Today we gather in a place where inequality still prevails.
We gather here in 2019 to remember the story of this place, and to think of other times and other places.
We remember that 400 years ago Africans landed at Jamestown and were sold into bondage.
We remember that those Africans were forced to work land stolen from the Native People.
We remember that white workers, men and women, were forced into indentured servitude.
We see that from those roots was built an ecology of inequality, and we know we don’t want to live in the House of White Supremacy.
Therefore, on this day, we lift up this place.
We acknowledge this land and the sovereignty of the people who have lived here.*
We lift up all the ancestors who have struggled for justice, and in their memory we proclaim that we are the history of a just future.
There were performances, interfaith prayers and readings of texts from four centuries of struggle. The climax was a fiery homily by the Rev. William Barber, which started with these words from Genesis 15
[God] said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge
and proceeded to spell out the "seven sins" of white supremacy which produced slavery but survive it in a culture still structured by oppression and inhumanity. After four centuries we face a choice of life or death - planetary destruction or the overcoming of the distorted biology, sociology, economics, politics and ontology of white supremacy. Amen.
