Roots of Belonging | April 26, 2026 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton
- The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
The opening music from Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick and Jimmy Collier was an anthem in the civil rights movement. This is a recording from 1969, a year after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Actually, the song was written right before King’s assassination and was recorded soon afterwards. Did you notice the man in the background carrying a garbage can?
I was drawn to this song today as I was examining some historical documents from this church. One such document was a letter written in October of 1961 by then pastor, Francis Geddes. In the letter, Geddes explains why he violated the law in Jackson, Mississippi which resulted in his incarceration. Apparently, he was questioned by members of the congregation, some of whom disagreed with his decision. Geddes was arrested, along with others who were attending a conference in which the goal was to bring church leadership to the relieving of racial tension in Mississippi. In the letter, Geddes described the process which resulted in his decision. He said you could feel it in the air. He heard testimony from several members of the community there including a Black businesswoman:
She told us that the sit-ins by local college students and the freedom riders from other parts of the country were giving the local Negro community a sense of support and backing that they had never had before. The outside support was a factor in their own willingness to stand up and be counted in a new way following decades of oppression…It is a courage which results in heightened self-respect and a demand for rights previously denied.
Another discussion he had with a college student revealed the following insights:
…one of the by-products (of the Freedom Rides) was a greater respect for the Negro because the local white community knew that there was an increase in influence available…and it hurts them when the searchlight of national publicity is focused on the tragic pattern of their immoral customs of segregation.
Geddes stated that that businesswoman continued her assessment of the situation:
…the people in her community did not understand the intricacies of our non-violent philosophy; but that one thing they did understand out of their own past experience, and that was suffering. When someone went to jail voluntarily, it communicated something far beyond what is possible in words.
That businesswoman understood what it meant to sacrifice…to suffer for a cause. Now this was two years before Martin Luther King Jr.’s incarceration in Birmingham…two years before the famed Letter from the Birmingham Jail in which King responded to some clergy who also wanted an explanation of why he needed to take such extreme measures. This discussion was already happening at Fellowship Church. These are our roots. Not only were we founded by Alfred Fisk and Howard Thurman, but we were guided also by the likes of Francis Geddes and many others throughout the years…including our own Dr. Dorsey Blake. Mentored by Dr. Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others, we know that Dr. Blake was equally committed to the cause of social justice, echoing the words of our opening song, Everybody’s Got a Right to Live.
And it is this sentiment that I want us to center on today…the idea that all peoples have a right to live. The Engaged Spirituality group is beginning a study of my favorite Thurman book, The Search for Common Ground. This resonates with the idea that we are part of this common ground. Our roots are intertwined for, as Thurman said, mutual interdependence is characteristic of all life. He searches in our beginnings…the beginning of life. He goes on to investigate the resonance of our own life with all life…with the actual living structures of life. These chapters are the foundation upon which Thurman can say of life, There are systems within systems, all held together and contained by a ‘boundless’ boundlessness. He says that we are tied into the idiom of all that lives. This interconnectedness illustrates the belief that we belong to each other. In the words of Mother Teresa:
Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other – that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister.
If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor,
do you think we would still need tanks and generals?
Wow! That’s a good question…would we still need tanks and generals? Imagine a world where there was no need for war…a world in which we cared for each other, knowing that we were part of the same whole. Instead of seeing the other as separate, we might be able to see that we do all got a right to live. And this means that we have the right to getting all our needs met. Dr. King made it plain for us. He said:
I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.
Again, I’m not sure this is something we could even envision…not only three meals a day, but equal education and culture…dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. Yet I would guess most of us would agree, this is what we would want for those close to us…those who belong to our own family…our own group. Yet aren’t we all potentially related? And if we are related…if we share some of our roots, then we have the right to getting our basic needs met. Certainly, it is what so many throughout history have told us. One such person was Woody Guthrie. Known for penning the song This Land is Your Land, he also wrote the following song:
Woody Guthrie wrote this song in the 1930s. Apparently, in the 1950s, he moved to Beach Haven, a housing project in Brooklyn, and added several verses, one of which appears below:
Beach Haven ain’t my home
I just can’t pay this rent
My money’s down the drain
And my soul is badly bent
Beach Haven looks like heaven
Where no black folks come to roam
No, no, no, old man Trump!
Beach Haven ain’t my home!
Guthrie was talking about the father of our current president who owned several housing projects in the city. He was well-known for not renting apartments to black people. What a surprise! He did not believe that we all got a right to live…at least not with a home…a sense of dignity, equality, and freedom. And his son doesn’t either. Apparently, he believes that we do not even have the right to fresh air and clean water since he has eviscerated the clean air and clean water acts passed in the 1970s. There are a lot of needs that are not being met today, even among the relatively fortunate. It is further proof that when one of us suffers, we all do.
As we close our consideration of belonging…and their roots, I would like to leave us with one of my favorite songs. It speaks to the tension between haves and have-nots…scarcity and abundance and our common humanity…our common ground that says we encompass both. It is sung by another civil rights advocate, Nina Simone and was written in 1968, around the same time as our opening music.
Ain’t got no home…ain’t got no love…ain’t got no culture…but nobody can take away our right to live…the rights fought for in the civil rights movement…the rights championed by Woody Guthrie, Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Francis Geddes, Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman, Dorsey Blake, Carl Anthony, Nina Simone and so many others. May the all-pervading presence be present with all those reading these words, whispering in our ears that we belong…to each other. May our common ground…our roots hold us close.
Amen
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