Transcript
Shall we pray? Father God, forgive our sin. Although we understand that there is no progress without struggle and we profess to love freedom, we attack any agitation for change. We are like the silly men who want crops but are not willing to plow up the ground. We are like the foolish men who want produce of the farm but are unwilling to turn the soil. We hear cries for help, but our only answer has been indifferent silence.
Help us, Lord. Crucify your church so that we may truly feel and understand the power of the resurrection. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. These also are sayings otherwise. Partiality in judging is not good. He who says to the wicked, you are innocent, will be cursed by people, appalled by nations, but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight and a good blessing will be upon them. Proverbs 24 verses 23 through 25, justice in
a black society. I want to direct my thoughts this morning to the saying which states that partiality in judging is not good. On Monday it was revealed to us that this plea for justice is no new thing. It was a concern that occupied the mind of Martin Luther, father of the Reformation. Throughout the Old Testament, the prophets have cried for justice in the courts, justice for the poor and oppressed. These foreign pleas culminated in the plea
of Amos to let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. Even though this country was founded on religious freedom, it is evident that the founding fathers decided not to take the writer or prophets seriously. Of course, they said these words were not meant for us. They were meant for the Israelites a long ago. And thus the founding fathers were partial in their judging and their descendants have kept the tradition religiously. When the
black man was first brought to this country in 1620 as a slave, the word justice did not even apply to him as a person. For the white man, this black shallow guard was not a person but property to be used as he saw fit. And to use him, he veered, to work his land, build his houses, fend his pockets and satisfy his sexual archetypes for black flesh. Time progressed. Then came the Civil War and the Emancipation
Proclamation. And the black man was free. Free? Free? No. Not even free in name. It was about this time that the dual system of justice come about, the offspring being known as racist justice or justice southern style. Now it has been discovered that this justice was the same in the north as well and still is. In this dual system of justice, there was one type of justice for the white man and another for the black man.
The white man controlled both. The outstanding characteristic of this dual system was that a black man's testimony against a white man was never valid. In fact, a black man was taking upon himself a great risk to even dare testify against a white man in a public court. A case in point is the liberation of L.B. Jones, which is now a novel and movie. L.B. Jones is a black undertaker in a small town in Tennessee.
His wife is a young black woman who is having an affair with the white cop. But the Jones decides that he wants a divorce. His wife decides to contest it in court. This meant that the white cop's name would have to be used. It is at this point that L.B. Jones is liberated by a bullet from the gun of the white cop and hang from a rope. White cop remains a cop. It's never brought to
trial and things go on as they were before. That is Justice Southern style. I prefer to call it Justice American style. Countless numbers of black men have been lynched for crimes they were accused of committing, but were never given a chance to prove they're innocent in a court of law. Countless black women have been assaulted by white men, but this was not a crime. The crime was for a black man to look at a white woman.
Touching her resulted in death. Yet the Bible tells us that partiality in judging is not good. In a few years, this country will be 200 years old, but justice for the black man has not changed very much since 1776. It is still a rare thing for a black man to receive justice in an American court, whether it be in Chicago, New York, New Haven, or even in the United States. Plainfield, or Jersey City, or anywhere in
the USA. You heard David Frost yesterday as he talked about the Plainfield case and the gross injustices that occurred there in that courtroom. Two young black people, a man and a woman, are serving life sentences for a crime which they black in this country. This is a common technique that is used to keep n****s in their place, to put some away to serve as an example to the rest, that if you don't act right, the same
thing will happen to you. Yes, for the black man in America, justice is still just a dream. The slogan of this country is still, if you're white, you're right. If you're brown, stick around. But if you're black, get back, get back. Let me include here some recent data on the black man and the law, which was found in Time magazine for April 6, 1970. Whites often assume that civil rights acts and court decisions have made law
the black man's redeemer. In practice, many blacks see the law as something different. Black people see the law as a white weapon that white policemen, white judges, and white juries use against black people. Indeed, blacks are clearly underrepresented in law enforcement and overrepresented in crime and punishment. Blacks are arrested between three and four times more often than whites, partly because police stop and search blacks far more frequently than they do whites. Once caught, black suspects are
more likely than whites to be jailed rather than bailed, to be convicted than acquitted, and more likely to receive still sentences. On the other hand, there are very few black people in the law enforcement agency of this country. Of the 93 attorney generals, not one is a black man. There are only 22 federal judges in this country that are black. Therefore, as I see it, what is needed in this country is not more law enforcement, because
this country is already on the verge of being a police state. But what is needed is a fair administration of justice. Even though justice is still a dream for the black men in America, we have not lost sight of the vision. For without this vision, we as a people would perish. Martin Luther King and countless other black people beheld this dream and died without seeing this dream become real. Perhaps many others would die in the effort
to make this dream a reality, but we as a people are determined that these brothers and sisters will not have the right to die in vain. I could continue to talk to you this morning about the gross and countless injustices that have been heaped upon black people in this country, but I will bore you no longer. I need not tell you about your Christian duty in light of the facts, for you already know that Jesus Christ
himself was the victim of an unjust trial. He too had to face the oppressor, and he is still on the job, for he is always on the side of the oppressed. He came to break oppression. He came to set the captive free. Perhaps the best summation of what I want to say this morning is to be found in the second letter of letters to the n***** children in the n***** Bible. Justice is a white woman to
be shared by my n*****s who have never met her. I want to close this morning by reading this letter. Dear black kind in my life, I write to these words, my black kind people, in the case that you never come to know justice. It all came to me one night in a dream. I had always believed that justice was the white woman. I am a n*****, so I will serve them aloud in her company. Being a
n*****, I always addressed her as Miss Justice, for this wealthy formality I had been taught to observe when addressing white ladies, and this was long before I had become a secret lover of justice. Once in my lifetime, I was even afraid to speak of her, much less speak with her. Oh, but the many dark and silent evenings that I stood at a distance and observed her from afar, beholding her incomparable charms, her lavish promises of life
and love, so long denied me and my black kind because of the pigment of our skins. I would send her secret messages of endearment and desire by means of mental and spiritual telepathy or my undying love and affections, but somehow she never seemed to hear or even acknowledge my presence. She would just stand there in the moonlight smiling as though she considered me amusing. I had even come to hate Miss Justice, for seemingly I would never
come to know her with intimacy. Of course, her eyes had always been covered with a blindfold placed there by the ones who had ravished and deceived her to make certain that she would never see again. In one of her hands, they had placed a scale of balance which would eternally keep her occupied. In the other hand, they had given her a sword to hold that she would strike blindly at all strangers who came within her reach.
Thus I feared to approach her for fear that she would destroy me at part of her weapon, for Miss Justice was blind and could not see. The scales which she had held were tipped modestly against my kin kind. I was frightened to approach her and tell her of this imbalance. As a result, I lived in the fear of blind justice. I prayed in the future hope that one day the blind fool would fall from her eyes.
Then one evening, as I observed from my safe distance, I noticed that Miss Justice no longer seemed to smile. Rather, her face seemed somewhat sad and time-worn as she strained to listen and hear my songs and prayers of denial. I thought I saw her lean toward moderation in order to catch the sad sounds of my refrains. Though I knew that Justice was by no means a virgin, I thought that I saw her tremble as a
young bride in starvation for love. Tremors shook her beautiful body so that her scales tipped almost back into balance. Wearily, she lowered the arm that held the sword. She leaned in my direction as she had hurt me. I crept closer to see, under the dark cover of that cloudless night, chanting my songs and hymns of endearment. She waited there wearily and listened, trembling as a young, frightened doe. Then she relaxed as I came closer and whispered,
crooning my devotion and love. Then I heard the voice of Justice replying to my songs of endearment. I see you, my lover, she said to me. Her voice was riding the caresses of gentle breezes. She continued, How long have I awaited your coming? This blindfold which they have covered my eyes is tying on and rotted away. I have heard you from afar, hoping that you would come. I have loved and longed for you, though as a
lady I was unable to speak out. Oh, Miss Justice, I fell to my knees. Did you really know what you were saying? Of course I mean it, she replied. Get up off your silly knees and stop acting like a frightened n***** and stop calling me by that silly name of Miss Justice. I am just a simple woman named Justice, single and unmarried. I am only for those who would claim me. Stop saying your prayers and take
me if I am what you love and would have. And so I took her, my night great brothers. Then she revealed to me her secrets. One of those secrets I will leave with you. Justice has black blood in her. She had been passing for white while seeking employment on the very night that she had been raped, ravaged and blindfolded by a judge and a priest. Then she had also been a twin. She had a sister whom
we also loved. They had been born of a mixed marriage between a black father and white mother. Before departing, I obtained that secret too. Her sister's name from birth was Miss Liberty. I am telling you this because I am on my way now to meet her sister.