We Are At War
“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” — Psalm 144:1
By Leah Daughtry
Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I write to you with the weight of the watchman on the wall. The prophet Ezekiel was given a charge: “If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned… his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.” (Ezekiel 33:6). Beloved, I am sounding the trumpet. I will not be silent, and I will not be still.
What Has Happened
On April 29, 2026, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Louisiana v. Callais. By a vote of 6 to 3, the Court struck down a Louisiana congressional map that had been drawn — under court order — to give Black voters a fair opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. In doing so, the Court did not merely rule on a single map in a single state. It gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — the last remaining pillar of the law that the blood of the martyrs purchased.
Section 2 was the protection that survived after Shelby County v. Holder dismantled federal preclearance in 2013. Section 2 was the door our people walked through to challenge maps drawn to dilute our power. With this ruling, that door has been all but nailed shut. As Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent, the decision renders Section 2 “all but a dead letter.”
And it did not stop there. Within days of the ruling — on May 4 — the Court took the unusual step of finalizing its judgment immediately, brushing aside its own thirty-two-day waiting rule and the long-standing principle that courts should not change the rules in the middle of an election. More than 100,000 Louisiana voters had already cast early ballots. Forty-two thousand absentee ballots had already been mailed in. None of that mattered. The primary was suspended. The map can now be redrawn while the election is in motion.
Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana have already moved — or are moving — into special legislative sessions to redraw their congressional maps before November. The aim is plain: to dismantle majority-Black districts and to silence the voices of our communities before the 2026 midterms and the 2028 election.This is not speculation. This is the public record.
Why I Say We Are At War
I do not use the language of war lightly. I am a pastor. I am the daughter and granddaughter and great-granddaughter of pastors. I know what words carry. But I also know what I am looking at.
And I take my cue from David. The shepherd-king who faced Goliath, who faced Saul, who faced his own son in rebellion, did not flinch from naming his condition. He wrote, “Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” Hear what David is doing in that one verse. He names the war. He does not deny it, soften it, or spiritualize it away. But in the same breath, he names the source of his strength — and the One who does the teaching. The hands are his. The fingers are his. But the training is the Lord’s. That is the posture I am calling us to. Clear-eyed about the battle. Clear-eyed about Whose we are.
This is a coordinated, multi-front assault on the political voice of Black Americans — and on the moral architecture of this democracy. It is the harvest of decades of legal strategy, calculated court appointments, and patient erosion. The map cases are one front. Voter roll purges are another. Restrictions on registration drives, on souls-to-the-polls, on absentee ballots, on student IDs — these are all fronts. Disinformation aimed at our communities is a front. The criminalization of organizers and election workers is a front.
Our forebears understood this kind of war. Fannie Lou Hamer understood it. Medgar Evers understood it and gave his life. John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge knowing the troopers were waiting on the other side. Dr. King wrote from a Birmingham jail because he understood it. They did not flinch. They organized. They prayed. They marched. They voted. And they sent us.
We are their inheritance. We are not without resources. We are not without God. But we are without the luxury of waiting to see how this unfolds.
What Is Being Asked of You
I am asking you to do three things:
Register voters.Every congregation in our network should have an active voter-registration ministry by July 1. We are joining the One Million Black Voters Rising coalition effort, and our network will be on the front lines of registering, re-registering, and verifying voters in your communities. No member of our church family — and no neighbor within reach of our doors — should remain unregistered through our inaction.
Watch the maps and the rolls. Many of you live in states where new maps will be drawn in the coming weeks. We need eyes and ears in every state legislature, every county election office, and every polling place. We need members willing to serve as poll workers and poll monitors, and to track changes to district lines, polling locations, and voter ID rules in your jurisdiction.
Tell the truth, in love.Disinformation is a weapon of this war. We are establishing a national information network within the House to share verified updates, alerts, and resources to every congregation. We need members in every region to receive that information, translate it for your local context, and disseminate it through your church communications, social media, and pulpit announcements.
A Direct Call for Volunteers
I am asking for volunteers to serve in one of three roles:
Voter Engagement Captains — to lead registration, education, and turnout work in your local church.
State and Local Watchers — to track redistricting activity, election law changes, and voter access issues in your state and report back to our national team.
Communications Disseminators — to receive verified information and share it quickly and accurately within your congregation and/or community.
If God is stirring you to serve in any of these capacities. No prior political experience is required. What is required is willingness, prayerfulness, and a heart for our people.
A Word to Steady Your Heart
I know some of you are afraid. Some of you are tired. Some of you have been doing this work for forty years and were hoping not to have to do it again. I hear you. I see you. I am one of you.
But hear me: our God specializes in creating calm out of chaos. He brooded over the deep when the earth was without form and void, and He spoke light. He stood with the three Hebrew boys in the furnace. He shut the lions’ mouths around Daniel. He raised Jesus from a sealed tomb. He has not changed. The God who carried our ancestors through the Middle Passage, through Reconstruction’s betrayal, through Jim Crow, through Bloody Sunday, through every season they were not supposed to survive — that same God walks with us now.
This is not a moment for despair. It is a moment for assignment. Every one of us has one. Find yours. Take it up. Do not lay it down.
Standing on the wall with you.
Bishop Leah D. Daughtry is Chairperson of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc. and Presiding Prelate of The House of the Lord Churches in Brooklyn, NY.
