“Proximity is power. If you put yourself in position for good things to happen to you, if you’re willing to make the necessary sacrifices, if you’re patient and persistent, you dream big and you focus small, there is nothing you cannot accomplish.” ~ Robin Roberts ( @robinrobertsgma, IG) Being in this space - on a corner across from the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and the Alabama State Capitol altered my understanding of the power of resistance.I’ve been an active member of the Diaspora since high school - as a speaker of speeches, reader of histories, studious student, active re-learner, and an avid explorer, developing my understandings of the world and my place in it. Nothing has surprised me more, or yelled badass as loudly, as the presence of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church one block away from the Confederate headquarters in the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. The way Civil Rights stories are taught, Rosa Parks is presented as a random or calculated tired, but brave, Black Woman who simply wanted to sit down. We are left to assume Montgomery just happened to be the location that sparked a movement. But when I stood in the middle of Dexter Avenue looking at both the Black Church and the State Capitol, I was awed - moved to speechlessness - by the bravery and chutzpah of generations of African American community members in Montgomery, Alabama. The current capitol building was built in 1851. The Confederacy began in the original Senate chamber in 1861 when delegates meeting as the Montgomery Convention drew up the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States and two months later adopted the Permanent Constitution for the Confederate States. The current Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was built in 1879 by members of the First Baptist Church congregation. The earliest members of First Baptist began gathering while they were enslaved and began building on the corner down the street from the Confederate Capitol in 1866. Resistance is not new. Neither is shouting truth to power. In the face of tyranny. On the doorstep of terrorists as they legalize their depravity. We, the Africans in America, have often been beaten, but fear has never ruled us. One hundred and four years after the Confederacy formed, the Selma to Montgomery 1965 Voting Rights March ended on the street in front of its State Capitol. Fifty years later a man occupied the office of president with the expressed intent to return the country to the deferred hopes of the Confederacy. If only he knew that the greatest time he can think of was actually the springboard for resistance by the most revered people in the country, who operated the most studied movement in the world - he would know his plans to disenfranchise and subdue “the Blacks” don’t stand a chance. His ideas of the People are not rooted in history or reality. This is a truth he deserves to learn the hard way. By a People bold and brave enough to build their resistance headquarters within sight and shouting distance of the seat of state power. #resistance #civilrights #montgomeryalabama #dexteravenuebaptistchurch #alabamastatecapitol #confederate #capitol You're currently a free subscriber to Harvest Life on Substack. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Proximity to Power
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