It’s Midnight In America

by Rev. Elijah Zehyoue, Associate Pastor
Calvary Baptist Church, Washington, DC

In his 1984 re-election campaign, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed that it was morning again in America. With backdrops of the American flag and stock images of white Americans marrying, playing with their children, and buying homes, Reagan projected an image of America as a place that was serene and peaceful, prosperous and just. Yet despite what the former president projected, we know that right below the surface of his perfect picture country, all was not well in America. In many American cities the crack epidemic was already under way, immigration was being restricted, the progressive policies of the great society were rolled back, and the gains of the Civil Rights Movements had already begun to erode. Yet the mythology of it being an idyllic morning in America was persistent and is even still with us today. In fact, it has always been a part of the American narrative. 

It was the story told by Christopher Columbus and John Smith, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who presented themselves as good men, humble advocates of liberty, defenders of truth against tyranny. It is a story that continued through the 19th century of an idyllic south with its lush green pastures and fertile black soil for growing cotton, sugar, tobacco, and rice. It is the story of an open west where hundreds of acres of land could be given to the best cowboy, and where gold flowed like el dorado. It is the story that overlooked the Trail of Tears, the confiscation of half of Mexico, and the theological claim of manifest destiny that drove their very worst instincts. 

This is the paradox of life in America. On the surface, everything seems all good, especially if you are white. But right below the surface, the truth of the nation is much uglier. Black people, especially our activists, preachers, scholars, writers, and every-day resisters, have over the centuries, challenged this singular and shallow story about America and urged everyone to understand the more comprehensive truth about this country that exists below the surface. Olaudah Equiano did this by being one of the first Black people to write down his own story of enslavement. W.E.B. Dubois did through his essays on race and his academic text on the failures of Reconstruction. Ida B. Wells-Barnett did this by chronicling and detailing lynchings in the south. Ta-Nehisi Coates does this by providing a vivid description of what police brutality does to the black body and how that violence is rooted in American history. And Nikole Hannah Jones is doing this when she asserts that black folks are actually responsible for the democratic tradition in this country. All of these leaders, and the scores of people in between who make up the Black Radical Tradition—a tradition that is historical and contemporary, imaginative and pragmatic, and oral, written, and embodied—center black life to show that from our perspective it has never been morning in America. For us, the truth of this country is that it has been one long midnight in America. 

It was midnight in America when ancestors were brought to this country against their will to toil and labor by day and by night to make the fruits of the American empire. It was midnight in America when Emmett Till’s mangled body was dragged out the Tallahatchie River. It was midnight in America when Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Carol Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley were killed during Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church. It was midnight in America when the Central Park 5 was framed. When Black people in the 9th ward of New Orleans were left to drown in the midst of a hurricane. When Trayvon Martin and Renisha Mcbride’s killers went free. When Sandra Bland was pulled from her car and never seen again. When Michael Brown’s body was left for dead for three hours in the hot St. Louis sun. It was midnight in America every time we got more news that another black trans woman was murdered. It has been midnight in America for us since 1619 and it is midnight in America today. 

It is midnight in America as more than 100,000 people are dead from a virus that we could have been better prepared for, as 40 million Americans are unemployed, and as the president holds the bible in one hand while stroking the fires of white supremacy in the other. It is midnight in America. And nothing makes that more clear than seeing prosecutors sit on footage of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, of finding out the news of Breonna Taylor’s murder, of seeing the video of Iyonna Dior’s murder, and of watching George Floyd’s murder even as he cries for his mama! 

It is midnight in America and every person of goodwill should join in the struggle and demand an end to the racial oppression that is systematic and intersectional in this country—that takes a particular toll on black women, queer, trans, poor, and immigrant lives. Every person of goodwill should do the small and big acts it requires to end the long midnight in America. As difficult as it seems, all of this is possible, necessary, and urgent. And we must be reminded that just because it is midnight in America, doesn’t mean it cannot become morning in America. 

What if all that difficult history that is before us can be used as the pre-work of the American democratic experience and now we find ourselves truly ready to begin? What if this moment can be our second genesis, our updated social contract, our new moral covenant, our recommitment to the task of building a just, plural, and good society? 

Last year during our Origin Stories Series, I preached that Genesis 50:20 could be interpreted as meaning what began as evil, God can be make good. I emphasized that the book of Exodus was a second opportunity for the people of God to begin and invited us to work towards co-laboring with God in making the world good. And so even as it is midnight in America, for us at Calvary, we have already begun some of the necessary work. We do it each week when we worship, study, and do life together centered around the theme of liberation. We do it when we study and interpret scripture and build our programming around a womanist and mujerista lens. We do it through the ministries and causes we support. We do it when we unearth our own problematic origin stories. We do it when we strategize for reparations. But there is still more we can do. 

We can go deeper in our anti-racist commitments. We can accelerate discussions of reparations in regards to Amos Kendall. We can spend money differently, and more imaginatively. We can give to groups like the Movement for Black Lives, the Southern Center for Human Rights, the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. We can invest in institutions of black learning like Howard University Divinity School, Bennett College, Spelman College, and Morehouse College. We can also initiate justice efforts in our schools, workplaces, families, and communities. We can challenge the leadership teams of our jobs to hire more black people and assess if the culture of our work places are amenable to their flourishing. We can engage with our family members and friends and share resources with those who want to learn and listen. We can continue to seek out information to grow and learn for ourselves. We can demand that the curriculum at children’s schools are anti racist and just. And we can directly participate in protest ourselves and/or support, encourage, and affirm those who are protesting. There is much work to do. 

And I know that you are willing to do it. So as we do our part, let us not lose sight of the fundamental principles of our faith that our midnight can in fact turn into morning. The God of the Oppressed and the Black Radical Tradition assures us of this truth. And our church must remain ever more committed to this work to move us from midnight to morning.