Sharpton Addresses Leaders At Home in Brooklyn

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the globally known social justice advocate, minister and civil rights and human rights leader, was the special guest speaker at the first monthly meeting of the African American Clergy and Elected Officials organization (AACEO), Jan. 3 at Antioch Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY. The Rev. Dr. Robert M. Waterman is the pastor of Antioch and the president of AACEO. Our Time Press contributor Mary Alice Williams’ coverage appeared in the January 9 issue of this paper. This week, Rev. Robert Waterman, pastor of Antioch and president of AACEO, reflects on the message of his fellow native Brooklynite, whose speech will be presented in an Our Time Press series, leading to 2025 Black History month. AACEO, formed in 1989, is the largest organization of its kind in New York State.

I am happy to be here again for this gathering. And we should not take for granted the unusual and unique blessing that we have in our own Reverend Robert Waterman. He is convening these (AACEO meetings) on a monthly basis, and to have people with influence come together and be accountable is something we should not take for granted.
What Waterman has done (is) now a tradition.

Our leaders knowing they better show up is important because they do not acknowledge you if you do not make them show up. Too often, our ministers go downtown to meet people with some power. It is more important to make them come to see you; their journey to you lets you know they respect you.

If nobody comes to you, they don’t respect you. They put you on their schedule for 15 minutes, smile for a selfie, then head to the gate to “get out of here.”
Waterman has perfected getting folks to come to you here in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Give him his respect.

And to all of you here, let me say that Waterman actually talks publicly about The Black Church in the Trump Era. And this is the second Trump era.

So, as I was riding down Greene Avenue to Antioch Baptist Church, I thought about several things: I remember we used to come here when I was a little boy, maybe nine or ten years old. Rev. George Lawrence was the pastor. And Rev. Lawrence and Rev. Dr. William Augustus Jones of Bethany Baptist Church, Rev. Dr. Sandy Ray of Cornerstone, and Rev. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor of Concord Baptist Church of Christ were the giants of ministry in Brooklyn.

I remember, at the time, SUNY Downstate Medical Center was being built. Early 60’s, 62 or 63. That was so important to me, and it is in my memory all these years later because those ministers said you couldn’t build Downstate unless you hired some blacks at the construction site. Talk about Men – Taylor! Bill! John! Paul! They went to the site and sat down to be arrested and stop the construction until they hired black contractors. All of them! Together! Look at Bill Anderson from Siloam Presbyterian.

I look back now and see one of the things that’s been done so well is the separation of our generations from the generations that came before. If they can cut you off from your background, from your history, then you won’t know what worked and what didn’t work because they got you thinking history started with you. Nice, nice, nice.

The first thing they do is work on your mental state: when they brought us here in 1619, first thing they did was make you forget your history. Yes, yes. Because if you remember you were princesses, princes and scientists and all in Africa, it would be hard for them to enslave you. So the first thing they did is, well, forget all of that.

We say, “Your daddy, your Georgia, your mom down in Alabama, your sister in Mississippi.” Forget all that; your name is not Kunta Kunte anymore, it’s Toby. Now, we’ve been going from state to state for centuries of Toby’s because they forgot who they were. One of the things that amazed me about Downstate was Bishop Anthony Washington, who I started preaching under when I was four years old.

Bishop Washington. was in the Church of God in Christ. He was not politically active or civil rights active in the 1960s, but joined Reverend Jones and the rest of them at Downstate and got arrested. One of the few coaching preachers that would do that. But the other person that was there that was uncharacteristic was Malcolm X. And Malcolm X stood there. Am I right? I heard a yep, you must know. Yeah, the old folks told me. The old folks told you. You trying to call me old folks? No, I’m sorry. We’ll talk about that after.

What I’m saying is that there was a time when we did not find it impossible to cross our ideological, religious, and denominational lines. Because we understood some things benefited all of us. And what they’ve been able to do is divide us. And division is what kept slavery in line for 246 years. 246 years of slavery. After that, 100 years of Jim Crow. All of that worked, as long as we were divided.

If you read American history, we were brought here in 1619, James Day. Correct. They never incorporated and brought the country together. In fact, they never even declared independence until 1776, which meant we’d been slaves 157 years before they even told King George they wanted independence. We’ve already slaved. Then they made a Constitution in Philadelphia to reform the country. We had already been slaves. The constant in this country was to work us without wages. And that’s what made the U.S. what it was.

Then we went all the way to the 1800s. The Abolitionist movement started. Blacks and whites were in it together. And they began saying slavery wasn’t lawful. They were the minority. They were the outcasts. It has always been those that were on the outside that were considered fringe. They had to change the mainstream to make it work. So, Lincoln became president, and we saw the rise of the South, Jefferson Davis, and the Confederates.

Lincoln was not an abolitionist. But the abolitionists had gained enough steam to get the attention of the country. And as Sherman and the Confederate army started moving north, many of them went to Lincoln and the abolitionists and said, “You need to free the slaves and let them join the Union army.” Lincoln didn’t want to do it because Lincoln was torn between his morality and his politics.

Finally, when they got far enough north, they got all the way to Virginia and Maryland, Lincoln freed the slaves because they needed the manpower to fight the Confederate Army. And when he freed the slaves in the South and they joined the Confederate army, he backed them up. And the Confederate army, under Sherman and then Robert E. Lee, was backed up by slaves reinforcing the Union army. That’s why we won’t teach our children that Lincoln freed the slaves. The slaves freed Lincoln. And because of that, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Now, the Emancipation Proclamation was not law. It was a presidential order. Just like we got Biden to sign the George Floyd Bill. The Proclamation didn’t become law until it went into the Constitution.

Lincoln signed the proclamation. In the proclamation, he said that on January 1, 1863, the slaves can walk off. They can leave the plantation. They’re free. Watch Night for us was always different than Watch Night for others. Because Watch Night for us was to see whether Lincoln was going to keep his promise. That’s why I celebrate Watch Night differently than Martin Luther King did.
Because I’m thinking about whether the promise was kept.

• to be continued