Celebrated Princeton University philosophy professor Cornel West was in town to speak last week at Saint Louis University. It is encouraging that an African-American public intellectual like West can draw a large, diverse, enthusiastic crowd in this city and on that campus. We would like, however, to draw attention, instead, to the reflections of a young local theologian – the Rev. Starsky D. Wilson – who is showing great promise as an outspoken public spokesperson for the needs of this community.
Rev. Wilson delivered a homily on New Year’s Day to commemorate the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which we have been serializing every week of February in this paper’s Black History Month section. The third segment of Wilson’s speech, printed this week, includes the following reflections:
“I wonder how much land would be left for Paul McKee Jr. to purchase if middle-class black folk were eminent in the domain of their old North Side neighborhoods! I wonder if a police department could get straight-up jacked and a fire department could have its leadership hijacked if empowered, enriched individuals who got their educations in the city still lived or did some major business in the city. I wonder if an elected executive who slays the ideals of progressive Christianity could stand for too long if we would go back to the places where we were brought up!”
In this courageous and highly charged passage, Wilson puts his finger on the pulse of the local community in a way that a visitor like Cornel West could never achieve. And he speaks out in a forthright manner that is all too rare among black clergy in St. Louis, too many of whom accept small favors in exchange for compliance with the status quo, or perhaps are silent out of fear of overt repercussion or isolation from the reigning political regime.
Let us unpack the points Wilson makes. To those who protest Paul McKee Jr.’s investment in the near North Side, Wilson asks: Where are the black people who abandoned these neighborhoods? Where are the black investors willing to bring them back to life? And if the black middle class had stayed in North St. Louis in large numbers, or would return to rebuild it, he suggests, then Joe Mokwa would have encountered more resistance in his blatant mismanagement of the police department. An energized black community also could have prevented Mayor Francis G. Slay from successfully making the most crudely racial power play in a generation when he bullied Sherman George, and then promoted another black man, Charles Bryson, with the pre-ordained task of demoting the city’s first black fire chief and most prominent, insightful and widely revered African-American civic official.
Wilson also displays enviable sizzle as a prose stylist, punning on the mayor’s last name in describing him as “an elected executive who slays the ideals of progressive Christianity.” Wilson is hitting the mayor in a sensitive spot, since Slay is publicly devout in his Catholicism and is convening an allegedly “Avant Garde” group of young people in attempt to give his administration the appearance of being inclusive and forward-thinking.
As nice as it is to receive a visit from nationally known Cornel West, Starsky Wilson reminds us we have all of the intelligence and power we need, right here at home. All we need is the courage, enterprise, pride and organization to use it to benefit our community.