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“Shine light,” Ella Baker said when she was organizing the Southern freedom movement, “and people will find a way.” Perhaps the greatest social movement organizer of the 20th century, Baker built the infrastructure of the NAACP across the South in the 1940s. She then leveraged her contacts and organizing skills to build the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) for Dr. King after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Then, after the sit-in movement began in 1960, she called together students and helped them form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). A key figure in three of the civil rights movement’s foundational organizations, Baker helped to knit together the fabric of the movement that brought down America’s authoritarian Jim Crow regime. She did it by practicing the organizing strategy at the heart of the Christmas story.
In another place, at another time in history, Jesus was born in Bethlehem during Herod’s authoritarian rule. The Gospel story is clear about the context, but it is equally clear about how God challenges the abuse of worldly power. In a word, the way is “Emmanuel” - God with us.
When people are suffering because power is being abused, love draws near to the people who are hurting. The angel in the Christmas story doesn’t just draw near to the poor and unwed Mary to say, “You don’t deserve this.” God’s messenger says, “The power of God to overcome the mendacity of Herod is inside of you, and you will birth this Love into the world.”
Ella Baker learned this story in a little chapel in Warren County, North Carolina - a white clapboard church that her grandfather built on land he purchased during Reconstruction. When the congregation sang, “Hark the herald angels sing / Jesus the light of the world! / Glory to the new born king / Jesus the light of the world!,” she sat beside her grandfather in the pulpit, and when he preached the good news that God had drawn near, she watched how the message made people stand up straight. “Shine light, and people will find a way,” she learned. The organizing strategy of Christmas was in her bones.
For this fourth week of Advent, we’re glad to share with you the final session of our symposium on authoritarianism from earlier this fall, where we discussed Ella Baker and many others who’ve helped to show us the way. Historians Nancy MacLean and John Witt joined us to talk about American movements that challenged and overcame authoritarianism in the 20th century. You can listen to the full conversation here.
For our final live conversation in this “Advent in a Time of Authoritarianism” series, Pastor Della Owens-Barber will join us tomorrow, Tuesday, December 23rd, at noon ET. You can join us live on the Substack app or subscribe for free to Our Moral Moment (if you haven’t already) to have it delivered to your inbox.
For all who celebrate Christmas and for those who’ve joined us to better understand the resources this tradition offers us in this moral moment, we wish you a Merry Christmas. On Wednesday, Christmas Eve, Bishop Barber will be sharing a Christmas message here on Our Moral Moment. (It will publish as a video post early in the day.) We invite you to plan to make it a part of your holiday celebration and share it with your loved ones.
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