The Rev. Osagyefo Sekou agrees wholeheartedly that Black Lives Matter is a new, diverse, national movement led by young African Americans, but it’s not a new civil rights movement.
“This movement is not about integration into a morally bankrupt system,” Sekou told The American in an August 8 interview. “It’s a clarion cry for a new system, and it’s global – people all over the world have looked to this movement. It’s a new movement calling for a new world.”
The movement started with the issue of disparate impact of police enforcement on African Americans, seen most violently in police killings of unarmed black people like Michael Brown Jr., but extending more insidiously to the racial profiling of motorists, pedestrians and shoppers. Ultimately, it’s embraced by the concept of white supremacy, which Black Lives Matter activists find at work subtly in all sectors of American society.
“We’re not free, but we’re not enslaved,” Sekou said. “We see these lingering effects of white supremacy, where we are afforded different levels of freedom of movement.”
“White supremacy” is a mindset, a theory of human ability and privilege. Sekou said the mindset can be attacked, piece by piece, through reforms.
“As we see reforms – of predatory municipal court structures, with police body cameras – we begin to articulate the possibility of a truly free and democratic society,” Sekou said.
One reason to seek incremental change, he said, is made obvious by human compassion: because it alleviates suffering.
“If a man is hungry, he will not seek shelter,” Sekou cited a proverb. “There is a hunger in people, so we bring reforms to help alleviate that hunger. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said you can’t change the heart of a racist, but you can restrain him. We seek reforms to restrain the most egregious behavior.”
On a personal level, though subject to discrimination typical of a black man with long hair (and surveillance typical of a revolutionary leader), Sekou has been free to move about the country. Like many of his peers in the multi-leader movement, he is in demand as a speaker and organizer. He also has moved back to St. Louis, where he attended high school. He left pastoral work in suburban Boston for a Bayard Rustin Fellowship with the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
“I am proud I went to high school here,” Sekou said. “Ferguson has become a touchstone, for my work – and the world.”
His work here also includes co-teaching a course at Eden Theological Seminary with the Rev. Renita Lamkin, a fellow front-line Ferguson pastor. He said the course, on theological dimensions of the Black Lives Matter movement, has 20 students “and half of them are from way out in California.”
Sekou offered some theology of the movement. “Reinhold Niebuhr said, ‘We are seeking a proximate solution to insoluble problems.’”
Behind the probing mind, Sekou has a huge heart. Walking with him on the street, his initial human response to everyone he comes into contact with is the same. The American has seem him greet the resident of a half-way house in downtown St. Louis and the man who filmed the Freddie Gray arrest video in Baltimore. Sekou’s approach had the same warmth and openness. The Black Lives Matter movement energizes him, also, because of the human contact with young people.
“This movement produced a new generation of leaders, and I am privileged to serve them,” Sekou said. “It is the gift of youth to be wholly impatient. Their wholly – holy – impatience is amplified by people speaking the language of gradualism, who just want to tinker with the status quo. Young people want a new reality.”
Sekou was asked, in all the reforms of police and court policy, does he see any evidence of change in police command, staff and conduct? Does he see any greater awareness of implicit bias or rethinking of blatantly militaristic approaches to policing? In the words of the young protestors, does he see any evidence they are going to “stop killing us?”
“No,” Sekou said.
Rev. Sekou will deliver opening remarks for “Breaking Into History: The Black Church in the Era of Ferguson as part of the activities commemorating the one year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown Jr. and the start of the Ferguson unrest. Dr. Cornel West will provide the keynote address and Bree Newsome, Rev. Lamkin, Rev. Starsky Wilson and Rev. Traci Blackmon will participate in the panel moderated by Marc Lamont Hill. The event will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 9 at Greater St. Mark Church, 9950 Glen Owen Dr, St. Louis, MO 63136
