Yesterday I heard Freedom Fighter Ruby Sales speak about social justice activism, including her time with SNCC and her interactions with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Movements are not cozy,” she said. “The FBI targets you in movements. You are jailed in movements. You take bullets in movements. You do it because you are part of something bigger than yourself. You do it because you feel and see and know something worth saving that came before you and will outlive you.” This is the legacy she shares with Dr. King, who left us with his words, his love, his spirituality, and his profound model of resistance. We in America are mere shells without this legacy.
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The Church of Ruby Sales’ Radical Love
Today I had the great honor of witnessing legendary freedom fighter Ruby Sales talk with Middle Collegiate Church Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis in a Q&A entitled “Redeem the Soul of America.” On the docket: Martin Luther King Jr., the SNCC, #blacklivesmatter, the spiritual void of racist capitalism, the colonization of African-American music, and the history of patriarchal white supremacy in the GOP. Miss Ruby took us on such a profound 90-minute journey that it’s impossible to enumerate all her points—she’s against social media-sized reductions, anyway (read books! she said)— but one statement rings in my ears. “I’m not about breaking glass ceilings. I’m about building a new roof.” Listen to this clip of her revolutionary love here.
