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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rev Dr Calvin T Samuel

Good morning.

On 28th of August 1963 Martin Luther King delivered his best–known speech, I have a Dream. On that same date in 1955, 14-year–old Emmet Till was murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Till’s murder was a catalyst for the civil rights movement.

Forty five years to the day after King’s speech, Barack Obama, accepted the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2008.
175 years earlier, 28th August 1833, the Abolition of Slavery Act received Royal Assent, abolishing slavery in British colonies.

So repeatedly significant is this date that the Smithsonian National Museum of African–American History and Culture commissioned a film called: August 28: A Day in the Life of a People.

Earlier this year, systemic racism was laid bare in the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. But Systemic racism is not unique to the United States.

According to the Government’s 2017 Race Disparity Audit, a Black or Asian child in the UK today is twice as likely as her White peers to live in poverty, three times as likely to be in a young offenders’ institution, and 2½ times as likely to be unemployed as an adult. And 6 times as likely to stopped and searched by the police. These are the outcomes of systemic racism in the UK today.

King’s dream that one day children could be judged, not by the colour of their skin but the content of their character, is as yet, not fully realised.

Almighty God,
we give thanks today
for all who have gone before us
seeking to make the world less unjust.
Help us to follow in their footsteps
and bring to an end, in our generation, systemic racism.

Amen.

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