Mckenzie highlights nation’s difficult history in message at National Cathedral

Vashti Murphy McKenzie, the retired bishop and first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, used the pulpit of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to deliver a fiery sermon calling on worshipers to “put your feet in our prayers” as she set the stage for the U.S. celebration of Juneteenth on June 19.

McKenzie, president of the National Churches of Christ, delivered the morning message at the cathedral on June 16 and directly addressed the logic of America’s culture wars in the form of book bans and laws passed restricting how history is taught in schools across the United States.

According to the Black Education Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, 18 states have imposed restrictions and bans on teaching about race and gender since 2021. At least 32 states have jurisdictions that have adopted some form of book ban.

“If we are a truly great nation, the truth cannot destroy us,” McKenzie said, citing Nicole Hannah Jones’ Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project. She then asked the congregation, “If you could change the narrative any way you wanted, what would your truth look like?”

McKenzie led the audience through a whirlwind of historical events aimed at revising the narrative of cultural events around the world, including in Hungary, China and the United States. She reminded the audience of efforts to ban books and restrict the rights of Jews.

“Are you breathing?” she asked the congregation before reciting a second list of riots, rebellions and mass shootings that have occurred in the United States from 1863 to the present, designed to restrict and destroy Black American institutions and communities.

“Here in the home of the brave and the land of the free, the New York massacre, the Memphis massacre, the Camila massacre, the Opelousas massacre, the Danville riot, the Springfield massacre, the Black Wall Street massacre in Tulsa, the Orangeburg massacre, the Mother Bethel massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, the Tops Market massacre, the Dollar Store massacre in Jacksonville…” McKenzie said in the span of two minutes.

“It’s here,” she added as the audience fell silent.

“Are you breathing? Are you still in the room?” McKenzie asked, quickly moving on.

“Remembering Juneteenth serves as a historical reminder of what really happened,” she said before taking the audience through a vivid tour of the brutal historical events that characterized slavery and the disenfranchisement of Black people.

The audience’s thoughts were varied.

Longtime parishioner Jim Fulton thought McKenzie’s sermon was needed at the National Cathedral.

“That’s the kind of message I want to hear and I want other people to hear,” he said.

Others added that the sermon was so packed with information that they needed to listen to it again.

“Some of our listeners may be hearing the historical references for the first time. But this audience will listen carefully to the sermon, go back to it, study the transcript and ask questions,” said the Rev. Jo Owens, pastor of digital ministry.

Owens said the national cathedral is considering creating an online community for people who want to ask follow-up questions and think more deeply after posts like McKenzie’s.

Grace Matthews was one of those parishioners who was ready to immediately ask deeper questions. She admits to having political positions on most issues and wants to make sure her views are consistent with her faith and values.

As McKenzie describes the often bloody and brutal history that led up to June 19 and continues today, she wonders about how America moves forward with its troubling past and its divisive present.

“Where is the line between forgiving and forgetting when you’ve turned your cheek so many times that you have no cheeks left?” Matthews mused after the sermon.