In 1619, the first Africans were brought forcibly to the world newly discovered by Europe. They settled into Hampton, Virginia, as enslaved people to be bought and sold by Europeans as those enslavers pleased. All the founding fathers owned enslaved people. Thomas Jefferson even kept one as his mistress and fathered some of her children. However, even at his death he did free his slaves.
Slavery was the backbone of America’s agricultural society. On April 12, 1861, this nation began a Civil War that fought to keep slaveocracy intact. When the South lost the War, the Emancipation proclamation and the 13th Amendment gave enslaved people equality. Still, a century later, Reconstruction and Jim Crow segregation kept us as enslaved people without the name. But last Thursday, by a vote of 53 to 47, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the Senate to the United States Supreme Court. Millions of African Americans and people of faith never ceased praying, and the wind shifted. I am reminded of one of the favorite sayings of the African American church, “He may not come when you want Him, but He will be there right on time.” Hallelujah and Amen!
From the Desk of the Pastor 