Can the power of music heal the racial divide in America? Bishop Ezekiel Williams hopes so, which is why he set out to build the world’s most diverse gospel choir. Bishop Williams, pastor of Faith World Ministries in Norfolk, Virginia, sees music as a unifying force that can bridge divides and shape his predominantly Black […]
What a special guest we have on the podcast today! If you are familiar with the conversation about reconciliation and justice in the church, you won’t get very far without hearing the name, the Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter Mcneil. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil is a dynamic speaker, author, professor and reconciliation thought leader. Her mission […]
With COVID-19, this election, voter suppression, racism, brutality, and natural disasters, 2020 has been brutal. Adding to our trauma is the collective grief of losing many of our notable figures. On Saturday, October 31, Gospel music legend Rance Allen was added to that number. It’s important that his death not be lost in the sea […]
Two-time Grammy-winning hip-hop artist and bestselling author, Lecrae, joins the podcast today to talk about his very busy 2020. He released his album Restoration earlier this year and also recently released his second book: I Am Restored just last week, a story of chaos and hope. The artist “had inspired millions with his redemptive and […]
Today’s episode is fire. Tyler Burns has the honor of interviewing powerhouse theologian and author, Dr. Willie Jennings. This episode is filled with powerful insights that will strike uncomfortably close to home. For the uninitiated, Dr. Willie Jennings is an Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School. Writing in the […]
What a journey Lecrae has been on! Lecrae’s debut studio album “Real Talk” was released in 2004 and he has reached heights no other Christian rapper has. The Grammy-Award winning artist has grown as a man, a husband, a father, and as a Christian in the public eye over the last sixteen years. Most would […]
We. Are. Tired. This is the cry of Black Americans in 2020. By all accounts, this year has been unfriendly and it seems like it has been particularly difficult for us. From COVID disproportionately affecting minority communities and Black bodies being murdered in the streets, to the reminders of the nation’s racial injustices that have […]
Read Part 1 here! White Sight and Black Lives Ellison’s image of the glass eye reminds us that the societal dehumanization of Black people is not the result of a fault in us. The fault resides in the gaze of persons and institutions that blend into “one single white figure.” The locus of moral […]
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! — Matthew 6:22-23 It is a great […]
There is a war on my skin. And it didn’t begin with my parents’ bodies. It wasn’t ceased by a signed document. Didn’t desist when the chains fell off. Time didn’t end it, only camouflaged it. Soldiers dressed up as my fellowmen, Riding in cars (not horses) this time With flashing lights and sounds, Guns […]
Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books… ― Richard Wright “Jason Reynolds is on a mission.” This is how the New York Times recently described Reynolds’ work as the writer sought to give voice to the lives of young Black people. In their stories, there is […]
Here’s a list of Black History recommendations that will take more than a month to engage. There are resources listed for adults, high schoolers, middle schoolers, and elementary school students. There is also a Black History soundtrack that lyrically roots this learning in lament, resilience, resistance, pride, and celebration because our history (and present) is a […]
We have been forced, due to a lack of progress and an overall apathy, to become the freedom fighters of our own lives.
It was a spring afternoon and I was returning home from a pretty good day in high school. I got a smile from my crush, popped some lunch table jokes off at my friends’ expense, and my all-white Forces stayed clean. I was winding down the day with my ritual of sinking into my headphones […]
I didn’t know what to expect going into “Waves” but I walked out of the theater feeling a heavy mixture of emotions. This film will do that to you. “Waves” centers around a Black family living in suburban Miami. The family is headed by Ronald, a domineering father, played by Sterling K. Brown. At first, you […]
On November 1, 2019, “Harriet,” the biopic about Harriet Tubman, will be released in theaters. Tubman is one of the few people in Black History who is generally known by everyone. Her exploits as an escaped slave, risking her life by returning multiple times to free hundreds of slaves are the stories of legend. This […]
We learn to think differently & holistically about God and the world when we consider the experiences and opinions of others.
This is a first for the Pass the Mic podcast. In the hundreds of episode we’ve done over the years, we’ve never had this particular privilege. The rapper Seun (S.O.) Otukpe chose our podcast to debut his new song, “White Jesus.” In this song, S.O. lyrically dismantles the myth that Jesus is a European-looking white […]
Eleven novels. Nine works of nonfiction. Over twenty awards. 88 years. We are privileged to keep the gift of thousands of masterfully written pages, but there’s even more about this gifted life that we simply can’t count: The magnitude of her influence on Black writers and readers. The radical mind shifts she inspired. The full […]
All of these are issues we still face and are conversations we are still having.
