Blazing Trails, Breaching Walls

By DON ROLLINS

“The last Republican that did something for me was Abraham Lincoln.” — former Congresswoman Carrie Meek (D-Fla.)

Another year past, another round of sad farewells to beloved Black pioneers —Black trailblazers in memoriam, who by their courage and examples showed progressives what “speaking truth to power” really looks like.

The roll call of those who’ve left us over the past 12 months is no less commanding than most. Some are broadly familiar, others faintly so. Some are remembered for the fire in their bellies, others for their measured resolve over entire decades. Their names and fields of endeavor always vary, but not their capacity to speak inconvenient truths, be they to lawmakers or corporate executives, police commissioners or school board presidents.

2021 saw the passing of at least three Black pathfinders to be held in holy memory: former congresswoman Carrie Meek, the first Black Floridian to represent that state in the US Congress since Reconstruction; William Sterling Cary, an innovative religious leader and civil rights activist who served as the first Black person elected president of the National Council of Churches, and Lee Elder, the first African American golfer to play in the prestigious Masters Tournament.

It was 1992 when Carrie Pittman Meek, then age 66, ran for and won a seat in Florida’s Miami-Dade district. The granddaughter of an enslaved Black woman, Meek used her political platform to champion anti-poverty programs, aid for Haiti and Haitian Americans, and affirmative action legislation.

Meek was aggressive and earthy in style, regularly calling out congressional Republicans for racially oppressive policies and redistricting. She was not known for compromising.

Meeks retired from politics in 2002, having never lost a political race. She died on Nov. 28, at age 95.

Born in New Jersey on Aug. 10, 1927, Rev. William Cary’s ministerial formation began with ordination as a youth. After earning degrees at Morehouse College and Union Theological Seminary, and serving as a parish minister and denominational administrator, he became a leading voice for black liberation theology.

Cary was among the African American pastors circa in the 1960s and 70s in sympathy with the Black Power movement, labor strikes among farmworkers and economic reparations for African Americans. He was unanimously elected as president of the National Council of Churches in 1972, and finished his ministry in a regional position with the United Church of Christ.

Cary retired in 1994 after helping initiate a wholesale rethinking of progressive religion and justice work. He died on Nov. 14, at age 94.

It was one of those seminal moments when the 40-year-old African American Lee Elder teed up his first ball at the 1975 Men’s Masters Tournament. He’d already proven his skills on the greens, but had until then been denied full status by a wrenching, calculated racism the equal of any other professional sport.

Elder would miss the cut at the ’75 Masters, but go on to play in five more.

In retirement, Elder and his first wife, Rose Harper, founded a host of charities related to poverty and equal access to college. Elder became a statesman for the sport that once denied his very presence.

Lee Elder died on Nov. 28, at age 87.

Short summaries do little to capture the fortitude it takes to be a Black trailblazer for racial justice — a reality those who posit a post-racial America will never fathom or appreciate.

But such ignorance and denial do nothing to lessen the impact these and other Black champions have had for good. So before time marches on, let us take a moment to celebrate those who blazed the trails and breach the walls.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2022

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