Introduction
You've Gotta Move
Reconstruction and the Emergence of the Black Church Social Action Tradition

Tell the government,
when the Lord gets ready, you've got to move.

BROTHER JOE MAY

Richard H. Cain, an African Methodist Episcopal pastor, was driven into civic engagement by a shepherd's concern for the flourishing of his congregation. He had no special passion for elected office, nor was he particularly fond of either political party. But even after slavery was abolished, South Carolina's unjust Black Codes were crushing his people's political and economic prospects. Furthermore, unreformed Confederates constantly threatened Black lives with impunity. For instance, during the Hamburg Massacre, White rebels targeted leaders in the Black community for lynching, then terrified Black children by offering to feed them the flesh of a recently murdered Black body.1 It was clear that despite the Emancipation Proclamation, a darkness remained upon the nation. America needed a light, and Cain's parishioners at Emmanuel Church and Black Americans, in general, needed an advocate.

Few were as charismatic and well-respected as Cain, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments had opened the door for Black men to seek elected office.2 As a talented writer and orator, he was well-suited to voice the aspirations and needs of his people in the public square, and given his unique gifts and the dire circumstances, refusing to engage might've seemed negligent. Accordingly, Pastor Cain would establish and become the editor of the Missionary Record newspaper, a faith-based publication focused on topics like suffrage, labor, education, and general reform.3 He'd also join South Carolina's constitutional committee, where he was a part of a Black delegation advocating for freedom of speech and assembly, free public education for all races and classes, and the confiscation of Confederate rebel property for former slaves.4

Cain would eventually become one of the United States congressmen who'd help advance the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the country's first public accommodations law.5 To accomplish this victory, he and other proponents defeated archrival Congressman Alexander Stephens, the former Vice President of the Confederacy and the future governor of Georgia. Known as "the brains of the Confederacy,"6 he was intent on obstructing any legislation intended to move Black people closer to full citizenship.

During the congressional debate, Cain addressed Congressman William K. Robbins, a former Confederate Army major, who claimed White Southerners philanthropically tried to educate enslaved Blacks, but the "barbarians," as he put it, were incapable of improvement. Pastor Cain called out this lie and detailed how the South had actually done tried to create barbarians:

What schoolhouse in all the South was open to the colored race? Point to one. Name the academy where you educated black men and black women as lawyers or doctors, or in any other department of science or art. . . . Name the teacher. I will name one. Her name was Missa Douglas. And for the attempt to educate those of our race she was incarcerated in prison, and remained there for five years. . . . Examine the laws of the South, and you will find that it was a penal offense for anyone to educate the colored people there.7

Robbins also said, the "negro race is the world's stage actor-the comic . . . that he laughs and he dances." Cain would address that comment as well and without returning insult for insult.

His speech would end on an aspirational and prophetic note, testifying to why he believed God placed the races in America together:

I believe Almighty God has placed both races on this broad theater of activity, where thoughts and opinions are freely expressed . . . and develop every art and science that can advance the prosperity of the nation . . . to develop this great idea that all men are the children of one Father. We are here to work out the grand experiment.8

Cain believed in the US Constitution inasmuch as it affirmed the dignity that God bestowed on every human being, and any white supremacist who denied that was not only civically misguided, but morally wrong on that account. He not only made a compelling constitutional and moral case for equality under the law, his studied, meticulous performance debunked every premise underlying the idea of Black inferiority. Cain served as a living illustration. After all, how could he formulate such a cogent argument and win the debate if he were intellectually inferior?

As Cain pierced through logical fallacies, it seemed God was using his every word and turn of phrase to expose white supremacy as an affront to his design and eschatological plan. It had to take great courage and discipline for Cain to look the perpetrators of his people's genocide in the eye and tell the whole truth without sinning under the weight of his anger.

Second Corinthians 5:20 says, we are ambassadors of Christ "as though God were making his appeal through us." God speaking through our political and cultural engagement is serious business. This means that engagement belongs to God and is to be used for his purposes. It's part of our public witness, which is a precious and powerful gift. Our public witness is our testimony to the world about what is true and good and what is false and immoral. It tells others what we value, represent, and who we serve. It can teach, encourage, make peace, and tear down wicked institutions. It's more valuable than free expression alone, which is subject to vain beginnings and empty endings.

An anointed witness never returns void because it testifies to the source of all meaning and a design beyond human devices. A faithful witness summons our creativity to serve the Creator and partake in his divine masterpiece. You can hear it in the abolitionist's petition against the slave trader or the righteous prosecutor's indictment of the sex trafficker. Our testimony about God's will in the public square and the path to redemption and flourishing gives us purpose in an otherwise trifling existence.

However, our public witness can be squandered by selfish ambition or manipulated through indoctrination. It's susceptible to self-sabotage and can destroy us like Judas in the field of blood. If not stewarded prayerfully, it will be corrupted. It can be used for moral and intellectual improvement or weaponized for destructive purposes. We can waste our voice crooning about the empty freedom of pleasure seeking or wail a word that frees the captives-"We shall overcome someday!" It's never perfect but always redeemable. Even after three denials, St. Peter's witness became more forceful than his sword. Whether it's a signature on a petition, exposition from a pulpit, policy prescription in a legislative assembly, lessons from a lectern, investigative journalism in a periodical, economics in a business symposium, prose in a novel, or even satirical truth from a comedic stage, we can awaken and inspire the world by communicating our convictions publicly.

But our public witness is more than just verbalizing our convictions. It's also the application of those convictions in our actions. It's not just what we say, it's our attitudes and what we consistently do. It's what we value as demonstrated through the sacrifices we make. For example, in Exodus, when the midwives undermined the king's edict to murder all the Hebrew boys, their public witness proved they valued the lives of those made in the image of God more than they feared human authority (Exodus 1:1-21). Their faith wasn't just talk; it was evident in how they engaged society. Our witness tells people who we really are and what we sincerely represent. The harmony or disharmony between our convictions and our conduct informs them about the earnestness of our public witness. For example, when the church advocates for the Christian sexual ethic then covers up sexual abuse, we lose credibility because of the disconnect between our words and actions.

Richard Cain wasn't the only Black Christian driven to seek elected office. At the height of Reconstruction, around 2,000 African Americans held elected office, many of them Christian preachers like Hiram Revels, Henry McNeal Turner, Tunis Campbell, and George Freeman Bragg or Christian laymen like Robert Smalls. These were Black leaders whose oratory and political prowess were outstanding if not miraculous given the circumstances. Observers noted that the "African-influenced cadence of speech" was clearly influenced "by the preaching in black churches."9

They would master parliamentary procedure-becoming virtuosos in statecraft. Robert Smalls had been property under the law until he escaped slavery in 1862, and now he and other Black men were fashioning the law.10 He was a former field hand who now had a policy pen in his palm.11 The New York Times noted that they were often the best debaters in the legislature-blessed with common sense and rhetorical flourish.12 One journalist said the "African love of melody was...