The Progressive National Baptist Convention is boosting its work for criminal justice, gun reform, civil rights and other reforms to help marginalized Americans, the denomination’s leaders announced recently in St. Louis.
These efforts will be relentless, PNBC President David R. Peoples promised during the denomination’s Aug. 6-9 annual session.
“We won’t stop until everyone can realize the dream to vote and understand that all of us are God’s children,” he said during a news conference called to announce new partnerships and renewed commitments to justice work. “We won’t stop until Texas Gov. (Greg) Abbott stops immoral practices against those who are crossing borders just trying to seek a better way. I said we won’t stop until the real thugs like Donald Trump, who are the real threat to democracy, get the justice they deserve. We won’t stop until Black farmers get access to federal money. We won’t stop until there’s health care for everybody.”
“We won’t stop until everyone can realize the dream to vote and understand that all of us are God’s children.”
Nor will the denominational home of Martin Luther King Jr. stop until Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accepts that “slavery never benefited any African American,” Peoples said in response a new state curriculum that claims slaves were helped by being in bondage.
The Aug. 9 press event also coincided with the nine-year anniversary of the killing of Black teen Michael Brown by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson, Mo., an incident that sparked protests and helped launch the Black Lives Matter movement.
Peoples and other denominational leaders welcomed the presence of the boy’s father at the annual session and vowed to live up to the example set by the Brown family.
“We won’t stop until we understand what’s happened to Mike Brown,” Peoples said. “We won’t stop until we change our criminal justice system. We won’t stop until we stop police brutality. We won’t stop until the Supreme Court reverses its (affirmative action) ruling. We won’t stop until men stop making legislation against women and their bodies and until men stop telling women what (they) can do with their bodies.”
To help facilitate these efforts, the denomination will continue its partnerships with congregations, HBCUs and with the AFL-CIO. PNBC and the labor union joined forced in 2022 to advance racial and economic justice initiatives and conduct voter engagement campaigns.
“We won’t stop until the AFL-CIO and PNBC continue to push back voting and register suppression until everybody gets a chance to vote,” Peoples said.
Willie Francois
The denomination also announced partnerships with Amnesty International for gun violence prevention and with the Faith Leaders of Color Coalition, an Atlanta-based organization dedicated to ending capital punishment at state and federal levels.
“We need a system of accountability that honors the fact that Black bodies are not criminal, that Black bodies are not chattel and that Black bodies are not disposable,” said Willie D. Francois III, co-chair of PBNC’s social justice ministry. “Isn’t it interesting that the same people who were chattel in this country are now the very people who are being called criminal in this country as a way of authoring our erasure.”
“Jan. 6 was not just a moment but is really a mood that is brewing in the across pockets of this country.”
Another PNBC goal is to demonstrate through action what a Christ-centered Christianity looks like, Francois added. “What a tragedy it is that so much of what it means to be a Christian has been co-opted by white nationalists. … How important it is for us to be here to raise the stark contrast to the white Christian nationalism that tried to tear down the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, because it reminds us that Jan. 6 was not just a moment but is really a mood that is brewing across pockets of this country.”
Frederick Haynes
The fact is there is very little faith baked into the character of white Christian nationalists, added Frederick D. Haynes III, president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition formerly led by Jesse Jackson. “They’re more white than Christian. And when your whiteness defines your Christianity … you basically will twist and flip over to accommodate whiteness, even if it contradicts Christianity.”
Haynes vowed the denomination will continue to push for justice on multiple fronts.
“We’ve come here 58 years after the Voting Rights bill was passed to say we are going to revive it, and then nine years after the slaying of Mike Brown to say there’s another resurrection that’s about to take place,” he said.