Something in the Water

A 21st Century Civil Rights Odyssey

Michael W. Waters

• Publisher: Chalice Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780827235496
• eBook ISBN: 9780827235502
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Pastor, award-winning author, and rising civil rights leader Michael W. Waters Stakes Is High, For Beautiful Black Boys Who Believe in a Better World ruminates on the sacred places and spaces he visited as part of a cross-country trek in 2019-2020 through America's racial history. From reflections on the river's edge where Emmett Till's body was recovered and the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and to more recent sites of racial violence like the Charleston church massacre and El Paso mass shooting, to the halls of government for Waters' prayer before the U.S. House of Representatives and his convicting speech before the Dallas City Council to remove Confederate statues, Waters connects our racist past with the current sociological and political climate, offering challenges and hope. From poems and prayers to sermons and eulogies, from rally cries to commentaries, Something in the Water illuminates not just our present struggles, but also the hope and belief in a better day to come. Ultimately, Waters challenges us to consider our role, collectively and individually, in the troubled waters of racism, and what we are willing to do to create something better.

Laments and Public Liturgies

Something in the Water!

John 7:37–38

(Delivered April 28, 2019, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, during the pop-up church service of the Something in the Water Festival)

Lament.

Four hundred years ago, there was something in the water.

It was us, it was our ancestors, kidnapped from the Mother Continent, bound with chains, shoved deep in the hulls of ships named Jesus, Hope, and Desire. The first twenty ancestors landed in 1619, were brought across these Atlantic waters, docked an hour northwest in Jamestown.

There was something else in the water. Our bodies, the bodies of our ancestors, tossed overboard into watery graves that muted their cries. Kidnappers could not collect on a sick body, but they could collect on lost cargo, so overboard we went.

Ever since, there has been something in the water. Something toxic concocted from the decay of the bodies callously thrown overboard. Let’s call it hate. Let’s call it denying the humanity of all God’s creations. Let’s call it forsaking the image of God present in every human countenance. Let’s call it evil.

This something in the water has caused the theft of Native lands. This something in the water has caused the lynching of Black and Brown bodies.

Peer into the water. Do you see it?

Looks like mass incarceration.

Looks like children in cages.

Looks like Flint.

Looks like Standing Rock.

Looks like nine Black bodies bombarded by bullets in Bible study.

Looks like three Black churches burned down in Louisiana.

Looks like redlining.

Looks like the Tuskegee experiment.

Looks like Charlottesville.

Looks like Emmett Till.

There’s something in the water.

Sounds like Eric Garner—I can’t breathe!

Sounds like Michael Brown—hands up, don’t shoot!

Sounds like Tamir Rice.

Sounds like Botham Jean.

Sounds like Sandra Bland.

Sounds like Rekia Boyd.

Sounds like Walter Scott.

Sounds like Freddie Gray.

Sounds like Antwon Rose.

Sounds like hashtag, hashtag, hashtag, hashtag, hashtag …

Sounds like the cries of a mother with three jobs who can’t afford to feed her child. Sounds like self-hate. Sounds like pulling the trigger on another Brother in the set: Nipsey Hussle, rest in peace.

In Lament, we hear the cry of the prophet Habakkuk: “How long, O LORD, must I call for help? But you do not listen! ‘Violence is everywhere!’ I cry, but you do not come to save.”5

We hear Billie Holiday’s cry: “Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh. Then the sudden smell of burning flesh. Strange fruit!”

We hear Pac’s cry: “I suffered through the years and shed so many tears. Lord, I lost so many peers, and shed so many tears.”6

We hear Marvin Gaye’s cry: “Makes me want to holla, throw up my hands. Makes me want to holla, through up my hands!”7

There’s something in the water!

Let the track breathe.

Resist.

There’s something in the water. It’s still us. It is our ancestors.

“Wade in the water. Wade in the water, children. Wade in the water. God’s gonna trouble the water.”8

The water is our refuge. The water is our resistance. The water hides our scent from masters and bloodhounds on our track.

Yes, we resist!

We resist everything that seeks to rob us of our full humanity. We resist everything that seeks to erase our epistemology.

We are created in the image of God! We, too, sing America, Langston Hughes. We are created in the image of God. We are created in the image of God. We are created in the image of God.

We were not born slaves, but kings and queens. Our ancestors gave birth to astronomy, philosophy, medicine, and theology.

We resist! So, we build underground railroads to freedom. We resist. So, we build our own churches!

We resist, so we build our own schools!

We resist. So, we build up our children! We resist! So, we build our own businesses! Burn them down and we build them back … again!

There’s something in the water. Looks like Moses in the Nile. Looks like the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea. Looks like the Children of Israel crossing the Jordan. Looks like Jesus walking on the water.

There’s something in the water! Take me to the water to be baptized!

There’s something in the water. Looks like Sojourner Truth. Looks like Ida B. Wells. Looks like Malcolm X. Looks like Fannie Lou Hamer. Looks like Coretta Scott King.

There’s something in the water. Looks like my momma. Looks like my daddy. Looks like Montgomery. Looks like Birmingham. Looks like Selma. Looks like Ferguson.

Sounds like, “Pharaoh, let my people go!”

Sounds like, “No weapon formed against me shall prosper!”

Sounds like, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around, ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around. I’m gonna keep on walkin’, keep on talkin’, marching down to freedom land!”

Sounds like, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”9

Let the track breathe.

Hope.

There’s something in the water. We are a people of hope because of something in the water. The Spirit of God is in the water. It is the Spirit that has brought us to this place, the very place were our ancestors were brought in chains.

Yes, we know lament.

Yes, we must resist.

But we are a people of hope.

“It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know, a change gon’ come. Yes, it will!”10

We are a people of hope guided by the North Star to liberty!

We are a people of hope, speaking those things that are not as though they were.11

We are a people of hope, co-...

Table of contents

• Praise for Something in the Water
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Poems and Petitions
• Dallas: America’s Capital of Functional White Supremacy
• Laments and Public Liturgies
• Prophetic Proclamations
• Conclusion: Can a Virus Heal America?
• Epilogue
• About the Author