The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, congratulates our friend, Keith Beauchamp on the release of the long-awaited film Till. We encourage all to see it and to do so along with other members of your family, ministries and study circles.
Till is a powerful movie that is a truth-telling testament to our faith tradition and our struggle for justice and equity in this nation. The movie holds the sacred memory of the lynching of Emmett Till, yet it comes from the perspective of Queen Mother Mamie Till Mobley, Emmett’s diligent mother.
The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, along with the Center for Reparatory Justice, Transformation and Remediation, have curated a historical and faith-based ministry guide to accompany you on this journey through truth-telling. Our goal is that this educational resource will ignite a faithful communal vision and inspire actions of change. We will be inviting you to our special link to download the guide after the movie’s release. And, we plan to schedule a special conversational webinar for you on the importance of this movie for our faithful justice ministries, inviting the co-producer Keith Beauchamp to join us. We must include in our conversations how to better identify and manage today’s impact of various forms of trauma upon our communities.
Mamie Till Mobley said, “The lynching of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us anywhere in the world had better be the business of us all.”
Truth-telling, “the business of us all,” is the intentional act of bearing witness to the ways of racism, sexism, and all forms of exploitation. It allows for the right-remembering and the righting of wrongs, through the articulation of sacred memory. Sacred memory is an act of a holy remembrance of the past, allowing communities to navigate the journey of liberation, bringing death to systemic domination and oppression.
Till, the movie and our accompanying discussion guide provide culturally responsive healing practices. These artifacts speak to transgenerational ways of knowing that are passed down in ways that science cannot explain. Just as elders can feel the rain coming through their bones, as atmospheric pressure changes, truth-telling and sacred memory are fluid waves to the spirit that is soothing for communal remediation.
The Proctor Conference’s hosting of the inaugural Callie House Lecture and Prize Program featuring our first recipient, Dr. Mary Frances Berry, author of My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations is but another example of our truth-telling agenda.
Join with us to be about the business of truth-telling and sacred memory so we can envision and cast a future that is remediated, never returning to old ways.
We are reminded of a melanated individual who dared to be “about his father’s business” by telling the truth with power to empire, and we hold his teachings and his lynching as sacred memory. This is not a moment in time that we are inviting you to; it is a movement.
Now, may the cloud by day and the fire by night go before you to make your way safe, easy, successful, peaceful, prosperous, and abundant with goodness and mercy as your rear-guards. In the name of the risen Afro-Palestinian Wonder, may we all continue the work of truth-telling and sacred memory so the horrors of the past will not be repeated…we remain in the struggle “til justice comes!”