Jesus is King: Kanye West and the Freedmen’s Bureau

P. Williams
Nov 5 · 12 min read

The afternoon temperatures were likely hot and humid, reaching the mid to upper 80s. It would have been a decade since Congress passed the District of Columbia Emancipation Act, so the smell of freedom probably mingled with the native oak trees adorning the city. The glorious trees on the yard, planted by the boys in the preparatory class, must have stood tall and grand as salutations embedded the sun. Or, maybe it rained. If so, the rain would have also been a sign of God restoring what the locusts and cankerworms and stolen from the shores of Africa over two hundred years ago.

On this day, Arthur Clough O’Hear, James Monroe Gregory and Josiah Thomas Settle were their ancestors greatest dream. As the first graduating class of Howard University’s Collegiate Department, they had proven freedom and education were God-given rights to retain and uphold. Their excitement was perhaps met with doldrums — hearing the country contend with the rise of white supremacist organizations reasserting hold on the southern states. As the Reconstruction Era waned, the entire campus had to know the Freedmen’s Bureau’s demise was drawing near. Making this celebration a vital one.

It was Wednesday, June 12, 1872, and graduation was likely met with jubilee. Proudly there on hilltop high marked a turning point, a victory, a first of many. O’Hear was from Charleston, South Carolina, where nearly forty percent of all enslaved Africans entered the United States at Gadsden’s Wharf. Gregory spent his adolescent years in Lynchburg, Virginia, where an enslaved population had been in existence since 1763. Settle was born a slave in Rockingham, North Carolina to a mother owned by a militia general in the War of 1812.

These three men had lived and experienced the terrors sanctioned by the religion of racism. Whips and chains. Ropes on trees. Blood on leaves. The child snatched from the arms of her mother and sold to a city unknown. Fathers murdered. Rape and sexual violations on the bodies of men and women and children. Horrors too awful to repeat. Stories that only the dirt would dare retell in the flesh and seed of every harvest grown and picked by the fingers that wiped the tears of incessant pain. This is the story of enslavement.

The grounds of every Historical Black College and University is holy because of this story. Black women and men arrived on these campuses, not just seeking education but a safe place. A place to learn, think, speak and stand. They learned in these safe places confident that their collective would make a difference in the racist world spiraling around them. They stood in these safe places knowing when they departed, diploma in hand and collective memory in heart, they were expected to stand in other places — often unwelcomed and unwanted, to pave a way for generations to follow…

Kanye Omari West stood on the campus of Howard University on Saturday, October 11, 2019 and said, “If they throwing slave nets again, how about we all don’t stand in the same place.” It is possible “same place” was metaphorical, even allegorical, and not the sacred place he brazenly stood as he uttered these words. But for anyone with a reference to history, Black American history specifically, the comment was insulting to Arthur Clough O’Hear, James Monroe Gregory, Josiah Thomas Settle and every other graduate that stood in that same place.

This is the problem with West. His ignorance. His unawareness. His witlessness and lack of context. It is bewildering how he views his Blackness in America. To be Black and American is to remember every enslaved person who gave their life, limb, and lung for that distinction to be spoken. West barely remembers. It’s possible he’s forgotten completely. The man who once rhymed, “And he explained the story / how Blacks came from glory / and what we need to do in the game,” now believes Black people are “culture-less.” He doesn’t remember how to contextualize his race in his idiomatic messages. More so, he doesn’t know how to contextualize it with his newfound religion, which is unfortunate. Because American Christianity never forgets.

The Christianity of America is rooted in a racist memory. American Christianity and the American memory are so deeply interconnected that they are one in the same. The memory of American indigenous genocide is an American Christian memory. The memory of the trans-Atlantic slave trade is an American Christian memory. From governmental exclusionary acts to the racial hierarchies that shape every aspect of American life, American Christianity is wrought with a long-standing legacy of white supremacy and racism. This is the memory of American Christianity. This is its history. It’s rarely addressed, but it’s true.

As I listened to West’s album, Jesus is King, the Freedmen’s Bureau eased into my mind. The Freedmen’s Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands was created in 1865 to help millions of emancipated Blacks transition from slavery to freedom in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Bureau was a federal agency, but local churches commissioned and actualized its work. These churches helped the Bureau provide food, housing, jobs, healthcare and education. Many of the Historical Black Colleges and Universities that exist today are the result of this synergy. Essentially, the Gospel of Jesus built and fostered the work of the Bureau. American Christianity dismantled it.

American Christianity is dismantling West too. While Romans 10:13 concurs his salvation, America 1619 opposes his liberty. He thinks he has transitioned from slavery. He hasn’t. The album invited me to see, unmasked and fully exposed, the thoughts of a man wrestling with memory. As a result, he is straddling the fence between his faith and freedom. He is being taught a Jesus who conflicts with his Blackness. This bestriding is often found in churches rooted in American Christian dogma. In these places, the sentiment of race is akin to those responsible for the demise of the Freedmen’s Bureau. People who attend these places of worship have a faith marred by racism, sexism, capitalism and white supremacy.

To most, it is easy to miss the cues of connection. They appear in subtle ways. Political ambitions masked as conservative Christian ideals. Discussions that center reparations are shunned despite the biblical principal of restitution. “Pull-up your bootstrap” rhetoric is paired with 2 Thessalonians 3:10 — without accounting for Black Codes, Jim Crow and other discriminatory laws restricting access to economic opportunities. The revision of enslavement history is a revision of Black suffering. Words and phrases like, “victim mentality,” “slaves were well fed with decent lodging” and, of course, “slavery was a choice” all reflect an America Christianity that refuses to reckon with its sins against Black people.

The truth of the matter is, none of the social issues that exist in America were created in a vacuum. There is a history that traces them back to American Christianity. American Christianity twists the Gospel and remains silent on social issues plaguing its nation because speaking truth would equal culpability. But the Gospel of Jesus is rooted in culpability. Unlike American Christianity, the Gospel of Jesus demands our repentance and holds us accountable for the harms we’ve instituted on our brothers and sisters.

I hold the evangelicals pastoring West accountable for his lackluster understanding of Jesus. His continued support for the disparagement of Blackness is linked to American doctrine. This tension we are witnessing — between his race and religion, isn’t solely his fault. He is a new convert. He has admitted his ignorance — “I didn’t even know what it meant to be saved. I was talking about The Life of Pablo was a gospel album… but that shows you that people want something and there’s no one around stepping up and saying, this is how you get it,” he told radio host Big Boy.

Releasing a Gospel album is something West has always wanted. He has always talked about Jesus. He has always been looking for his path, his way, his faith. So, where were these evangelicals when West released The Life of Pablo and needed spiritual guidance? Where were they when he released “Jesus Walks” or when he called out the Bush administration during a hurricane relief concert? The answer is simple: They were absent. They didn’t care about the Black rapper who “clearly has a calling on his life.” But the moment West released Jesus is King, while simultaneously shouting “the Republican Party freed the slaves,” they’ve swarmed. Extracting all his sweet nectar like wasps. Now, instead of Jesus centering his older socio-political idioms — “We shine because they hate us, floss ’cause they degrade us / we tryna buy back our 40 acres,” West is giving speeches about “brainwashed Blacks.”

Recently, the Gospel Music Association Dove Awards censored Gospel artist Kirk Franklin. The Trinity Broadcasting Network edited his acceptance speech and removed his address of police brutality. This is American Christian propaganda. It dismantles the concerted effort of faith and freedom. American Christianity will never showcase a Jesus who combats police brutality. It will never declare Black lives matter as a response to Black lives dying. It doesn’t want a theology that wages war on systemic oppression. It will not address poverty, education disparities, and the housing crisis. This is the problem West must contend with.

The American Christianity undergirding him doesn’t reflect the ascended Jesus who touches the ground. Even West’s revisionist history of the Republican Party — separate and apart from the Dixiecrats and the Southern Strategy — is demonstrative of this fact. American Christianity supports governments rooted in oppression. It claims to know Jesus but touts the trope “Make America Great Again” — never grappling with this perceived era of greatness from a Black American lens. This is the heart of American Christianity. It possesses a theology that uplifts Jesus without uplifting His cross.

But the cross is the crux of Christianity. Not the crown. The Roman empire killed Jesus by crucifixion. His death on the cross was gruesome. It was a disturbing spectacle — like an American lynching. People gathered and watched as Jesus died a death reserved for slaves and enemies of the state. This is the backdrop of Jesus’ kingdom. Jesus is king because of the cross. The body of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus is what makes the resurrection of Jesus so meaningful. The Gospel of Jesus loudly proclaims an empathetic bond with the suffering. Jesus stands in solidarity with the oppressed by hanging unapologetically on a cross. In 1966, Anthony Pinn, professor of philosophy and religion, declared in the New York Times:

“God’s presence in the world is best depicted through God’s involvement in the struggle for justice… God is so ultimately connected to the community that suffers, that God becomes a part of that community.”

This is how we should understand the Gospel of Jesus. God is so committed to the disinherited that He became them. Not in theory but in praxis. His kingdom can only be proclaimed this way. He wasn’t born in comfort and luxury. He was born in a stable. The wise men gave Him lavish gifts as he slept next to dung and hay. This is the paradox of His kingdom. His death was the culmination of this truth. Jesus lived His life among “the least of these.” He died in the same way.

Proclaiming Jesus is King demands that we unearth these layers emboldened by His kingdom. This interrogation moves us from spiritual and heavenly realms of freedom to earthly and political realizations of freedom. We are forced, by nature of this theological reflection, to confront the physical, economic, political, emotional and mental bondage that exists around us. Luke 4:18–19 reminds us that Jesus came to bring freedom in every way possible. It reminds us that oppression is not our promise. While our freedom is embodied by the cross, it is not constrained to it. It doesn’t rest there. Rather, it enters human history and proclaims victory over every cross — victory over every rooted pillar of oppression.

When West’s Sunday Service began, I was a staunch proponent. I still am. I believe the work is ministry and empowering. I have attended and felt the presence of God. I experienced the peace of God, which West heralds as the conduit of his transformation. The music touched my core and the lyrics touched my heart. For the entire hour, I was reminded how much God loves me. In this way, Sunday Service is the real deal. West’s ability to juxtapose the presence of God in Sunday Service with the message of Christ in his political and social commentary is not.

While I celebrate West declaring Jesus is King, I want to challenge him to embody what it means to say it. To declare Jesus is King, as theological consequence, is to demand liberation from every sphere of oppression. Why? Because Jesus stood in oppressive spaces so we could declare freedom from them. This is the life and ministry of Jesus in full view. West’s dissonance with those suffering under this current administration negates the Gospel of Jesus. His diatribes, including the one in Utah where he disavowed his Blackness in his politics, are problematic. Jesus was informed by the politics of gender when He saved the woman in John 8. Jesus was informed by the politics of race when he saved the centurion’s servant in Matthew 8. Jesus was informed by the politics of “the other” when he healed the ten lepers Luke 17. Jesus was intentional about helping, saving, and being near people facing injustice, ridicule and disassociation. West can talk about the Thirteenth Amendment, prison reform and freedom and all day but if his theology of Jesus can’t create contextual analyses of life and liberty, what is the point?

As a Black man, West recognizes this. In his interview with Big Boy, West called himself a “free man.” West thinks his freedom rests in this vocalization. He thinks he can vote, align his politics, and uphold his truths independent of others. Unbeknownst to him, this “free man” designation is a surname directly linked to the efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau of 1865. But, West’s understanding of freedom isn’t conjoined to the memory of the Black freedom struggle. It isn’t a collective freedom. It isn’t the Freedmen’s Bureau freedom.

On a practical level, I understand. I am not a proponent of group think. I don’t want anyone telling me how to think or process my decisions either. I am, however, a firm believer of communal unity that leads to collective liberty. So, while I don’t want to be told how to think, my faith causes me to align myself with people and positions that yield results for the collective. But, West’s ego — as a “free man,” is bigger than his freedom. American Christianity has derailed him within the tight space of freedom. While freedom is freewill, biblical freedom is about the common good.

In the Bible, the Children of Israel experienced slavery on multiple occasions. They were an enslaved people in Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia and Rome. On every occasion, they entered and exited oppression together. Never as individuals. Always as a nation. This biblical construct of freedom is a “shared freedom.” It obligates its beneficiaries to each other. Whether by speaking truth to power like the prophet Isaiah, shifting governments like Nehemiah or challenging regimes like Jesus, there is never an “I” in biblical freedom.

While West calls himself a “free man,” his hermeneutic of freedom isn’t the one Jesus gives us. For this reason, West’s speeches about Black people are frustrating. The bottom line is this — West needs new spiritual mentors. He needs to find a better means of theological reflection. I recommend conversations with any of the following people:

Yolanda Pierce (Hell without Fires), Kelly Brown Douglass (Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God), Jeremiah Wright (Africans Who Shaped Our Faith), Eboni Marshall Turman (Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church and the Council of Chalcedon), Fredrick Haynes III (Healing our Broken Village), Mike McBride (founding member of Live Free), Keri Day (Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism: Womanist and Black Feminist Perspectives) and William Barber (The Third Reconstruction).

I also recommend the writings of Howard Thurman (Jesus and the Disinherited), Katie Cannon (Interpretation for Liberation) and, of course, James H. Cone (God of the Oppressed).

The Gospel of Jesus cannot be found in American Christianity. By nature of His death, Jesus was an enemy of the state not its friend. Jesus didn’t share “dragon energy” with Pontius Pilate. Jesus’ life and death confronted Pilate’s regime. As such, the Gospel of Jesus confronts oppression. It isn’t married to capitalist hierarchies. It does not make mass incarceration big business. It does not place children in cages along the border. It does not roll back clean water protections in deprived neighborhoods. It doesn’t discriminate in the work place. It doesn’t try to widen the gender pay gap. It doesn’t let the richest families pay a lower tax rate than the working class.

To truly embody the message of Jesus is to embody a multi-dimensional theology. This theology is just as much political as it is eschatological. It is just as much communal as it is personal. It drives us toward radical reimaginations that interrupt our status quos, bind our hope with deeds and centers our faith with action that benefits us all.

In the spirit of the Freedmen’s Bureau, I hope West finds the Gospel of Jesus. Least he be dismantled by the same religion of racism that dismantled the Bureau one month after Howard University celebrated its first collegiate graduation.

Precious Shalom Williams is a graduate of Howard University (BBA) and Duke University (MDiv). She also holds a Certificate of Ministry and Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. When she is not spending time with her husband and two children she is reading, writing and singing.

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