It’s an election that’s too crucial to view from the sidelines.
That was the message Friday night at Word Tabernacle Church in Rocky Mount, at a rollicking service that combined the spiritual and the civic. The gathering, called “A Celebration of Church, Community, Culture & Civics,” kicked off the church’s three-day celebration of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and drew more than 1,000.
“The Black vote east of I-95 is equal in size to the Black vote in Durham,” the church’s senior pastor, James D. Gailliard — a former state legislator — told the crowd. “But it’s rarely resourced.”
Toward that end, information pamphlets on the upcoming elections were passed out in the lobby before the event, and a voter registration kiosk was also set up.
The event’s keynote speaker, the Rev. Frederick Douglass Haynes III, pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, told the Telegram before the event took place that he was bringing a message of civic responsibility and activism.
“What is our responsibility as citizens?” Haynes said. “Not just to vote during campaigns, but also to be aware of agendas and to focus on what is in the heart of God, to be close to the heart of God and bring that to how we listen and engage with politicians.”
Haynes said he was calling his sermon “Too Woke for the Okie Doke” — the latter term a colloquialism for hoodwinking someone — and made clear he was embracing the often-polarizing term “woke.”
“God is a woke God who cares for the least of us,” Haynes said.
From the tabernacle stage, Haynes delivered a fiery, unabashedly political sermon, touching on themes including racism, voter suppression, social injustice and protest for change, quoting sources from Maya Angelou to Malcolm X to Jay Z to Kierkegaard. He recalled an expression his grandmother used: “Don’t spit on me and call it rain.”
He noted there’s a newer term for that.
“It may in a real sense reflect what we call ‘gaslighting’ today,” Haynes said. “When you think about what has been happening for the last nine years in this country, there has been a politics of spitting on us and calling it rain, a politics of gaslighting, a politics of alternative facts.”
In a thinly veiled reference to embattled Republican gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, Haynes said, “Anti-black racism really pays if you are Black. As a consequence, you have someone who is running for governor and a person who has discovered it really pays to hate on your own people; it really pays to call yourself a ‘Black Nazi’; it really pays to talk like you love the Lord ... but you hate your own people.
“He’s not only spitting on us and calling it rain, but then he has the nerve to be endorsed by, to be a follower of, the former president of the United States ... who had the nerve to compare him to that drum major for justice, Martin Luther King (Jr.),” Haynes said, a reference to former President Donald Trump, who has referred to Robinson as “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
To raucous cheers, Haynes urged the audience to embody the term “woke.”
“Woke is a term that was birthed in our community to make sure we were conscious of oppressive systems and structures of injustice,” he said. “You are ‘woke’ because you are conscious of what’s happening in systems, you are conscious of what’s happening in the world now, you are conscious because your God is conscious, and God does not want sleepy Christians.”
Haynes decried “a system that produces outcomes where Black people are at the top of every negative statistic and at the bottom of every positive statistic,” and what he called “musical chair economics.”
“Only the strongest and the quickest end up with a seat, and the others are left out in the cold; they are losers in the game,” he said. “But when you know Jesus, you say we ain’t going to play musical chairs; we’re going to add more chairs, so that everyone has a seat.”
He urged attendees to make their spiritual presence felt at the ballot box. “Democracy is not a spectator sport,” he said. “Get your soul to the polls and make sure you bring other people with you.”
The event featured musical performances by gospel vocalists Wanda Barnes and two-time Grammy Award winner Smokie Norful. The latter also addressed the crowd on the importance of voting.
“Your vote is your voice,” Norful said. “Too often, we use our voices more for complaining than for changing.”
Norful, a native Oklahoman, referred to North Carolina’s swing-state status.
“We’re counting on you,” Norful said. “The country is counting on you.”
Gailliard shared a video produced by Word Tabernacle promoting Black voter participation. He said the church is committed to continuing outreach through videos and other social media.
Attendees said the presentation hit home for them.
“It inspired me to do all I can to help those that are not aware of the issues, to understand,” said Hazel Nwachukwu of Rocky Mount.
Thereasa Lloyd, also of Rocky Mount, who has been a member at Word Tabernacle since 2008, said Haynes’ sermon was “empowering and enlightening.”
She said it made her reflect on how important the Nov. 5 general election is.
“In this time and day, it’s important that everyone who looks like me knows they have to get out and vote,” Lloyd said. “I want to make sure the community understands the importance of voting. Make sure your documentation is correct, and do it now.”
Absentee voting is already under way in North Carolina, and early voting begins Oct. 17.
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