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Darrell W. Maness

George Wilkerson

Rodney Taylor, Sr.

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Call & Response

Call & Response: The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead

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Worship resources

Date

Title

#98 ‘Tough on crime’ policies endanger the public

#105 A bucket of chicken

#37 A message for Mothers’ Day

#3 All that matters

#80 Amazing grace

#78 Anti-Catholic sentiment as public safety

#14 At the zoo, on display

#91 Beyond the wall (part 1)

#92 Beyond the wall (part 2)

#6 Blood on my sleeves

#101 Breaking news

#13 Breaking the silence

#69 Bringing in the new year

#24 Caged canaries

#103 Carrying my side of the plexiglass

#75 Contradictions

#102 Conversation with a dear friend

#67 Dance to the flame

#96 Demons in the grave

#76 Do you love your friends?

#63 Domesticated

#79 Down in the river to pray

#84 Easy doesn’t come easy

#60 Fear of acceptance

#26 Fine dining in prison

#77 For freedom

#17 Give me a sign

#25 Hanging in the jar life

#32 Highrise, part one

#33 Highrise, part two

#97 How do you see yourself

#81 How great thou art

#72 Hypertension

#89 In your eyes

#94 Insane world

#48 Inside of outside

#64 Invest in rehabilitation, not punishment

#99 Judicial pantomime

#41 Learning process

#62 Leaving Eden

#52 Marching orders

#23 Me and mine

#18 O Christmas tree

#38 One quiet breath

#28 Pantoum of the forgotten prisoner

#43 Pawn sacrifice

#44 Potential to evolve

#10 Prison is time

#83 Reality check

#90 Refusing to die

#61 Small windows

#95 Sorry that I let you down

#104 Story of mine

#86 Supervision failures

#85 Synthesizing freedom

#74 Talking to my mom in autumn

#21 Talking to myself

#2 Ten cent a minute

#54 The darkness of nights past

#34 The elephant in the room

#66 The gift of song

#53 The great American eclipse 2017

#58 The last lifeline

#68 The longest night

#45 The noisy blanket

#57 The right to remain silent

#100 The timestretcher

#88 The weather

#31 They took my baby away

#20 Three Shifts of an Eleventh Hour

#51 Through the fog

#56 To shine, beat the sun up

#9 Twenty years

#8 Undead: voices from the grave

#59 When I look

#93 When killers cry

#71 When You Look at Me

#65 Where does it end?

#70 You Have No Idea

Tags

Solitary confinement

Throw-away culture

Mass incarceration

Generational trauma

Domestic violence

Generational incarceration

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#77 For freedom

We gotta ride gotta ride, to the end of the line, for freedom

Rodney Taylor, Sr.2018/03/04

Notes

On top of being entertaining and breaking box office records, Black Panther has animated thoughtful conversations about race and afrofuturism that take seriously the weighty and complex histories which have unfolded over the past five hundred years. Plus, you won’t find a superhero movie with more complex characters. We won’t give away any spoilers, but how about Killmonger’s last line?

Unlike most of the film’s characters who, as native-born Wakandans, seem to have little direct experience with colonization and slavery, Killmonger grew up in the United States, in the Oakland projects, and carries the unequal burden history has placed on his flesh. These distinct realities present some of the central tension of the movie: Which histories are this mythic African nation willing to acknowledge, and how will they draw on these reservoirs of identity as they confront a future of uncertainty and danger?

In “For Freedom,” Rodney Taylor, Sr. writes with a voice that could be that of Killmonger’s uncle. The piece is written in response to Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad with a cadence evocative of both a work song and a steam engine gaining speed. As the work progresses from cotton fields towards freedom, Taylor shows us passing landscapes of the pain and dignity that fuel his journey. By studying these landscapes, we can begin to understand where we are and where we want to go.

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