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With the exception of Coretta Scott King or
Rosa Parks the names of the countless women who played
significant and critical roles in the Civil Rights movement
are seldom known or remembered. Yet, the fact is that women
were the driving force behind the movement while men were
more likely to hold the official titles.
Whether due to the politics of identity,
stereotypical media representations of black women, or a
lack of understanding of the complex role of 21st
Century black mothers, the invisibility of black women as
activists and/or victims of police brutality persist even to
the current Black Lives Matter movement.
However, Cori Bush, an African-American
woman, mother, pastor and nurse changes this narrative to
properly highlight the responsiveness of black women and
their roles as a driving force in social justice movements.
Bush is an activist serving on the frontlines of the justice
battlefield in Ferguson, Missouri.
This is the conclusion of Pastor Bush’s
three-part personal story, A Black Mother’s Report from the
Frontlines of Ferguson:
Cori Bush:
… And so while we’re running down the street we finally
busted through the broadcast, and there is video of this,
you can find it. We are still yelling, “Hey, hey, she’s
having a heart attack.” They didn’t believe us. When we
broke through the broadcast, all of a sudden it was this
right in our face: “Drop her, drop her, drop her!” And so
everybody stopped and they began to drop her, but I couldn’t
drop her because I couldn’t let her go. And so I said, “No,
I can’t let her go. I’m the nurse helping her. You are the
police, I’m the nurse. I need a medic. Get me a medic!”
They say, “No, drop her, no, drop her.” I said, “No, I’m
helping her.” So I held onto this lady. I held onto her and
I kept yelling, “Lisa, Lisa, Lisa stay with me” and the next
thing I knew, my body was in the air. The next thing I knew,
my body was on the ground. They had grabbed me, picked me
up, threw me on the ground, and then I was being stomped and
kicked on the ground.
I was rolling from one side to the other side
and then to the other. It was this, all over me. I just
felt boots, and so I remember on the ground as I’m doing
this, like what is going on? My brain couldn’t process it
that fast because in my mind I’m trying to help somebody,
and so I jumped up off the ground. And you ask how? I don’t
know. The Lord jumped me, pushed me back up off the ground.
I jumped off the ground because I realized that if I don’t
get up they’re going to really hurt me or they could kill
me, so get up! And as I got up off the ground, I noticed
that it was just green around me, I didn’t see the police
anywhere around me and I’m looking like what in the world is
this, and then I felt a burning. They had teargased me so
bad it was sparks all around me, as if I was some type of a
threat.
The next thing I knew is they reached over
and grabbed me. They put a gun to my head. The police kept
yelling, “Arrest her! Arrest her!” I said, “I can’t
breathe, I have asthma.” My bandanas and everything fell
off of my face, so I had ingested all of that teargas and
I’m like this (gasping). The next thing I knew, I woke up,
the police had grabbed me and they tried to arrest me, but
when I woke up I was on the ground and the Ferguson Fire
Department put the mask on me and the man was trying to
bring me around. He was like, “calm down, it’s okay.” But
when I came to, I had this up against my head and I was
wondering what is this, as I’m trying to breathe in this
mask, what is this on my head and I turned and I said, “what
are you doing?”
“Arrest her. See, I told you she was faking,
she was faking!” And it took the paramedics to knock the gun
off of my head and say, “She’s not faking, leave her alone”
and finally the police officer left.
I’m a victim of rape. When I was raped, I
remember in those moments thinking if someone could just
hear me scream, if someone just heard me or walked past,
walked in the room, I would be okay. Someone could call the
police and help me. I remember thinking that, but then in
that moment when I was rolling around on the ground, that
was true helplessness and hopelessness. That was a place I
had never understood, never felt, never thought I would ever
feel before because that was truly it, because in that
moment who could I call? Who could I say come help me?
Because I was on the ground at the feet of the police, that
was hurting me.
Who do you call when it’s the police? Who do
our babies call when the police are harassing them? Now let
me tell you this much, this is not an anti-police speech, I
know that’s what you’re thinking. It’s not an anti-police
speech. I’m not anti-police, I’m anti-police brutality!
I’m anti-foolishness! I’m pro-peace! I’m pro-people, all
people!
So, this is a wake up, community, and hear
the cries, accept the uncomfortable, validate the voices and
act to build a hope for every person speech. Justice for
all, that’s what this speech is. Truth is power. Your voice
has power. Your truth is empowering, awakening and it will
be uncomfortable. It gets down to the roots so that healing
can begin. People are changed when they hear truth.
I had this young white guy in Pennsylvania
when I spoke. I was on a panel. Afterwards he came up to me
and he said, “You know what, Pastor Cori, I’ve got to
apologize to you because I never had to deal with racism in
my life. I’m a white boy living in suburbia, I’ve never had
to encounter it so it didn’t bother me. I never cared about
it before, it didn’t touch me, but coming to this, I just
happened to be walking past and I heard the noise and I came
in, and now I’m so sorry that I didn’t do anything before.
I’m sorry that I allowed my life to just go on and kept
allowing this to happen.” He said, “I’m sorry.”
So you have stories of experiences that can
open up dialogue that can change the world. Racism, sexism,
religious persecution, etc., exists because we allow it to
exist. Like Dr. King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere, even if these issues don’t directly
affect you. Just like the young man in Pennsylvania, step
out of that seat of comfortability. Listen to your neighbor,
that youth, that person of a different background, break
those boxes and take off those labels. You never know, your
subcategory could be next.
Let’s drive out the hatred that lives in our
communities that’s been dressed up and disguised like a
barrier or a side note. Drive it out with love and mutual
respect for humanity. These aren’t the days to be afraid.
My shirt says, “bulletproof” and I wore it on purpose. I
know I’m tacky, I don’t care, because this is a war, I don’t
care about being cute. I can get cute when we have life. I
can get cute when we accomplish something, but right now we
in the middle of a war. Dr. King said faith is taking the
first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
So tell your stories, change your world. Your
voice counts. Your heart matters. If you believe in justice
for all and raising the voice of the voiceless, then you are
the change the world needs. So now I want to say this:
Everybody stand to your feet, you’ve been sitting for a
while, stand to your feet. Now if you believe what I just
said, if you believe in justice for all and you won’t turn
back and say that it doesn’t affect me now because the thing
is this. Our white community, now you can go to your cousins
and say, “hey look, let me sit you down and tell you what’s
going on in the black community.” That’s the only way it
gets to your cousins. So we need you to do that for us,
because there’s certain places we can’t get to, but when you
talk to your family, that’s how the world changes.
So this is our declaration, I want you to
say: “I am the change the world needs. I am the change the
world needs.” Now I’m a preacher, so now you’ve got to turn
to your neighbor and tell your neighbor. You’ve got to turn
to your neighbor and you’ve got to decree it into their
life, call that thing forward: “You are the change that the
world needs. You are the change the world needs.”
Now come forth change! Come forth in Toledo,
in the name of Jesus. God bless you!Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
Black Mothers of the New
Movement II: The Night “To Not Indict”
Black Mothers of the New
Movement
part 1
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