Open warfare on the Black church— for generations the center of activism and social cohesion, progenitor of the civil rights movement that advanced human rights here and around the globe— is not new. It’s long understood that the vote is organized and energized here.

They said MLK was a dangerous man. It is no coincidence that the inheritors of white evangelism now assail his church and the man called to lead it.

It is no coincidence that they similarly thump their bibles, cloak themselves in bastardized religiosity, and proclaim anything apart from them is unclean and unworthy of a heaven reserved only for them.

It is neither ironic nor is it now surprising to find it willing to embrace racial extremism in pursuit of a coup, burning down the republic if necessary to maintain its privilege.

It is now what it always has been— from the fairgrounds of Nesoba to the flood waters of Katrina to the election of a wannabe autocrat with the intellect of nestling muskrat— a white nationalist movement bent on the preservation of its own power.

The biggest threat to that balance of power is and always has been the Black church. Denmark Vessey prayed and plotted revolt from its pews. Pastor Fred Shuttlesworth survived a bombing as he fought to desegregate buses.

To assail the Black now in such vile and unconscionable terms is indicative of how far we’ve come in that fight and who fears that progress.

In this hour, I am reminded that @ReverendWarnock said: Let us not become that which we resist. /fin