Speaker: Rev. Joe Cleveland | At the beginning of Black History month, the top news stories include police violence against Black bodies, and the State of Florida making it against the rules to teach history that is woke to the centrality of anti-black white supremacy culture in American history. It’s clear that when Black bodies receive blows and bullets that they are being de-humanized. But in criminalizing history, in making some history against the rules, that same impulse to divide human beings into levels of more or less humanity is at work.

To heal our souls and spirits, we declare instead that we must devote ourselves to truth-telling and not just compassion but reverence for the sacredness of all bodies.