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A Litany of Faith, 2016
LEADER: Blow the trumpet in Zion and tell the people that we
will not go back! We will not be silent or denied the right
to vote, for we have come too far by faith.
PEOPLE: We must not forget that it was Florida in 1876,
where the votes were disputed, ushering in the era of poll
taxes, religious and literacy tests, vigilantism, fraudulent
ballot boxes and gerrymandering of districts.
LEADER: And, it was again in Florida in 2000, where tens of
thousands of legally registered voters were stripped of the
right to vote; more than 1 million ballots were never
counted in the 2000 election and Ohio became the
battleground in 2004.
PEOPLE: But then and now, the God of our weary years, the
God we prayed to in faith and with hope, continues to be
present in the active struggle of our people.
LEADER: We honor the NAACP and the legal genius of its
attorney, Thurgood Marshall, who won a Supreme Court ruling
in 1944 that white-only primaries were unconstitutional. We
honor CORE, SCLC and SNCC, who with the slogan “One Man, One
Vote,” organized voting rights campaigns in the 1960s.
PEOPLE: We hear the cries and voices of the thousands of
hopeful voters who were thrown off their land, beaten with
clubs, bitten by attack dogs, burned on buses, jailed and
murdered; and, saw their homes and churches bombed and
burned to the ground.
LEADER: We remember thousands of little towns where
countless, unnamed ancestors stood in their human dignity to
cast a ballot.
PEOPLE: We hear the voice of dignity and freedom fighter
Fannie Lou Hamer who said, “I’m sick and tired of being sick
and tired.” We honor the 1964 Freedom Summer for voter
registration and the Mississippi freedom struggle.
LEADER: We remember the Selma to Montgomery March, Bloody
Sunday and the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the 16th Street
Baptist Church in Birmingham where four little girls died by
a bomb.
PEOPLE: The names of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Jimmie Lee
Jackson, Addie Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley,
Denise McNair, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, Michael
Schwerner and Viola Liuzzo must never be forgotten.
LEADER: We honor the legacy of Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X and mass protests until the 1965 Voting Rights Act
was established. We celebrate the successes and sacrifices
of presidential candidates Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson,
and Al Sharpton.
PEOPLE: In 2008 and 2012, we said “Yes, we can, and yes we
will.” And, VOTE WE DID!!!
LEADER: So, until justice comes down like water and
righteousness like a mighty stream, we will vote in
Remembrance of our ancestors past, for Responsibility of
ourselves today; and, in Reclamation of our hope for future
generations.
PEOPLE: We will remain faithful to the God of our weary
years and hopeful for a brighter tomorrow for all God’s
people. Yes, we will exercise our right to vote and get
others to do the same.
ALL: To all with ears to hear, “Let My People Vote!” In our
voting, we vote for justice, for liberation and for freedom
for all. We are called to follow the path of righteousness.
We won’t go back for we have come this far by faith. To God
be the Glory for all we have witnessed and have yet to see!
© 2012/2016 Iva E. Carruthers, Samuel DeWitt Proctor
Conference www.sdpconference.info.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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