A Truthful and Transformative Conversation.
The Family Room is a space for truthful and transformative conversations.
The truth is that truth has always been a rare commodity in the United States. This nation’s land was stolen violently from native peoples, yet most declare it God-given.
The United States claimed to be a beacon of liberty while enslaving human beings and extracting wealth from their uncompensated labor. The United States calls itself a democracy even as rampant voter suppression drowns the voices of everyday people.
The transformation we seek requires truth. Hard, difficult truth about those who came before us, those who lead us, and ourselves. Hope is found where truth becomes the foundation upon which we build a just, beautiful, and peaceable world. I remain hopeful for the world and for our communities, but only where truth has vanquished propaganda and mendacity.
The Family Room is a space for truthful and transformative conversations. That’s exactly the kind of conversation we experienced when Nikole Hannah-Jones discussed the 1619 Project.
Nikole told the truth about having been made to feel like she could not be a world-class journalist. Nikole told the truth about how her gender, skin color, hair color, and body type were seen as markers of intellectual inferiority. Nikole told the story of how hard-working black people were socio-politically and economically castigated to the edges of American society regardless of their best efforts.
Nikole wanted to find out why America is like it is. Nikole wanted to find out why her people were in the state they were in. And this search led her to 1619 – the African advent upon these shores. In many ways, the culture, economy, and politics of the United States find their genesis in that year, in that encounter. This place has never been the same since “20 and odd Negroes” came to these shores.
Nikole’s masterful and truthful weaving of her own struggle for freedom amid the African American struggle for freedom was transformative for those in the Family Room that night.
Now the work begins. How will we continue to struggle for individual and corporate freedom for all humankind? How will we speak and live truthfully in a truth averse culture? How will we build a community where all humans can flourish together without exploitation or domination?
The Family Room began the conversation. We must continue it.
The Family Room featuring Nikole Hannah-Jones embodied a vision for robust, diverse, and equitable human community. Will we have the courage to live into that vision?
Rev. William H. Lamar IV
The Rev. William H. Lamar IV is pastor of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. He previously served Turner Memorial AME Church in Maryland and three churches in Florida: Monticello, Orlando and Jacksonville. He is a former managing director at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. Lamar is a graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and Duke Divinity School. He is the co-host of "Can These Bones," the Faith & Leadership podcast, and can be reached on Twitter @WilliamHLamarIV