- Just ahead on "American Black Journal," our Black Church in Detroit series examines the role of the church in the upcoming election.

We'll talk with three religious leaders about preparing and encouraging the African-American community to vote.

Plus, we'll explore how faith intersects with politics.

It's an important conversation you don't wanna miss.

"American Black Journal" starts now.

- [Narrator] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

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Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm Trudy Gallant-Stokes sitting in for Stephen Henderson.

Today, we're continuing our series on the Black Church in Detroit, produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.

With Election 2024 just days away, we are looking at the Black Church's role during this political season.

Historically, since the Civil Rights Movement, Black churches have been instrumental in mobilizing Black voters.

I had a conversation about the relationship between church and politics with Reverend Dr. Georgia Hill of Life Church Riverside, Detroit.

Reverend Ralph Godbee Jr. from Triumph Church and Pastor Lawrence Rogers from Second Baptist Church of Detroit.

So we have interesting times upon us and coming up.

And I know that this has been a topic of discussion for everyone and we're keeping everything nonpartisan and just talking about the importance of elections in general.

So what do you say, and let me start with you, Reverend Hill.

What do you see as the Black church's role in preparing their congregations for the elections?

- Well, I think the first thing we have to do is help people understand that their faith is not separate from their citizen responsibilities.

And that you can act out your faith in the voting booth.

And I think that we have a rich history of Christians, Black Christians in particular, and Christians of all faiths who have sacrificed so that we could have the right to vote.

And so the thing that I say to the congregation that I serve is that I can't tell you who to vote for, but I'm encouraging you to vote.

And I think that the Black church has historically been so involved in the community that we have been an outspoken voice on this issue, that we are to be citizens of a higher kingdom and also citizens of this world.

And that one of those responsibilities is to participate fully in those things which can bring hope and justice and love and peace and resources to our people and our communities.

- Absolutely, Reverend Godbee, anything you'd like to add?

- Well, I think Dr. Hill really kicked it off the right way because the Black church has always been historically one of the leading voices against oppression, particularly against Black and Brown people, misogyny, I mean, you name it.

The reason why I am a proud member of Triumph Church under Pastor Solomon Kinloch, because he teaches and he tries to live out the fact that our theology ought to impact our sociology.

There's no way in a Christian framework, we would be able or should be able to look at the conditions that our people find themselves in and not get engaged in the civic process that impacts so many people, the least and the left out and the left behind.

And I think the difference for the Black church than other churches that are somewhat disaffected by some of those issues is the fact that we see things differently from our points of view at times.

We have to advocate for more dollars for our kids in our schools, whereas other pastors in more affluent areas don't have to advocate for the same thing.

We have to advocate for voting rights and access to polling in our churches and in our communities because in some more affluent communities, they're not affected by those same issues.

So your view is greatly affected by the people or should be greatly affected by the people you're responsible for leading.

- So what are you hearing your congregation say, Reverend Rogers, in terms of this election?

We were talking ahead of time that even if you didn't necessarily preach about it last weekend, this is something that's ongoing really throughout the year.

- I just wanna thank you and your platform for inviting me on to talk about such an important issue around the need to vote.

We are fired up about voting at Second Baptist Church of Detroit.

As you are already aware, Second Baptist was established in 1836 and it's the oldest historically black congregation in Michigan and was a part of every liberation struggle that black folks face in the United States.

Second Baptist members were fighting for suffrage in the 1800s.

And I just, I think that the responsibility that we have as the black church, it reminds me of a song, "Victory in Jesus."

And that is, I heard an old, old story.

We have an obligation to tell the story of the good news, the story that there is victory in Jesus.

I think the story that we ought to tell is the story about George W. Lee, who was 51 years old when he was shot to death on May 7th, 1955 in Humphreys County, Mississippi after he refused to withdraw his name from the voting list or Lamar D. Smith, who was 63 and shot in his front lawn in Lincoln County and Brookhaven, Mississippi on August 16th in 1955.

I think about Maceo Snipes, who was a World War II veteran, the first black man to vote in Taylor County, Georgia during the Democratic primary election on July 17th, 1946.

And the Ku Klux Klan came to his home and killed him just because he decided to vote for a country that he just fought for in World War II.

Or I think about Harry T. and Harrietta Moore, who were members of the NAACP and struggled for voting rights.

And on Christmas night in 1951, a bomb was planted in their home by white supremacists and they were killed.

People paid in blood for us to be able to vote and participate in this process.

And I believe that the obligation of the black church in the age where people are wanting to ban black history from schools, they want to ban the telling of the story in schools that are supposed to be dedicated to education.

They want to make education houses indoctrination houses.

We have an obligation to tell the story of how victory and Jesus was won and how we keep it.

- Absolutely.

And how do we avoid falling into those traps in terms of our congregations?

I know my pastor on Sunday, Dr. Reverend Smalls was talking about not falling into the trap of apathy and cynicism.

How do you make people understand?

Like you said, your vote matters because of your history.

And I think a lot of young people don't know that history that you just went through.

That's so crucial.

- I think the reality of it is that what we must do, we gotta get real tangible because the reason why people have apathy is because they've fallen into nihilism where they believe that nothing matters.

And the reason why they believe nothing matters is that they are overloaded by misinformation and disinformation on social media networks.

So we have got to teach our folks how to discern and rightly divide the world that they are interpreting so that they can be just as fired up as we are and understand what is truly at stake.

- How is your church doing that Reverend Hill?

- Well, I've been preaching about it.

We're gonna have prayer on election day.

We're gonna have prayer on the Sunday before, just trying to raise awareness about the importance of praying.

And also, I mean, voting, excuse me, but we're gonna be praying about that.

But I think what Reverend Dr. Rogers has said is so powerful that people don't know the history.

And when you understand what people had to go through so that we could vote, I think it helps people understand why their vote matters, why it makes a difference that they show up at the polls because there are people that literally gave their lives so that we could vote.

And so what I try to do is like the brothers who are here and many of the pastors that are represented by folks on this program is that we try to infuse our history with our theology.

And when you tie the history and the theology together, when you talk about how our folks literally lived the walk with Jesus, many times that perilous walk to the polling place or to the place to get registered to vote, when people, when we look at that and then we look at how people lived by their faith, right, we've come this far by faith, we live by that faith, then what we're doing I think is we're giving people not only the mandate, but we're also giving them the spiritual power to do what they must do.

And then to object to actions of voter suppression, to object to any type of policies and principles which are unfair and which have an unfair effect on certain segments of the population.

See what people don't understand is some of these things which seem to be innocuous regulations governing who gets to vote and under what circumstances have a greater negative impact on certain segments of the community.

So I have to be very scientific about that and let people know that certain requirements actually act to eliminate certain people or make it very difficult for certain people to vote.

- Absolutely.

- When we bring in the history, we bring in current events, but we tie it to the message of Jesus Christ who was the original justice fighter, amen.

When we tie those things together, I think people become aware, they become excited, they become motivated and it doesn't matter whether they're older or younger, they feel that compulsion to do something.

- There's a method to the madness behind those things that go on behind the scenes.

Pastor Gabby, I know that Triumph Church has a number of young people.

What particular things are you doing to target young people to make sure that they're engaged?

- Well, pastor has been very intentional in talking about the voting process, not who to vote for, but to vote number one, but also educating our congregation on issues that affect the least and the left out and the left behind.

And then putting action to it because we do a lot of praying, but prayer without action, show me your faith without works, I'll show you my faith by my works.

So from a working standpoint, we have started an initiative under pastor's leadership that 12 persons are to be identified by our members.

And those 12 people we take to the polls.

If a thousand people of our congregation take that call, that's 12,000 people that we can influence.

If those 12,000 influence another 12, we can literally influence 144,000 people going to the polls.

Thank God for the reach and the span and scope of Triumph Church, that we do have the capacity to have a membership that's large enough to take on that task.

And the reason why that's important is because if you look at the last two presidential elections, less than 1% of the electorate make the decision as to who the next president would be.

And with what is at stake in this election, and again, not telling anybody who to vote for, but as our pastor says, I can tell you through scripture, we probably should not vote for based on just certain attributes that Christ expects of Christ followers and those in leadership.

But even to that point, if we engage people at the ground level, because we have so many political events that are exclusive, but this is not a time we can exclude anybody.

So the young people in Triumph are very excited about the prospect of voting.

They understand clearly and have been educated on what the rules are, what the laws are, how they can register, at to what point they can continue to register.

Felons that have paid their debt to society, they have a right to vote.

Our people perish for lack of knowledge.

And that's another thing that we have to take on our shoulders as the black church is to make sure that when the government, when movements try to take the education or the miseducation of our children, that we have a responsibility to tell the truth 'cause the truth and only the truth shall make you free.

So I'm very proud of our efforts and look forward to some very positive outcomes on voter turnout.

- As you mentioned, the last time around, the percentages were so small in terms of people making a difference and not voting.

And as we've heard, Michigan is a battleground state.

There are candidates in and out of Michigan every day.

So I think that that has just been accelerated.

So whatever we did, and I think that's a great idea to have that multiplier effect and just keep everybody, each one teach 12, not teach one.

But the other thing you mentioned earlier, Reverend Rogers, was just the disinformation that's out here in particularly affecting our young people.

And so how do we teach them to be wise about what they take in on social media?

- Yeah, we've been very intentional.

I've been working with Faith United to Save Democracy.

It's a group that's organized out of Washington, DC under the leadership of Jim Wallace and Dr. Barbara Skinner, my Michigan co-leads.

So Reverend Dr. Perkins and Reverend Dr.

Bland, I'm working with them as a Michigan co-lead.

And we've been intentional about organizing town halls and going into barbershops and having barbershop talks and asking people questions to help us to think critically and process and wade through some of the weeds of disinformation and misinformation.

Because I do believe in the brilliance of black folks.

We have gotten a lot of things.

We are a brilliant people.

And so I believe that we are not ones for the okey-doke or to be bamboozled.

And so it doesn't take much.

We have these conversations and just a little bit of processing helps the light bulb to click on.

And I've been encouraging folks.

I think everybody has to be involved.

Even if you say, "I'm gonna vote, I'm gonna vote.

"And so I'm good.

"I don't have to talk about voting."

No, somebody in your family is disillusioned.

So I listen, I joke around with some of my grandmothers.

I say, "You may wanna tell some of them grandbabies "that they can't come to Thanksgiving dinner "without a 'I voted' sticker."

Okay.

- I like that, pastor.

- No mac and cheese for you.

- No mac and cheese.

- No, we gotta have the mac and cheese.

So engage in these conversations with young folks.

Young folks, they respect grandmama and granddad.

They respect uncle and auntie.

Ask them some thought provoking questions to help them to be able to process as Marvin Gaye would have said, "What's going on?"

- Very true.

Reverend Hill, I understand that you're gonna be hands-on on election day as well.

Tell me about that.

- Well, I'm glad that Pastor Rogers mentioned Faith United to Save Democracy.

I'm one of their poll chaplains.

I got my assignment just the other day, so I'll be ready.

I did this last year as well.

I spent half the day with Faith United and half the day with NAACP, but we're gonna be poll chaplains.

We're gonna be peace officers and we're gonna be present to make sure, A, we're gonna keep our eyes open.

When we see things going on, we have the appropriate numbers to call.

We'll be ready to notify the appropriate officials if anything goes down that is not in order.

And secondly, we're there to be a spirit and symbol of peace.

And I really enjoyed my experience last year.

Looking forward to it again this year.

And there are several fakes that are in this organization, but we believe in democracy and not to go preaching on you too much, but democracy really means literally power to the people.

Not to one group of people, not just to the wealthy or the influential, but to all the people.

And so that's what we have to do as the black church, make sure that all of our voices are heard and all of our people, our children, our elders are cared for well by the system.

And the only way we can really, not the only way, one of the ways we do that is by making sure that people get to the polls and vote.

- So what are some of the other activities that any of you can share in terms of just that?

People that need a ride to the polls or people that can be encouraged to go early, vote absentee.

I mean, they're just, and early voting.

This is the first time Michigan's had early voting.

So there are so many ways and people are already voting right now.

So what can we do to make sure that they're taking advantage of all these different kinds of opportunities?

- Well, I think number one is sharing this program as soon as it's aired to make sure our community gets correct information.

And also just, I mean, everybody has to make themselves a party of one.

Whether it's in the corporate with some formalized organizations like the UAW, like the Teamsters, or if it's just the individual who picks up the phone, they have influence in their barbershop, they have influence in their home.

As Pastor Roger said, get Thanksgiving.

But we just have to make sure the conversation stays alive until the very last minute that those polls close on November 5th.

- So another thing, we've talked about young people and trying to reach them and educate them about social media, but we have other groups in the black community.

I'm glad you mentioned about going to the barbershop, making sure you're reaching out to people there, hey, the beauty shops as well.

So are there any other targeted activities that go to different groups in the community that people need to know about?

- Yeah, if I could elevate this, because I really appreciate what Pastor Godfrey just said, and also what Reverend Dr. Hill said as well.

And I think that we've got to make sure that we think about young people who are still Michigan residents, but they may be going to school in another state.

We gotta make sure that we get them back into the balance.

You gotta think about our seniors who may be in this delivery facility or senior facilities and just need to vote to get either to the poll or get absentee ballot in their hands.

Also, a lot of people in Michigan do not know that re-entry citizens can actually vote.

So we need to make sure that re-entry citizens know that they can vote.

We've got to do the job.

A lot of preachers have the gift of gab, praise God.

A lot of clergy have the gift of gab, amen, praise God.

We need to use this year to spread information that lets folks know that they can participate in the gift of democracy.

- Yes, and everybody can use their gifts.

I know that a lot of organizations have set up phone banks to call people.

I was even involved with an organization.

They had a pizza party to invite young people so that they'd come get a piece of pizza and register to vote at the same time.

So there's something out there for everybody to do.

- And they're also canvassing.

It's just the old-fashioned boots on the ground, knocking on doors and engaging people.

It is still a time-tested, and those candidacies and candidates that have been successful have had a tremendous ground game.

So there's still plenty of time to volunteer for your candidate or for the voting process.

All of those opportunities are still available, and we really have to each one teach one.

- Absolutely.

- I think, too, I would like to say, too, that a number of people at our church, like the other churches that are represented here, are serving as volunteers.

They're election workers.

They're getting actively engaged in the process.

And I think that's important, too, because they get to participate in how democracy works.

And we wanna see those faces behind the table when you come and get your ballot, who are gonna be there carrying out this early voting.

I have several folks that are working with the early voting at different polling places.

They're excited.

They're motivated, and that's another way that people are serving that I think is very exciting.

- And if I could share one more thing, I'm sorry, Trudy, just one more quick thing, that we have an effort where we are trying to find churches that can identify one person in their church to call through their entire church log, and they'll get paid $125 just to call through their church log and ask people to go vote.

So if anybody's interested in doing that, please reach out to Faith United to Save Democracy, Michigan chapter, and we'll get you hooked up to be your person for your church to call through your log and also be compensated for calling through your log to encourage folks to vote.

- So we're already in our last couple of minutes.

Any closing remarks, closing pitches like that, that it matters for everybody?

And another thing I've noticed is like you said, not only the candidates, but look at the issues, look at the judicial races, vote the entire ballot.

- If I could just very quickly, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Nat Turner, we have such a rich history, Harriet Tubman, of pairing our faith with activism and turning that into voting and voting access.

And the struggle still continues, but we've made a lot of progress.

But we have so much more to go to bring justice and equity to our people.

- I just wanna say too, people should know you can register up until the election day.

You can register.

So those of you who are sitting there pondering, wondering, should I, should not, look, come out, get registered.

You can register.

You can still register.

This is not like the state of Georgia or other states where the registration is closed.

Our registration in Michigan is open.

Use it.

- I'd just like to say that this is a great time to be a Michigander.

- Yes.

- Michigan has been so pivotal to the United States.

This state helped to create the Industrial Revolution.

- Yes.

- It put the United States on wheels.

This state helped to set the culture of the country through the Motown Sound.

And this state helped defend freedom, helping us to win World War II through manufacturing.

I mean, Michigan now has an opportunity to save democracy.

We have opportunity to save democracy.

Michigan is a critical swing state in this election.

And I think everybody watching in the state of Michigan, let's do it.

Let's do what Michigan has done historically and that's show up and take care of business.

- That's going to do it for us for this week.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org.

Plus connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Narrator] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Narrator] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(soft music)