that wascertainly a part of my growing

(08:59):
up.
And so I lived a lot in my head.
I dreamed a lot.
I had imaginary friends and animaginary family in my head.
And so I read a lot.
I was a voracious reader.
My mother tells me that at avery young age, I think
pre-kindergarten, but certainlyby kindergarten, I was already
reading.
I played with paper dolls.

(09:20):
If anybody remembers paperdolls, not just dolls.
I mean, I had dolls eventually,Barbie dolls and another doll
whose eyes followed you or itseemed to follow you wherever
you went.
I had a very vivid imaginationwith my dolls.
But before dolls, before wecould afford dolls, I played

(09:40):
with paper dolls.
I cut out women images from theSears and Robux catalog.
I really enjoyed paper dolls.
I absolutely loved being able toput a new dress on her and I
just had to rub it on her or putthose little ties in the back of
it.
This is old school, but itreally fed an imagination

(10:00):
because ultimately when we getto my hobbies now of sewing and
quilting, if I can think back,and this is probably my first
time even thinking back to this,but I I really I'm not a clothes
horse.
I'm not a woman who buys a lotof clothes, who loves clothes.
I'm not that type.
But there was something aboutthose paper dolls and those
clothes and the girls and thelife that I imagined for them

(10:22):
that was very real.
So that's who I was.
I was a little colored girl inGeorgia in the late 50s and
early 60s.
So what else do girls dream ofin that era but to be a school
teacher?
I'm sure that was my highestambition, and that was very
typical of what it meant to be agirl in that era.

(10:44):
The most poised and professionaland impactful women that I knew
at that period were women whowere educators, whether they
were school teachers or whetherthey were principals.
I didn't know any womenphysicians, although there were
one or two in Atlanta.
I didn't know politicians, Ididn't know professors.

(11:05):
Oh my God, certainly knew nowriters who were women.
So therefore, unapologetically,I say, of course, I dreamed of
being a school teacher.
And of course, I became a schoolteacher.
Being a scholar, an academicmeans I'm a good old-fashioned
colored school teacher.
And I have written a lot aboutcolored school teachers being my

(11:28):
saviors, being the ones who werethe bridge from who I was to who
I have become.
I can name colored schoolteachers, even a couple of men,
male teachers, who took aninterest in me and who literally
mentored me, mothered me,fathered me.
And it helped that I was a goodstudent.
That's no doubt about that.

(11:49):
But I always always had a mouth.
I was mouthy.
I wasn't disrupted by anystretch of the imagination.
But once you got to know me, youcould tell I had strong
opinions.
I asked a lot of questions, andI could charm a teacher.
So I know when students aretrying to charm me and it
doesn't work at all.
But nevertheless, that's who Iwas as a little girl.

(12:10):
And I remember sitting in frontof the television and watching,
I remember when Martin LutherKing was assassinated, and I
remember the funeral processionin Atlanta.
Now, mind you, I'm in Atlanta,and it was over there on Auburn
Avenue.
I remember the images of StokelyCarmike.
I remember the stories of AngelaDavis.
Now, this is a little bit laterwhen I'm in high school and

(12:33):
later, but that's who I was.
And I knew I had a good brain, Iknew I had a good mind because
my teachers told me, and becauseI could hold a conversation with
my teachers about anything, butI didn't know what that meant.
Spellman College was far-fetchedfor me.
I went to a high school that wasa good working-class high

(12:57):
school.
Very few students went tocollege from my high school.
Now, I'm growing up right,remember 1954 is when the Brown
versus Board of Education, butit would not really trickle down
in the South the realdesegregation of schools.
It may have been 1954 that thelaw was passed, but it really

(13:17):
didn't, it took another 15 to 20years in a lot of places.
So we're talking about by thelate 60s.
I remember my whole high schoolclass are now being busted over
to another school and that whitekids are coming to the school I
was attending.
Up until about the 10th grade or11th grade, I never had gone to

(13:37):
school with white students.
And I don't think I had anywhite teachers.
I can't remember, but it was notuntil I was in about the 10th
grade, ninth or tenth grade,that I had a white teacher and
that there were white, that Iwent to school with white kids.
There was a librarian, MissCrutchfield, who was a white
librarian, again, books,reading, who let me do my

(14:00):
whatever they called it then,home study, rooms, my free
period.
I worked in the library.
And Miss Helen Cretchfield was awhite librarian who taught me
the Dewey Decimal system andtaught me how to stack books and
what areas they needed to gointo.
And the high school counselorwho was very impactful in
helping me get to college was awhite woman, Miss Flowers.

(14:22):
But it was Mr.
Smith, Mrs.
Dones, Mrs.
Henderson, Mr.
Woods.
These were the colored teacherswho really spoke into my life.
And so I dreamed of being ateacher.
And I knew by high school that Iwanted to go to college.
But I didn't know where.
I went to a high school wherenobody really went to college

(14:44):
because it was a working classarea.
Two young ladies from my highschool, from the year ahead of
me, went to Mount Jolio Collegeup in Massachusetts.
Never heard of Mount Jolio,didn't know what that was.
But I did work in thecounselor's office also.
And so you get all these littleflyers.
You know, in 1968, when King isassassinated, colleges across

(15:09):
the country began to reallyreach out to black students.
Now, black students had alwaysgone to Mount Jolio, gone to
Berkeley, gone to, you know,University of Kansas.
That's not the issue.
But the issue is that those topschools, only black students
from very upper middle classfamilies, private schools,
daddies were doctors andlawyers, those are the ones who

(15:30):
went to these Ivy schools.
But 68 admissions in higher edchanged.
They now flooded cities askingfor, looking for deserving black
students, even from schools thatwere not the top schools.
That's why why black admissions,black uh enrollment just took

(15:51):
off in the late 60s.
And it was the spring of King'sassassination.
He was murdered in April 1968,and I can tell you that by
September 1968, many of theseschools had their largest black
student population enrollment,new freshmen, black freshmen
that September.
So I would not go into collegetill 72, 73, but otherwise I

(16:15):
would have made it to GeorgiaState or maybe Morris Brown.
These two young women went toMount Holyoke.
And back then, Nikhil, you'retoo young to know this, they
would come home from collegeduring Christmas break.
And most often you went to yourhigh school to see your old
school teachers and to let themsee you after one semester.

(16:35):
Well, these two young women fromMount Holyoke who were just
graduated the year before cameto my high school to see their
teachers and to see those of uswho may want to go to college.
When I tell you ugly ducklingswere beautiful queens, I was
like, what school did they goto?
Look how they look.
They're so ported, they'repretty.

(16:57):
I want to go, I want to gowherever that's where I'm going.
I went to Wellesley because thetwo women from my whole yoke
from my high school came backChristmas break, transformed
intellectually, spiritually,physically, and I wanted that.

SPEAKER_01 (17:15):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
And so I applied to Wellesley College and Ivy
League's seven sisters.
Before then, I had never heardof such a place.
You know, listen, when youinterview somebody who is my
age, we don't know anythingabout short stories.
We cannot even like I have livedlonger than you have, about 30
years.
So you're like, girl, when youask us, we don't have a little

(17:37):
short answer.
I'm gonna try to make the restof them short.
But in terms of how did I gethere, those kinds of
serendipitous moments, thosekinds of moments where it just
had to be God, those momentswhen your internal world and
your external world cometogether at pivotal moments,
those moments when you didn'teven know it was God until you
look back at it 10 or 15, 20,30, 40 years later.

SPEAKER_03 (18:01):
And I appreciate you going into that to the details
because it shows that there'snot a room that we enter into
alone.
And we bring our ancestors, webring these histories, these
stories with us.
And if it wasn't for a goodteacher, good teacher, where
would we be?
I've had bad teachers growing upat a public school in Harlem.

(18:23):
I remember a teacher telling mein eighth grade that I would
never make it.
And so, in some ways, thatbecame the impetus for me to
become this overachiever, todisprove her, right?
To prove her wrong.
But I also picked up hobbiesalong the way.
Basketball was my hobby.
I played basketball from sunupto sundown.

(18:43):
And I had a really good coach,and the coach told me that how
you play on the court is how youwill play off of the court.
And I had a temper on the court.
And then another thing she wouldsay, never play down to the
defense, make them play up toyou.

SPEAKER_00 (18:59):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 (18:59):
And so it was the lessons on those in that hobby
in the basketball court thatreally shaped me.
But good teachers as well.
Thinking about a teacher insixth and seventh grade, Bruce
Kantz and Richard Miller, who inmany ways saved my life because
it means something when teachersbelieve in you.

SPEAKER_02 (19:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (19:19):
When they see something in you that the world
is telling you you're not.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (19:25):
Yeah.
A couple of years ago, I had amilestone birthday, which was
70.
And my ninth grade schoolteacher came to my birthday
party.
Oh my.
To this day, we text each other.
She has been in my life.
She has almost never missed abirthday in terms of sending me
a card.
But this is the woman I usuallycredit the most because by 14, I

(19:50):
had a very chaotic family life.
And this is the teacher that Inow I was disruptive in her
class.
And she is the one who kept meafter school.
And you don't know anythingabout this, Nikhil, but writing
on the chalkboard.
I will not curse out theteacher.
Oh, I know about it.
I will not curse out theteacher.
I had to clean the board.
I had to straighten up the room.

(20:11):
I'm talking to her, and she'stalking to me.
So, Renita, what's wrong?
Why you act like this?
You're such a smart.
All of those kinds of thingsthat she is bringing me out of
my little shell.
And we became now.
I girl, I was not her friend,but you couldn't tell me I
wasn't her friend.
You couldn't tell me I wasn'ther favorite.
And from 14 to 71, this momenthas followed my life.

(20:35):
Whenever I'm in Atlanta, I gosee her.
And I want you to, when I thinkabout the fact, now here's where
I get teary-eyed.
When I think about the fact thatI was 14 and she was 27, when I
think about the fact that shehad just been out of Spelman a
few years, when I think aboutthe fact she had just gotten her
masters from AU in teaching ormath or whatever.

(20:56):
And I think back to when I lookat 27-year-olds now, and I think
about what it meant to be aschool teacher, to be 27.
And I'm just 13 years youngerthan she is, but she brought me
through a period now.
To me, she was 50 years old.
I mean, you know, listen, Ithought she was 50.
When I think about the fact thatshe was just 27, I'm like, she

(21:17):
wasn't 27, but she had to be 27.
But to me, she was an old woman,and but she reached me.
She reached me and she did allthe things that we're told now
are inappropriate.
She let me get close to her, shelet me call her.
She dropped me off at homesometimes.
She got put me in the car anddrove me home.

(21:39):
All the stuff that'sinappropriate now that teachers
cannot do and boundaries and allthat stuff.
If I had to live in that, Iwould never have made it because
she crossed all the boundaries.
And then when I go back tocelebrations of her, I discover
there's a whole bunch ofstudents who love her like me
because she did it to all ofthem.
And I thought I was herfavorite, but she was just a
great teacher.

(22:00):
So she is now late 80s, middleeighties, or something like
that.
And we are still the best offriends.

SPEAKER_03 (22:06):
Well, if you're 70, she's 83.
Yes, that's correct.

SPEAKER_00 (22:10):
She's about 83.

SPEAKER_03 (22:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I remember that chalkboard.
I would put a line all the waydown from the top to the bottom
and do the eyes and just dash.

SPEAKER_00 (22:20):
You know, when as you were mentioning about
basketball, I am a huge women'sbasketball fan.
Huge college.
I mean, I'm, you know, I've gotfriends.
We are on text doing the games,okay?
And I love the WMBA as well.
But I often say, if there'sanything I wish, I wish I had
played ball because I believethat sports teaches women

(22:43):
something.
Oh, yeah.
I think that sports would havenot toughened.
It's not toughen, but it may bealso toughen.
But it I didn't know anythingabout losing and getting back up
again.
I did, I think sports teachesyou grit, perseverance, it
teaches you team sport, itteaches you failure, it teaches

(23:04):
you disciplining your body, itteaches you sweating through the
hard times and all of thosekinds of things that now when I
look at the women's basketball,or when I watch sports, period,
because I love the NBA too, I amjust I'm awed at the discipline
that comes with being anathlete.

SPEAKER_03 (23:25):
Yeah, I did not know that you loved women's
basketball.
Basketball saved my life.
I've been playing since I wasfive years old.
Um, and I did not play withdolls, I did not jump rope,
double dutch, straight rope, Ijust played basketball.
Whether the lights were onoutside or not, whether it was
raining, whether the ball had agrip or not.
We played so much that the gripwould come off of the ball.

SPEAKER_00 (23:47):
I didn't even know that was possible.

SPEAKER_03 (23:48):
And growing up poor, we didn't have basketball
courts.
So I learned how to play fullcourt was a monkey bar on one
end, a garbage can on the otherend.
And it was an intensefive-on-five with the kids on my
block playing basketball in thatstructure, but a lot of lessons.
And Debbie Smith was my coachand literally saved my life

(24:11):
because I was a hothead growingup, but I loved basketball.
And she said to me at JV, You'renot gonna make the varsity team.
And I couldn't imagine thatbecause I'm like, in my mind,
the best player.
And she said, until you fix thatattitude, you're not gonna make
varsity.
So she assigned me a mentor,which was a player on the
varsity team, Lena Green, who'smy Soror and dear friend now.

(24:34):
And she mentored me.
And I was able to get myselftogether to make varsity team.

SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
So yeah, beautiful story.
I don't know if you're familiarwith this great writer, this
great abolitionist writer andthinker, but Tina Love.
Oh, yeah.
She's a baller.
She tells the story of howbasketball saved her life.
I love hearing her talk abouther journey.
I can't remember where she grewup.
Yeah, she's in upstate New York.
Rochester, yeah, somewhere upthere.

(25:00):
Yeah.
And how balling saved her lifeand how it, how she moved from
balling to become a scholar.
She says one day she just lookedup and said, Why am I taking,
you know, some soft courses incollege?
And everybody else over there istaking black history and black
literature and African American.
And they were like, You are anathlete, you don't take those

(25:20):
courses.
And that was the day when shesaid, Oh no, I'm being cheated
of something.
And that's her beginning herjourney to be, I'm really
condensing her story, butbeginning her journey to
becoming an academic and ascholar and an educator, or you
know, a thinker about education.
And uh, and I was justfascinated with how basketball
saved her life.

SPEAKER_03 (25:40):
Yeah, her book is amazing.
We want to do more than survive.
She talks about beingphenomenal.
Thank you for that.
So we're talking about theimpact of teachers, of coaches,
of black women.
I have to ask, what do you loveabout being a black woman?
But also what do you see thechallenges of that black women

(26:01):
face in this current politicalclimate?

SPEAKER_00 (26:04):
You know, I appreciate those questions, but
I've never been anything elseother than a black woman.
And I've only been black andI've only been a woman,
obviously, simultaneously.
So I don't have anything else tocompare it to.
But I am so happy, so gratefulto God and to the universe and
to my ancestors that I am ablack woman in this particular

(26:30):
moment in history.
If you have to be a black woman,this is a great time to be a
black woman, to have grown upbeing a black woman, to have
witnessed what I have witnessedand then watch black people,
black and brown, people from theglobal south, those of us who
have been struggling, who knowstruggle, understand struggle.
It has been a wonderful time tosee across the world, not just

(26:53):
here in the States.
I wish that my mother, I wishthat my grandmothers had lived
to see this era for black women,had lived to see a black
president, had lived to seeJesse Jackson even run for
president, to see ShirleyChisholm run in 72.
Just the things that I havelived to see.

(27:15):
This has been a great time.
This current struggle,notwithstanding, it still has
been.
I'm grateful for that.
Because I've just seen how wehave endured, we thrived, not
just endured and survived, butwe've also thrived.
How beautiful we are, our music,our writing, our poetry, our

(27:36):
dance, our speaking, beinginventors and creatives.
They thought that they hadburied us, but they didn't know
that we were seeds.
And so that is probably whatgives me hope even during this
very difficult time in which welive, when it is scary, it is
all the things that we neverthought that we would be back

(27:57):
here like this.
I believe in the human spirit.
I believe in the spirit of blackand brown people, of liberation
struggles.
I believe in that.
I'm going down on that beliefright there.
And I believe in the power ofGod.
And I think that for me at thispoint in history, it is a

(28:18):
wonderful time.
Even at this point in my ownpersonal life, at this season of
my life, I wouldn't want to beanything other than what I am
right now.
I love my dialogue partners.
I love the people I get to be inconversation with.
And I love that we are thinkersand writers and fighters and
strugglers and artists all inone.

SPEAKER_03 (28:40):
Yeah, I love being a black woman, Dr.
Wings.
So, in the spirit of Blackwomanhood, you are also a
womanist scholar.
For those who have never heardof womanism, how do you define
it and what are yourcontributions to this
scholarship?

SPEAKER_00 (28:57):
Well, let me say that it is a shame if there are
those who have never heard ofit.
And I say this also because Ijust finished an essay for the
Oxford University Press on theearly decades of womanism.
And so those early decades we'retalking about now is 50 years
old.
So why haven't they uh it's itwhile we still having to define

(29:19):
a term, a word, a methodology, aconversation, a movement, if you
will, an ideological term thatis now 50 years old.
I don't know where to lay theblame.
I don't know if on anotherpodcast, your white counterpart
podcast, if anybody is asking,can you please define feminism?

(29:44):
Probably is.
I can't imagine that youwouldn't because there still are
people who find that terminflammatory enough.
Even if they've heard of theterm, it's still inflammatory
enough that people are stillneeding to define it.
We are still having to definethis term, and I find that sad.
I find that problematic.
That one, that there are thosewho don't know what it is, and

(30:06):
two, that we are still beingmade as black women to kind of
define why we need this term.
That being said, it is certainlythe commitment to the full
thriving and survival of blackwomen.
It's the unapologetic commitmentof standing and believing in and
working toward the full survivaland thriving of black women,

(30:29):
understanding that we aresurviving and thriving in a
system that is designed todestroy us and to limit our
thriving.
So I think it's important notonly to say that our commitment
is to black women's flourishingby all means, but we understand
that that commitment is to blackwomen's flourishing in a society

(30:50):
that is committed to black womennot flourishing.
That's right.
So I think we have to includethat part.
I mean, the academic definition,there's the methodologies that
we are involved in academiaaround womanist scholarship,
whether that is biblicalscholarship, ethics, or theology
or pastoral care, churchhistory, et cetera.
There is the academic side ofit, and rightly so.

(31:12):
But womanism, like feminism,because I was a feminist before
I was a womanist, did not emergein the academy.
Womanism seems to be associatedwith the academy and has had its
most robust conversation withinthe academy, but it emerged, the
notion of it in terms ofcommitment to black women.
I mean, even before AliceWalker, just the notion of black

(31:34):
women's thriving and survivingand flourishing, is much larger
than the academy.
Alice Walker helped us byhelping bring to our remembrance
a term that we already had inthe black community for sassy,
headstrong, defiant black girls.
You're acting woman-ish.

(31:54):
And when she suggested that as aterm as opposed to feminist, and
it caught on because we werecognize it resonated with our
understanding of how black womentalk about fast, fast black
girls, but also it meant defiantand willful.
I love that.
That's what we used to call.
She's so willful and all ofthat.

(32:15):
But so there is the folk F-O-L-Kunderstanding of womanism.
What do ordinary black womenunderstand about womanism, about
black women's agency, of blackwomen's thriving?
And then there is the academicunderstanding of womanism as a
methodology, as a theological oracademic discourse.
They resonate, they blend andthey work with each other.

(32:37):
They are not opposed to eachother.
But I am both an academic andI'm a church girl, I'm a church
woman.
So I have had to work and walkin those two worlds and try to,
on one level, in the academicworld, help to define the term
and methodologies and be a partof those a little bit more
esoteric kind of conversations,if you will.

(32:57):
And then at the church level, Ihave to go back within the
church or with ordinarysettings, sororities, churches,
civic clubs, whatever, when I dothat work, to kind of flesh that
out, to model it, even when Idon't use the term, but to model
it, but also to make sure thatmy work in those settings
reflect my personal commitmentsas a womanist.

SPEAKER_03 (33:19):
Thank you.
I really appreciate how you aremaking the distinction between
the folk, like the folklore ofwomenism and the academic study
of womenism.
I think that resolves a lot ofcriticism of womenism as being
only connected to the academy.
And a lot of people juxtaposewomanism to black feminism and

(33:42):
seeing a more radicality toBlack feminism, a more political
movement associated with Blackfeminism, which is probably a
false dichotomy between the two,but it is a criticism that I
think both studies face.
But I love how you are rootingwomanism in the everydayness and
the everyday lives of Blackwomen.

(34:03):
That doesn't have to be anacademic study, and it can be an
epistemology that informsacademic study.

SPEAKER_00 (34:11):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I think many of us knew,certainly from my generation,
the word feminism was not gonnafly, period.
It was not gonna fly.
It was not a term that was gonnafly in black church circles, it
was not necessarily a term thatwas gonna fly in black women's
social circles.
It was so identified with whitewomen and whiteness and all of

(34:33):
that painful memory and allthose painful conflicts and
tensions between black and whitewomen.
Feminism, and that's it'sprobably that was probably
unfair.
Let me just say I we because thelarger conversation that you and
I can have is what does it meanto just be women in a
patriarchal society?
Period.
It's about patriarchy, it reallyisn't about the women, it's

(34:53):
about the nature of patriarchyto demonize and pathologize and
caricature any of our terms thatlift up women.
So whether patriarchycaricatured feminism and made it
problematic, and patriarchycaricatured womanism and made it
problematic.
So let's just admit that we areliving in a larger system,

(35:14):
again, that we're talking about.
One thing that was clear is thatthe word feminist, black
feminist feminism, was not goingto get a hearing in the 70s and
80s and 90s, maybe even not now,in the 2026s.
So black feminism ends up beingstill largely an academic

(35:35):
conversation and maybe clearlysome radical spaces by all
means.
But the ordinary woman, theordinary black woman, and these
are all false labels, I'lladmit, and I'm speaking, I'm
generalizing, I'm down for beingradical, but I'm also down for
being heard.
And I'm also down for reachingthe sister at the bus stop, and
I'm also down for reaching thewoman who just doesn't operate

(35:59):
in those kind of languages andwho would likely have a problem
with the word feminist becausethat they have heard and that
they associate with white women.
So womanism became our own,became one that was generic and
particularly native, if youwill, indigenous, if you will,
to our own culture, by andlarge, mostly.

(36:21):
So it was handy, it was useful.
And obviously, there are someways in which it attempts to be
different from feminists, but byand large, it was an attempt to
use something that was nativeand known and indigenous to
black culture.
Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_03 (36:38):
In her article, Must I Be Womanist, Monica A.
Coleman writes, quote, I can'timagine what kind of scholar I
would be, what kind of woman Iwould be, if I had not
encountered Walker, AliceWalker, JD, Katie, Geneva
Cannon, and yourself, RenitaWilms, and encountered them

(36:59):
before William Faulkner,Reinhold Nieber, and Walter
Brugeman.
End quote.
Dr.
Williams, how do you respond toyounger Black women and Black
women religious scholars todaywho are still asking this
question, must I be a womanist?
Not just as a longing orsearching or desire to fit in,
but a critique of womanism forits perceived elitism,

(37:22):
exclusion, and inaccessibility.

SPEAKER_00 (37:27):
Let me see.
I'm not sure.
Okay, must I?
Yeah, let me just say this part.
So one of the things Iappreciate about it, I'm
familiar with the article, so Ireally appreciate you quoting
the Monica thing.
But obviously, Dr.
Monica, it occurs within alarger argument that she is
making.
So let me see if I can dissect alittle bit of this to say there

(37:49):
is, must I be a womanist?
There is the question of iswomanism elitist?
What's those other terms?

SPEAKER_03 (37:57):
Elitist and exclusionary and excitement.

SPEAKER_00 (38:00):
Okay, so let's do two things.
Let's take those two thingsapart.
There is first womaness, mustyou be a womanist?
My answer is yes.
Must you be elitist,exclusionary, etc.
No.
So those are they are notnecessarily, they are not the
same thing.
So why woman is labels matter?
Labels hold you accountable.

(38:22):
Labels identify what yourpriorities are.
It is not necessarily to makeyou over and against somebody
else.
It just like you ask me, whatare your pronouns?
Then I ask you, what is yourpolitics?
What matters to you?
Where's your line in the sand?
What are you willing to die for?
What do you believe in?

(38:43):
Labels do that.
Whether that is being awomanist, whether that is being
post-colonial, whether that isidentifying yourself with your
organization, whether yourpolitical affiliation is, we use
labels.
I try to live my life in a waythat I know that labels only

(39:03):
tell you one side of the personor one part of the person, that
people are much more complex bytheir labels, but it sure does
help me to know your labels.
We want to know where school didyou go to?
What part of the country are youfrom?
We're already labeling you.
Believe me, you tell me you'refrom Harlem, you ain't from
Atlanta.
So you've already labeledyourself by saying you're from

(39:25):
Harlem.
I've already labeled myself bysaying I'm from Atlanta.
I've already labeled myself bysaying I'm a boomer.
So labels, I don't have aproblem with labels.
So my point is first, woman isthe term woman, whether woman is
feminist, whether it's blackliberationist, whatever, they
identify your politics.
They identify what matters toyou.

(39:46):
What are some of yourpriorities?
It holds you accountable.
When I tell you that I'm awoman, therefore you expect me,
you expect certain things fromme.
You expect a certain level ofconversation from me, you expect
a certain level of commitmentfrom me about women, about black
women.
It means that when I treat blackwomen a certain kind of way, you

(40:07):
can jack me up and say, But Ithought you were a womanist.
It means that when I say thatI'm a Christian, it ought to
matter.
It means that there are certainthings you can hold me
accountable to.
You should be able to say, butyou say you're a Christian, then
how could you treat this person?
How could you have done these?
Labels are important becausethey identify your priority,
your politics.
They also hold you accountable.

(40:28):
And also labels make it clearthat universality is a lie.
There is no such thing as theuniversal person, and that we
are not all just universalpeople.
Because whenever we fall upunder the label of we're all
just people, they really alwaysend up meaning only white people
and white men.
They get to be the ones who theyget to be the universal people,

(40:50):
and everybody else is anaberration.
So I mean, you can see I feelvery strongly about this.
So I don't let people, I didwhen I was younger, when I
didn't have this kind oflanguage at my fingertips.
I did, I don't let people makeme feel bad, embarrassed, or
apologetic about being womanistor about being anything else

(41:10):
that I am, you know, Christianor black or whatever else.
So there is that.
Now, that does not automaticallymean, therefore, one is elitist
and an exclusionary.
Tona Morrison has a line.
She says, Lovers are no, and Ithink it's from it, maybe from
Blueest Eye.

(41:33):
Love is only as good as thelover.
That's what she says.
Love is only as good as thelover.
Cruel people love cruelly,stingy people love stingily,
gracious people love graciously.
Something like that.
My point is womanism is only asgood as the woman who introduces
you to it.

(41:54):
Okay, so therefore, if it comesoff elitist, it's because the
person who was explaining is anelitist, blankety blank.
Okay?
So let's be clear about anotherthing.
Womanism does not excuse anybehavior and that black women
get away with doing whateverthey want to do under the term
of womaness, as an old woman tothe young woman.
Yeah, we got some lines in thesand where saying that, sister,

(42:17):
I know y'all believe in that,but look at him.
Everything is not acceptable asa womaness, everything is not
acceptable.
And you are not beyond critique,you're not beyond being
snatched, you're not beyondbeing judged, everything does
not apply, everything is notacceptable.
So when we talk aboutflourishing and our survival and

(42:38):
black women's joy, the old womenbe just sitting there saying,
okay, it doesn't mean that youcannot be critiqued or judged or
held accountable or snatched.
And I think sometimes I hearyounger women describe who they
are and what it means to be ablack woman and what we're all
about and our agency, and it'slike, no, but it doesn't mean

(42:59):
everything goes, y'all.
It's not an excuse for that.
So if it has come across aselitist, it's because the people
who are writing and talkingabout it are elitists and don't
know how to break it down.
If it comes across asexclusionary, it's because the
person who you were reading atthat time was an exclusionary
writer.
But in terms of its origins,that's not what it was about.

SPEAKER_03 (43:23):
Dr.
Weems, one thing that we cancount on with you is you are
gonna keep it real.
And I just want to know who areyou out here snatching in these
woman's streets?

SPEAKER_00 (43:37):
No, girl, ain't nothing but water in here.
I need something else in here totell you that.
Answer talk to me on thebasketball court over there in
the bleachers.
Then you know I'm gonna tell,but I can't tell you right here.

SPEAKER_03 (43:52):
I know what to put in that cup to get you talking
to.
I think it's really importantthat we.
Do some of the internal work sothat we are presenting womanists
on generative and healing termsthat isn't divisive, that isn't

(44:13):
mean, girl, right?
And so I think there is somehealing work to do within the
community of people who professto be womanists.
And I think doing that healingwork will help womanist thought
feel more accessible, safe forothers to join.
Because there is a generation ofpeople who do not identify as

(44:37):
womanists, usually youngerpeople, because they are seeing
how we move.
And it's similar to church,right?
It's similar to church.
People critique the churchbecause they are expecting some
type of sanctuary, safety,kindness.
But in fact, they receive theopposite of that, whether it's

(44:58):
church hurt or whatever.
So I think you're right that wehave to be aware of that and
hold each other accountable.

SPEAKER_00 (45:05):
But I think also, may I, and I want you to, you
can push back on with me onthis, but I think that this is
one of the things that I noticedin, I don't know why I didn't
make the connection until as youwere saying it, because I was at
a meeting a couple of years agowhere some younger black women
who were in ministry, let's sayprofessional, they were in

(45:27):
ministry, and they were talkingabout why they are not
womanists, and they startedtalking about who first hurt
their feelings.
You know, I'm not gonna try tominimize it, who hurt their
feelings and the first womaniststhat they met and how they were
so mean to them, and how that ifthey said to themselves, if
that's womanism, I don't wantit.
There's obviously a wholeconversation of they so mean

(45:48):
that I'm like, I'm just it stunsme that that's so
stereotypically associated withwomen who sit around talking
about, you know, because they'reso mean to us and because
they're not nice to us.
And I'm like, I'm soembarrassed.
That's the level of what makesyou not want to do this.
My doctor is mean, but I need anoncologist.

(46:10):
But I don't sit around heretalking about she's mean.
As somebody who has been ateacher, my point is I think
that our expectations of womenleaders, of women professors, is
unfair.
It is, and what we expect ofwomen who do this work, who have
been trailblazers, or who areout here in these streets doing

(46:32):
this hard work.
And because I'm out here doingthis hard work and I may have
snapped at you, and now it'slike, see, they so mean, this is
why we don't want to be woman.
I can't, I can't, I don'tunderstand all of that.
But my point is, it's such anaggrieved and aggrieved A G G
R-I-E-V-E-D generation.

(46:54):
Yeah, just so aggrieved aboutyou, you hurt their feelings,
you weren't nice to them.
Dr.
Wims is gonna keep it real,y'all.
I don't mean you, Nikia, butthose who are read who are
listening to me getting ticked,let me help you.
You think you would have likedElla Baker?
You think you think Nanny HelenBarrows and Fanny Lou Habel were

(47:15):
nice?
You think Mary Church Terrellwould have been nice to you?
These women and Paulie Murray,you think whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm
so sorry.
We tend to idealize these peopleand think that they would have
been nice women, that they wouldnot have hurt my feelings.

(47:37):
Dorothy Height became thepresident of a National Council
of Negro Women, but you can beassured that Mayor McCall
McDonald jacked her up.
Listen, I've earmarked you to bethe head of my organization.
But let me tell you something,little honey, before I give you
my National Council of NegroWomen, I need you to get this
together, that together, fixthis attitude, just like your

(47:58):
coach told you.
And you couldn't turn around andsay, Oh, she's so mean.
Now she may have been mean, butyou needed to do what she just
told you to do.
So my point is, I'm not makingany excuse for rude, nasty,
mean, sick behavior.
So let's be clear, we're nottalking about that.
But I believe that you miss outon a lot of great mentoring,

(48:24):
friendship, just conversation bysitting over in the corner with
your girls talking about they somean, and we're not gonna do
this, that we're not gonnafollow in their footsteps, or
we're not gonna use it becausethey so mean that men do not do

(48:44):
women do that.

SPEAKER_03 (48:49):
Dr.
Weems has spoken.
Dr.
Weems has spoken, and certainlyDr.
Coleman's article isn't talkingabout this kind of mean girl
who's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 (49:00):
No, no, no, no, no, she's not.

SPEAKER_03 (49:01):
No, she's not talking about the hetero
normativity and the crystalcentrism and so forth.
Yes, absolutely.
Holding that in a separatebucket.

SPEAKER_00 (49:11):
But she is saying, but she is saying that there is
that black feminist traditionhas a longer history and a
longer tradition and resourcesthat we can draw on than
womanism.
I mean, she's at least sayingalso that she's making a case
for also black feminism, andunderstandably so.

(49:33):
I don't challenge that.
I'm not that doesn't bother meat all.
What does bother me is thecaricaturing, what I feel like
is the caricaturing both of thescholarship of womanism and of
womaness, individual womannessas well.
That's the part that annoys me.

SPEAKER_03 (49:53):
I could spend a lot of time here because I
understand both perspectives andI wouldn't want to victim blame,
right?
So if someone feels hurt by thewomanists they've encountered, I
don't think it's only on theirresponsibility to accept
womanism, but it's also aresponsibility of the womanists

(50:16):
who created the culture thathurt them to take
accountability.
And I also don't think legacy ofmean black women justifies, and
I don't know, I know you're notsaying this, a mean girl culture
within womanism because hurtpeople.
And so we have a responsibilityto move from a place of healing.
And I hear what you're sayingthat it is unfair to do an

(50:41):
over-sweeping generalization,attacking the personality of
womanism because we rarely sayTrump is mean, right?
We call him a lot of things, butwhat you see, I think, within
white institutions is maybe anattack on ideology more than
attack on personhood.
And I think when we get to us,it's a pointing finger at people

(51:06):
as opposed to the system that issurrounding us, right?
And so womaness is a system, itis an ethos, it is a study that
isn't minimized or reduced toany single personality.

SPEAKER_00 (51:21):
God bless his memory, Cornell West, Cyric
Lincoln, Gay War Wilmore.
I could just name the men whohad their own personalities and
their own ways of doing thingsand their own ways, Charles
Long.
I'm old enough to know some ofthese founding personalities and

(51:45):
names.
Interesting stories.
We could just sit around andtell interesting stories about
their own interactions withthemselves, with each other, and
their interactions with theirmentees.
But you'll never hear theirmentees, or you'll never even
hear those who are not theirmentees talk about, yeah, man, I
never was into black liberationtheology because when I met

(52:07):
Cone, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, and he said something
that, you know, I said tomyself, now, a black person
talking about why that theywould never become a black
liberationist because Cone wasrude to them.
But we're talking about blackliberation.
We're not even talking aboutCone.
We're talking about amethodology that we need to

(52:29):
dismantle a system.
And you're talking about Conethat day didn't answer your
question and was rude to you andwent to the next person.
That's what I am talking about.
I'm talking about these samemen.
If you find out, they had someinteresting stories.
They fought and battled witheach other, and they fought and
battled with those who camebehind them.

(52:49):
But you never hear those whocame behind them talking about,
well, the reason why I neverreally believed in black
history, black liberation, youknow, why I wouldn't follow CR
Lincoln is because you're like,oh, now this is what this is
colonialism.
Yeah.
This is colonialism at thegender level.

SPEAKER_03 (53:10):
I see your point.
We preserve the legacy of men nomatter the harms that they
cause.
Bill Cosby, right?
We could Puffy and so forth.
So thank you for that.
I want to switch gears.
I I know we're deep into ourtime, but I don't get this

(53:31):
opportunity often to sit withthe Dr.
Renita Weems.
So I want to switch to yourscholarship as a biblical
scholar.
As you know, AbolitionistSanctuary is building an
alternative religious andemancipatory space rooted in the
survival practices of Blackmothers.
And so I want to first frameyour relationship to Black

(53:52):
motherhood.
Can you talk to us about yourjourney of being mothered and of
mothering and what are yourthoughts about black mothers
struggling to survive who arepunished for merely trying to
meet their basic needs?

SPEAKER_00 (54:08):
I am a sucker for a great mother-daughter story.
I love books about mothers anddaughters.
I love stories about mothers anddaughters.
I love great movies aboutmothers and daughters.
And the more complex and nuancedand maybe even ugly it is, the

(54:29):
more I love it.
If you ask me what are some ofmy favorite ones, the one that
sticks out for me, a littleknown one called The White
Oleander.
And I don't expect anybody toknow it, but it is Michelle
Pfeiffer, I believe that's whoplays the mother, and the young
woman who plays the daughter.
I can't remember the daughter'sname.
But it is about an evil mother.

(54:50):
It is about a self-absorbedmother, how she manipulates her
daughter.
It is a beautiful story becauseit is about a daughter who loves
her mother, but her mothercontinues to manipulate her.
But her mother is brilliant.
Her mother goes to jail, butfrom jail, she manipulates her
daughter.
Nevertheless, it is about howcomplicated the mother-daughter

(55:14):
relationship is.
And that's probably also whyI've always loved, especially,
but I think black women writersare always writing about
mother-daughter relationships.
But certainly the reason why Ifell in love with Tony Morrison,
whether it was the Blue Is Eyeor Sulla or Song of Solomon, and
obviously, beloved Tony Morrisoncould put her finger on

(55:35):
mothering and motherhood.
Like no one else.
She gave us that, she helps togive that language.
But I think black women writeit, whether it's In Search of
Our Mother's Gardens, et cetera,et cetera.
Whether it is Paulie Marshall'sBrown Girl, Brown Stones, black
women have written a lot, andthey are great movies as well.
It's a complicated relationship.

(55:57):
I was just telling someone theother day, I remember a line
from Patty LaBelle'sautobiography, and it's an old
autobiography, it should be 30or 40 years ago.
I believe it was hers and notGladys Night.
I love biographies.
But I remember something.
She says, a woman isn't a woman.
You don't become a woman untilyour mother dies.
And I was quoting that tosomebody, and there's something

(56:19):
about when that last person,that person who stands between
you and the grave, dies, andthat's your mother.
You don't really grow up.
You don't really know that it'son you now, that the baton has
been passed.
I just remember that line fromBell's autobiography.
But she's obviously talkingabout the death of her mother

(56:41):
and her sisters who died fromcancers.
But my point here is I'm veryclear that I was mothered by a
number.
Obviously, I started withcolored school teachers.
I obviously can name women inthe church like a Cecilia
Williams Bryant and DorothyHaidt to some degree.
And I hesitate calling namesbecause I'm going to get off

(57:01):
this and I'm gonna say, oh myGod, why didn't I mention so on
so on so?
But you have to be motherable inorder to be mothered.
Everybody is not motherable.
Let's be very clear about that.
But I was motherable.
I did not mind yielding andbeing vulnerable to older,
particularly to older women.

(57:22):
So I have always valued thatkind of wisdom, that kind of
kitchen table wisdom, that kindof.
And again, I want to keep usingthis word because I think that
this is the word that doesn'tget used in accountability and
vulnerability.
I allowed myself to bechallenged.
I took what we say in thechurch, I took correction.

(57:45):
Okay.
I used the image from men.
I knew how to live up underauthority.
I had no problem with authority.
I might now mind you, I mightmumble when I walked away from.
I'm sure I mumbled and said, whoI did all of that.
But right in front of her, Isaid, Yes, ma'am.
So let's be clear that there's awhole lot of this that's going

(58:06):
on and not going on insucceeding generations.
I lived up under authority, Itook authority.
And the Bible says that acertain man went to ask Jesus to
come heal his daughter.
And he said, But listen, youdon't have to come to my house.
He says, I'm a man of authority,I recognize a man of authority.

(58:27):
So when you have authority, whenyou have power, when you manage
people, you're not intimidatedby people who have power because
you understand power understandspower.
And so therefore, I had tosurround myself with people who
had that kind of sense of theirauthority and their ability to
correct you.

(58:48):
Because that's what I wanted.

SPEAKER_01 (58:50):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (58:50):
I didn't want them, I didn't want the others.
I wanted that.
And I wanted to know how howthey came to be who they were,
and to be with those kind ofwomen who have been burned, who
have had to learn how to work inspite of being burned.
So mothers for me was I had adifficult relationship with a
mother, and so I was motherhungry.

(59:12):
And so I was receptive.
I have a daughter now, and sheis she pays me back for all the
ways that I used to be.
She is me, but she's alsoherself, and it is a beautiful
journey.
And I love her as an adult morethan I liked her as a teenager.

SPEAKER_03 (59:34):
I'm sure she loves you unconditionally.
But I love how you had goodmodels to mother you and that
you were motherable, because Ithink people who know you and
respect you appreciate thewisdom that you impart.
You are a sage of our time, andit's just a privilege to sit at
your feet and to get thesestories and lessons.

(59:56):
So I have three questions that Iwant to fit in, Dr.
Williams, before we end thisinterview, and we're well over
time.
One, you are the firstAfrican-American woman to earn a
PhD in Old Testament studies.
So, what does the Hebrew Biblesay about motherhood that we can
use to highlight the strugglesof Black mothers with survival

(01:00:19):
today in the contemporary time?
I know Hagar is used a lot.
I'm wondering if there are otherbiblical characters you can
think of.
So that's one question.
And if you can answer it now, ifyou need time to think on that,
I could lay out the other two.
Whereas you're talking aboutblack motherhood.
So what does the Bible say abouther?
Oh, yeah, what did the Bible sayabout motherhood?

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:39):
I'm not that Bible scholar.
Let me just say that.
I'm not that Bible scholar whocan give you the pithy answer
of, well, the Bible says thisabout motherhood, because it
doesn't.
It doesn't say much aboutmotherhood.
What's that from aninstructional?
Thou shalt not, you know, beyondlove your mother and the father,
honor your mother and father.
In the Bible, what the book ofProverbs does for father talking

(01:01:04):
to his son or a man instructinga son.
Proverbs, toward the end of it,it says, now, you know, my son,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, so there is didactic.
I think there is language in theBible where you hear the
instructional voice of a man toa son.
You have father-son languagethroughout the Bible, father-son

(01:01:25):
stories throughout the Biblethat you can extrapolate from
that.
What does it tell us aboutfatherhood?
It's easier to talk aboutfatherhood in the Bible because
we got so many examples, and wealso have stories, and we also
have instructional writings inthe Bible.
We don't have in the same way,in the same amount, we have

(01:01:49):
stories about mothers.
We even have a few stories aboutmothers and daughters, but we
have more about mothers andsons.
Yes, we know about Ruth andNaomi.
We know about Naomi and hersons.
Yes, the woman in the NewTestament who goes to Jesus on
behalf of her daughter.
We know those kind of.
There are these stories here andthere, and there may be some

(01:02:11):
others that I'm just kind ofblanking on.
But by and large, you know, thisgets me back to my other piece
of as we get back to womanism.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:19):
You're juggling for me, it is juggling this text
that I grew up on, that I cut myteeth on, that I devoted my
career to, I've got a PhD in.
But at the same time, I have to,and that has in so many places
in this canon, in this book, Ihave found sustenance, I have
found life, and I have foundimage and language for the world

(01:02:42):
in which I want to deconstructand the one that I want to
construct.
But I am not naive about thefact that in many ways it is a
book by men, for men, about men,hands down.
And because I am a woman, I havelearned how to find my way in

(01:03:07):
it.
I watch plenty of movies.
I love Born, the Born Bornseries.
Male through and through, Gameof Thrones, in many ways,
through and through.
Women know how to extrapolatefrom patriarchal stories,
lessons, and that they can liveon.
Most men do not know how to dothe opposite.

(01:03:29):
The moment it becomes a woman'sstory, they tune out.
The moment it becomes women'smusic, they tune out.
So my point is that whatever Imight say about what the Bible
teaches us about mothers andmotherhood, what it teaches us
within the context of apatriarchal culture, which
suggests that mothers are forthe women of property, that a

(01:03:52):
woman's highest, noblest goal isto be a wife and a mother.
Within a patriarchal text, it isabout women being sacrificial
and it's not about femaleagency.
There are stories of women whoare queens and who are witches
and who do wonderful things, butby and large, it is a
patriarchal text.

(01:04:14):
But if I allowed that to be abarrier, then I would never have
enjoyed most of everything thatI experienced, whether in
literature or anything.
So my point is I could, I havedone many Mother's Day sermons.
So you can be assured I havefound some texts in there and I

(01:04:34):
have waxed eloquent about them.
But on a podcast of this sortwith your kind of audience, I
want to say it is a patriarchaltext.
And I hold it dear in my heart.
But I am aware I don't want tobe that kind of woman that the
Bible idolizes.
I don't want to be sacrificial.
I don't want to just besomebody's mother and wife.

(01:04:57):
I've already failed because Idon't have any sons.
I've already failed by biblicalstandards.
But at the same time, you willfind in it beautiful statements
from the Song of Solomon.
You'll find a charm is deceitfuland beauty is vain.
But a woman who fears God is tobe praised.

(01:05:17):
Right there in Proverbs 31, whootherwise is talking about this
exhausted wife.
So you find these little gemshere and there in this text that
is otherwise patriarchal, butthat has come down through the
centuries as inspirational, evenif it is sometimes very harming.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:38):
Yeah, thank you for that.
And to overemphasize thepatriarchy, that is the
historical context of thathistorical book, the Bible.
Yeah, yeah.
And that patriarchal systemcontinues to uh saturate the
church today.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:52):
I think we underestimate.
I think that's my point.
And I know we've got to presson, but if there's anything, I
think that black women, I thinkthat the Women that who are
listening, if they get anythingelse from this podcast as in a
conversation with me, is that Ithink that racism is a sin, but
I think we see sexism asnaughty, but not as a sin.

(01:06:14):
Not as a part of a largerpatriarchal society.
I think we fight these womenissues and women fights and what
these women are doing, but wedon't see that this is a part of
a one thing that Trump isexposing is that we have to
understand these are systems.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:29):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:30):
This is a culture of misogyny and misogyna.
This is not just about me andyou and a different generation.
This is about a society that isinvested in keeping women
fighting, disagreeing, and beingunfair to each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I just wanted to saythat.

SPEAKER_03 (01:06:48):
No, that's perfect.
So, what advice do you givewomen who are discerning a call
to ministry?
I know you wrote this beautifulbook, Listening for God and
Ministry Journeys ThroughSilence and Doubt.
I purchased this book severaltimes a year.
I just gifted it to a colleague,to anyone who I give
recommendations who are thinkingabout ministry.
What advice from this book orfrom your experience would you

(01:07:09):
give to women in particular, butpeople who are discerning a call
to ministry in this patriarchalsystem that we also call the
church?

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:19):
Yeah, I would probably say today something
that I didn't say back then whenI wrote the book, or when other
people have asked me thisquestion.
And I want to apologize thatagain, like I said, you know,
you're talking to somebody whoneeds a runway.
When you probably when podcastswants somebody who really works
with helicopters, don't justtake off and answer a question.

(01:07:41):
I need a runway.
I'm a scholar, I'm a thinker,I'm an academic.
Words are my business.
So those of you who arelistening to us, listen, honey,
I told you I'm old and I am anacademic.
I need a runway.
So what would I say?
I would say, listen, you know,someone said, I think I'm gonna
get real churchy here and answerthis question.

(01:08:02):
Ministry is not about ministry.
Ministry is about are youprepared to be an elder in the
church?
Are you prepared to serve?
Are you prepared to walk withpeople?
It is not about the pulpit.
It is not about having aplatform.
And I think that I wish someonehad told me that part.

(01:08:26):
It is not about a place to workout your own demons.
It really is a place of I haverecalled from service.
But I'm now old enough to need apastor and to want a pastor.
And I don't mean a pastor isn'tsomebody who pastors a church.
I'm talking about a minister wholistens.
Everything now is about, well,you know what my therapist said.

(01:08:48):
And I'm like, that used to bewhat we would say about
ministers.
It's so fashionable now.
And it's right, and you need atherapist.
I'm not knocking that, but I'mjust saying the church has
fallen on hard times.
It is no longer, it's more aboutwhat sorority you belong to.
But I grew up when it was whatchurch did you go to.
And it was once was, you know, Iwas talking to my pastor.

(01:09:12):
Now it is, I was talking to mytherapist.
And I would say, this is such apainful time that somehow
another the church, the blackchurch, that anchor institution,
that old ship of Zion, thatplace has religion.
So it's not just about the blackchurch, this is what has
happened with WesternChristianity, which is a whole
nother conversation, period.
So this is not an indictment somuch about the church, but it's

(01:09:34):
just the willingness to justtrash it, to just to drag it,
you know.
And again, I have a history ofbeing one of the black church's
biggest critics.
So I have not spared the church,but I must admit that now I
recoil when I hear some of whatI hear my own colleagues say on

(01:09:55):
social media about the church.
And I'm like, I get it, Iunderstand hurt.
I believe that these things arehappening, and I believe they
need to be called out.
But I think in my decliningyears, I want to call out what
has been the good parts of thechurch and what has been the
saving parts of the church.
And the people 60 years ago wereas flawed as the ones today.

(01:10:22):
There's nothing new under thesun.
Nothing new under the sun.
But I am going to go down byreminding us of what this
church, what this community,this beloved community, these
old people, these old flawedpeople, what they were able to
build and what they were able todo in the church to bring a

(01:10:45):
whole generation of us up to theplace now where we can turn
around and say, say what we canturn our butts up at it and say
whatever we want to say at it.
And that's part of your childgrowing up.
But here's what I do know lifewill send you some things later
on that you're gonna be reachingfor the very, very institutions

(01:11:07):
that you despise.
As I say to my daughter all thetime, yeah, you can say whatever
you want about me.
You can be mad at me, you canslam the door as you go to your
house.
That's all right.
But one day, one day you'regonna be on this, and I hate it
when old folks said that when Iwas when I was when I was young.
I hate it when they said that.

(01:11:27):
But one day you're gonna needthat church.
One day you're gonna want tohear as you are dying.
You're not gonna want to hearNipsey.
You wanna hear Amazing Grace.
The music you're gonna want tohear as you're transitioning, as
you're getting ready to go intothe surgery.
You're gonna want to hear someof that old music.

(01:11:50):
It has landed many a thousand.
So I'm trying to hold on tothat.
And I think that's what that thebeauty of it, the God-givenness
of it, and the mystery of thebeloved community.
Forsake not, let me just go,King James.
Forsake not the assembling ofyourselves, as is the custom.

(01:12:12):
So these little brunches thatthey everybody's talking about,
they have their little bruncheson Sundays.
It's fine when you can pay yourbills.
It's fine when your health isfine, it's fine when all is
well.
But baby, there's a diagnosis,there is a tragedy, there is an
unfathomable sorrow that we'reall going to go through.

(01:12:33):
And I can promise you, you'regonna reach for those same
conversations and scriptures andpeople and songs because they
have landed many a thousand.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:47):
Amen.
Thank you, Dr.
Weems.
If we have more time, I wouldask about your relationship with
your girls and the importance ofsisterhood.
If we have more time, I wouldask you about your writing
practice.
If we have more time, I wouldask about your hobby with
knitting and quilting.
But unfortunately, we are out oftime.
Yeah, but before we say goodbye,I want to do our wrap up with a

(01:13:10):
rapid round where I will tellyou a word and you give us the
first thought that comes tomind.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:17):
Sure.

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:18):
Only a word.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:20):
I didn't do that.
I'm obedient.
I'm obedient.
Go ahead.
Nashville, country, bourbon.
Ah pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:38):
Quoting love life struggle.
Memoir.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:02):
Memory.
Laughter.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:11):
Thinking God.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:15):
Unfathomable.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:17):
Favorite food?

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:21):
Paila.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:22):
Favorite book.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:25):
Today is the biography of Arcadia Butler.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:29):
Okay.
A favorite Bible passage?

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:32):
Ah.
A favorite Bible.
We have this treasure in earthenvessels.
So that the excellency of thepower might belong to God and
not to us.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:43):
Amen.
A favorite saying or phrase, ifyou have one.

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:48):
You don't get what you deserve, you get what you
negotiate.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:52):
Favorite song?

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:55):
Oh, yeah.
Anything by Nina Simone.
Biggest pet peeve.
Biggest pet peeve.
It's to be called emotional.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:06):
Greatest fear.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:10):
Greatest fear is that I will not be here to take
my daughter through her deepestpain.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:19):
Introvert or extrovert?

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:22):
Introvert who is forced to be an extrovert.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:25):
An abolitionist sanctuary.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:28):
Abolitionist sanctuary.
The future.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:34):
Thank you for joining this conversation.
This is the AbolitionistSanctuary Podcast.
For our audience and listeners,please download and share this
episode on all platforms.
I am your host, Reverend Dr.
Nakia Smith Robert, founder andexecutive director of
Abolitionist Sanctuary.
Follow us on YouTube, Instagram,Facebook, and download our

(01:15:55):
social mobile app.
Also, enroll in our courses andbecome certified at
abolitionacademy.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.
And for me, abolition is myreligion.

(01:16:17):
Let's lead a faith basedabolitionist movement together.
Dr.
Weams, thank you so much forbeing on the show.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:24):
Thank you.