May on Freedom Road
Peacemaking in a conflicted world. Plus a new pilgrimage, course offerings, an award for Lisa and more!
Earlier this month, Lisa Sharon Harper received the Rick Love Peace Award, and in her acceptance speech, she calls us to the following:
Today, our democracy hangs by a thread. We need our elections monitored. Our courts have suffered corruption. We are suffering mass violence in our streets every single day. Peace is broken here. Truth be told, the US has never been at peace. We have never enjoyed healthy democracy. We have never had free and fair elections. And thumbs have held the scales of Justice in our courts.
The United States of America needs peace-builders and peace-makers; across racial, gender, political and religious walls of hostility.
We need the ones who protect human dignity around the world to protect it in the vulnerable here. We need peace-builders and peacemakers to help the US find another way of being together in the world.
Scroll down to read her entire speech and to discover what Freedom Road is offering to equip you and your communities in the work of building God’s peace: the shalom that means everyone thrives together.
Black|Brown Pilgrimage to Puerto Rico
On his 2nd voyage in 1493, Christopher Columbus landed on the island that the Taino people called Borinquen. Fifteen years later, Caparra, Puerto Rico became the first European settlement in what we now call the United States territory. A beachhead for western colonization and the transatlantic slave trade, the land and people of Puerto Rico have a critical story to tell, as we forge into an age of decolonization.
Together we will journey through the story of Taino resistance and genocide, African enslavement and subversive faith, abolition, Jim Crow annexation and the current-day struggle of environmental disaster trailed by economic colonization. Our pilgrimage will center the experiences of Black Puerto Ricans to understand the full-weight and consequences of colonization. Our experience will incorporate story-telling, spiritual formation, coping and resilience training, as well as times for strategic visioning.
Black|Brown Puerto Rico Pilgrimage Information
More about Freedom Road Pilgrimages
Seven Pillars of a Freedom Road Pilgrimage
REGISTRATION IS OPEN UNTIL JUNE 30, 2023
PILGRIMAGE DATES
April 28 – May 4, 2024
COST & WHAT IS INCLUDED
Double Occupancy: $3,195
Single Occupancy: $4,200
Includes: Hotel accommodations, tour bus, welcome dinner and boxed lunches, lectures and experiences.
Does Not Include: Airfare to Puerto Rico, breakfasts, and most dinners.
The Rick Love Peace Award
On May 4, Lisa traveled to Washington DC to accept the Rick Love Peace Award from Peace Catalyst International and the Alliance for Peacebuilding.
Lisa’s acceptance speech:
Thank you, Peace Catalyst and Alliance for Peacebuilding. I am profoundly honored to receive the 2023 Rick Love Peace Award.
I half expect to see Rick come around a corner—always moving and yet deeply rooted in the shalom of God. Rick carried a deep peace in his core. That came from intimate communion with our Creator—the creator of the harmony ethic.
It is one of the great honors of my life to receive a recognition also given to one of my theological mentors, Dr. Miroslav Volf, and to Hurunnessa Fariad, who were each recognized last year.
When I was studying Human Rights at Columbia University in New York City in 2005, American peace-builders looked outward—Croatia and Bosnia, Kosovo, Darfur, Georgia. Those were the places that needed Human Rights and peace-building in those days.
In 2009, I traveled to Croatia for the 3rd time—to participate in a month-long faith-based peace-building “conference” with a group called Renewing our Minds (ROM), developed by @tihomirkukolja to bring together young leaders across Europe to train them in the art of peace building. There were Bosniacs and Serbs and Croats. There were Serbians and Kosovacs. There were Christians, Muslims and Jews. There were Roma. My roommate was a conservative Republican white woman from Washington state. I am an African American democrat—whose mother was a member of SNCC and dated Stokely Carmichael for a minute. To my surprise, we found that the most intractable divide among us was between us: the Democrat and the Republican.
Today, our democracy hangs by a thread. We need our elections monitored. Our courts have suffered corruption. We are suffering mass violence in our streets every single day. Peace is broken here. Truth be told, the US has never been at peace. We have never enjoyed healthy democracy. We have never had free and fair elections. And thumbs have held the scales of Justice in our courts.
The United States of America needs peace-builders and peace-makers; across racial, gender, political and religious walls of hostility.
We need the ones who protect human dignity around the world to protect it in the vulnerable here. We need peace-builders and peacemakers to help the US find another way of being together in the world.
May we all carry the light that shines from the harmony ethic into every corner of the earth.
Amen.
Featured Article from the Global Writer’s Group
White Women’s Toxic Tears Webinar
Three years ago in the midst of the first year of the pandemic, a woman named Amy Cooper intentionally tried to weaponize her tears to get Christopher Cooper, a black male bird-watcher, killed or arrested in Central Park. You may remember this as this was the same week George Floyd was murdered. Just this past week, on May 14th, 2023, a white woman tried to grab a rental bike from a young black man. When he wouldn’t give up his rental bike, she screamed and cried and claimed he was “hurting her fetus.”
This webinar from 2020 is still so relevant as we seek to shift our culture to one where we can all thrive.
White women’s power in situations when they didn’t have power was sex and tears. This persona is called the “damsel” by Jen Hatmaker in this webinar. But the damsel isn’t thriving for white women, and it’s literally deadly for black lives. We must move to where we can all thrive together, and this webinar is a fabulous place to start these conversations. Tune in today for FREE!
The Power and Practice of Faith-Rooted Organizing: Now on Demand!
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
Faith-Rooted Organizing draws from the roots of our traditions to help faith communities engage the larger movement for justice in our world. In this workshop, Lisa Sharon Harper and Alexia Salvatierra will equip participants to analyze their community, strategize, build collaborative networks, and take action inspired by their faith!
Click here for more information about how to equip your community to join in the work of justice.
On the Freedom Road Podcast this Month
First up this month on the Freedom Road podcast, we talked about transgender identity and its weaponization within the American political arena. We invited three people whose voices, lives and faith can shed light on a topic that has been intentionally obfuscated in the melee of political warfare.
Nicole Garcia, a queer transgender Latina, is currently the Faith Work Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force.
Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey is a trans-identified woman who is the Alabama State Director within Human Rights Campaign’s Project One America. Carmarion is also currently serving as the National Co-Minister and South Region Coordinator for Trans Saints ministry of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries.
Michael Vazquez, public theologian and policy wonk, is Founding Partner of The Maiden Group.
Join the conversation we need to have on Freedom Road, for such a time as this on our website or wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you are a paid subscriber, don’t miss the behind-the-frontlines conversation below. Also on Patreon for our patrons.
On our second episode this month, we were joined by Carlos Rodriguez, CEO of The Happy Givers (@thehappygivers) and author of Simply Sonship, Drop the Stones and the upcoming book, Flip the Tables.
We invited Carlos to speak with us because he is one of the most dynamic speakers doing this work. His recent posts on Instagram have been captivating followers. He’s bringing the prophetic fire and we're here for it.
Listen now on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!
And, again, if you are a paid subscriber, don’t miss the behind-the-frontlines conversation below. Also on Patreon for our patrons.
Rev. Carlos Rodriguez
If you are a paid subscriber or a Patreon patron at the James Farmer level or above, you are invited to participate in a quarterly call with Lisa Sharon Harper.
Mark your calendar for the next three calls, and if you aren’t a subscriber or Patron, upgrade your subscription today, or join our Patreon!
June 28: 7-8pm ET
September 20: 7-8pm ET
December 13: 7-8pm ET
Global Writer’s Group
Since April of 2020 as the world closed down, the Global Writer’s Group has been meeting via zoom every Saturday, with time off only for Christmas and New Years. Early in our time together, Lisa Sharon Harper charged the group with the task of “writing a new world into existence” and over time we have truly seen this in action. We have taken on the task of changing the world, and of course what changed first was ourselves. We as a group have become better writers over this time, but also better people, finding true community in the sacred sharing of ourselves with each other and the world.
We accept members on a rolling basis: it’s never too late to join the community. Prepare to find your life changed for the better as you sharpen your writing skills and prepare to bring your words to the world.
Collectively, we have published six books, have several writers who’ve recently become agented and/or are under contract for upcoming books, and many, many journal articles over the past three years with several more books in the works.
Recent articles by members:
Four Attitudes of Jesus that Empower Women by Jill Richardson
Entering the Wilderness of Easter by Anna Elisabeth Howard
The Narrative Gap, as coined by Lisa Sharon Harper, is the distance between the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, including how we got here and what it will take to make things right. In our world today, competing narratives vie for our loyalty, dividing society and the church, therefore making justice impossible. Our mission is help communities shrink the narrative gap, by identifying core issues and building community capacity so they might work toward common solutions for a just world. Here on the Freedom Road Substack, we can converse together on ways to shrink that narrative gap and help ensure everyones’ stories are told.
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