(RNS) — Leaders of the Progressive National Baptist Convention announced plans at their annual session this week in St. Louis to work on enhancing voting rights and criminal justice reform through partnerships with like-minded organizations.
Members of the social justice team of the historically Black Protestant denomination also traveled to nearby Ferguson on Wednesday (Aug. 9), the last day of their meeting, to mark the ninth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager whose fatal shooting by a white officer prompted protests that energized the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Rev. David R. Peoples, president of the PNBC, said in an interview Thursday that supporting the Brown family and the Ferguson community is one example of how the denomination is pursuing justice issues.
“We want to make sure that wherever injustice takes place, wherever our people are oppressed and don’t have a fair shake, we’re going to speak out, we’re going to speak truth to power,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere until those things happen and positive change occurs.”
Progressive National Baptist Convention members join others in marking the ninth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown by visiting where Brown died in Ferguson, Missouri, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023. Photo courtesy PNBC
He said a couple of thousand Baptists attended the meeting of the denomination of more than 1,200 churches and more than 1.5 million members.
In his remarks the previous day at a news conference, Peoples said the organization would continue to follow in the footsteps of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who considered the PNBC his denominational home.
“We won’t stop until what Dr. King said, until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream,” he said on Wednesday. “We won’t stop until Florida Governor DeSantis understands that slavery never benefited any African American.”
He continued: “We won’t stop until the real thugs like Donald Trump, who are the real threat to democracy, get justice they deserve.”
PNBC leaders also differentiated members of their denomination from Christian nationalists.
“What a tragedy it is that so much of what it means to be a Christian has been co-opted by white nationalists,” said the Rev. Willie D. Francois III, the co-chair of the PNBC’s social justice arm. “But there’s something about the rebellious imagination of folk like us, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, that says we have political priorities that aren’t limited to policing who people sleep with and policing what women do with their bodies. The Progressive National Baptist Convention is actually pro-life because we care about bodies before they are born all the way through the tomb.”
The Rev. Frederick Haynes III speaks during a news conference of the Progressive National Baptist Convention in St. Louis on Aug. 9, 2023. Video screen grab
Answering the question “Why is the white Christian church aligning with Trump?” the Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III, the new Rainbow PUSH Coalition president, responded: “They’re more white than Christian.”
During the meeting, PNBC delegates also adopted a resolution saying the denomination “strongly denounces any … who refuse to support the results of the 2020 presidential election” and anyone who supports the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
