WB Ida B. Wells
Say their names.
George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Amaud Arbery.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
In the 19th century, Ida B. Wells was an investigative journalist who exposed white mob lynching of blacks in America. As a young black woman in the 1800s advocating for women’s suffrage and an end to lynch mobs, Ida put herself in danger regularly in her pursuit of truth and equality for all. She had a falling out with Frances Willard and the white women’s suffrage movement because they refused to speak out against the lynching of black bodies. Ida B. Wells was a founding member of the NAACP and prominent civil rights activist her whole life.
The Way to Right Wrongs
Ida B. Wells shined the light of truth upon lynchings. While white supremacists argued that lynching was justifiable punishment for criminal activity, Wells exposed it for what it was: intimidation through brutality against blacks who now posed a social and economic competition that challenged white power. Wells may have been powerless literally to stop lynching from happening, but her voice was powerful to alert an entire generation to the evils and injustice of it all. No “criminal activity” justified brutality and a death sentence without trial.
Today, we mourn the murders of three black children of the Most High King. We mourn the unbalanced deaths of black and brown image-bearers of the Creator from COVID-19. We grieve the overwhelming mass incarceration of black and brown men and women for whom Christ died. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Our tears flow for the stubborn blindness of ongoing white supremacy. Their eyes see but never perceive. Their ears hear but never listen. Their voices grow louder but only to defend themselves. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We cry for the struggle of the police force to find better ways to serve and protect all people. We give thanks for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day, and pray for discernment and guidance in challenging situations. Protect them as they have sworn to protect us all. Bring a day when brutality and violence are no more. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Christ, you are the Light of Truth, and you have called us a city on a hill. May our light so shine your truth that blindness may give way to sight, and sight give way to healing and peace for all, especially those who now live in fear of injustice and oppression because of the color of their skin or the way they were born. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
New Charlie Baber
The Rev. Charlie Baber, author of Wesley Bros cartoon.
When not drawing the Wesley Bros cartoon, the Rev. Charlie Baber, a United Methodist deacon, serves as youth minister at University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C. His cartoon appears on United Methodist Insight by special arrangement.