The rise of American authoritarianism frees people of faith from having to question how they would have responded during the Civil Rights Movement, Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman said.
“If you ever wondered what you would do then, guess what — it’s not a mental experiment anymore, guys. You get to answer it now,” Perryman said during a breakfast sponsored by Baptist News Global, Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists and Good Faith Media Breakfast June 19 at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Jacksonville, Fla.
Perryman’s answer has been to lead a civil and legal rights group that has taken more than 400 legal actions to stop executive branch excesses and collaborated in multiple actions to defend immigrants, civil servants, the homeless, communities of faith and the Constitution itself from the onslaught of the Trump administration and its Christian nationalist allies. The organization has led the fight against President Donald Trump’s slush fund for political allies, helped restore congressional oversight at detention facilities and sued to block immigration raids in houses of worship.
Still, the challenges facing core American freedoms remain enormous as the nation prepares to observe its 250th anniversary, said Perryman, who was raised in a CBF church in Waco, Texas, and earned an undergraduate degree from Baylor University before tackling a law degree from Georgetown University.
“Democracy is now gasping for air” since the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated Section II of the Voting Rights Act and Southern states have continued to erode fair political representation for Black and brown people, she said. “The decision in April wasn’t really new. It comes on the heels of a multi-decade effort to roll back civil rights including, over the last about 12 to 13 years, efforts to specifically roll back voting rights in this country.”
“Democracy is now gasping for air.”
A blueprint for resistance can be found in the themes of courage, resilience and action embodied in Juneteenth, the holiday marking the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas in June 1865 and the effective end of American slavery, Perryman said.
She spoke on Juneteenth.
This commemoration also is a reminder that no document, not even the U.S. Constitution, exempts Americans from having to defend civil rights, she said. “Freedom on paper is no kind of freedom, and Juneteenth tells us that. It forces us to wrestle with that and forces us to wrestle with our own roles in that struggle and what we can do as a people. Juneteenth also reminds us that liberation is a communal experience. No one is free until we are all free.”
Perryman urged CBF and other faith groups to participate in Freedom Summer 2026, a coalition-led campaign to defend voting rights, free elections, freedom of religion and due process for immigrants and citizens alike.
“This is an old fight in a new time, and there is a major role for people of faith and there is a major role for this community of faith, including so many of you that lead faith communities in the South and in states that have been on a long journey to continue to silence people’s voices,” she said.
“Juneteenth reminds us that the fight for freedom, the fight for our rights, the fight for human dignity, the fight for our democracy, is an old fight that is happening in a new time. This nation has always been struggling to achieve true democracy for all people and we’re kidding ourselves if we think that we somehow had finally achieved it.”
“This nation has always been struggling to achieve true democracy for all people.”
Baptists in particular should recall their movement’s experience in that historic struggle, she said. “This is an old fight in a new time, and as a Baptist community, we have to remember that we have always stood for freedom and for the separation of church and states.”
The tradition was also for its emphasis on soul freedom and the priesthood of the believer, from which stemmed a natural support for human rights and opposition to the “divine right of kings” now espoused by the Trump administration.
“We also have to remember that civil rights were born in the pulpits of Black churches and in particular in the pulpits of Black Baptist churches across this nation. And we have to remember that there were too many white churches and too many white Baptist churches in the South that were too slow on the question of civil rights and that are too slow on the question of human rights for all people, including LGBTQ rights” and women in ministry.
And the Fourth of July and the nation’s 250th anniversary cannot be truly celebrated without a commitment to the values of Juneteenth, Perryman added. “We have to do more than just reflect, we have to act. The people whose shoulders we stand on, they’re not here anymore and what happens next is up to us and our faith communities. I believe that people, ordinary people, the American people in this community, are up to the task.”