In the Meantime 

By Claire B. Crawford, Contributing Writer

My two favorite words are amen and freedom. I feel something when I hear and say them. I’ve been searching for amenand freedom lately, returning to words of comfort from many ancestors as guidance and calling upon the words of Maria Stewart, June Jordan, and Ida B. Wells because I continue to ask myself what I should be doing with my life, given our current political culture. I find myself humming the word freedom as I search for it in my everyday life, in the eyes of students, in the voice of my grandmother, and in the common nods of strangers. In November, like Raphael Warnock stated at the Democratic National Convention, my vote was a prayer, and my casting of it was an amen. Yet, it isn’t so, and despair and wonder cover me as headlines of violence and nonbelonging arise, reminders of a world led in chaos and in an order meant to disorder the majority of us. I’ve found myself sitting in county party precinct meetings with other nervous American citizens, on sidewalks listening to the fears of others, and on pews praying for miracles. Questions run across many minds, and then I’m reminded that dreaming alongside others is where our power begins. 

As a Political Science Professor, I stand before students, and they ask, “What can we do now?” I’ve stood before older folks in Winston-Salem, NC, and they, too, ask me, “What can they do now?” Over the last several months, I’ve lent my knowledge to participate in ongoing acts of community building. I have engaged with individuals full of fear, those lacking hope, and those who are enraged and nervous. Often, I, too, feel the tiredness in my heart and the blurriness in my vision. I’ve tried to find the words that lead me back to amen and freedom. I have recently settled on in the meantime.

In the meantime, I remember what I learned from my church community at a young age, at First Saint Paul AME Church in Lithonia, Georgia, love, fellowship, faith, and imagination are core to a just world. I take that faith I learned on a pew and apply it to my civic world. Dr. Vincent Harding, on his 81st birthday, stated, “I am, you are, a citizen of a country that does not yet exist, and that badly needs to exist.” What if we just have to be the citizens of that country that does not exist yet? A world yet to come begins with my actions today, even in the smallest ways, a nod at my neighbor, calling the name of a houseless person whom I see daily, a human connection is how we begin to map a new world. 

In the meantime, I’ll live a life of politics, where my freedom is connected to yours; therefore so is my breath. Thus, I need you to survive so we can both live. There is a fire in the air. Let the fire be our guide, like the pillar of fire by night that has led our people before somewhere in the meantime. Take that fire and don’t falter; find it in others. This isn’t about comments or headlines, but about our souls and the Earth we occupy, which need all of us this time. I am going to breathe it in and let it out. 

No more weeping

No more weeping over me

And before I’d be a slave

I’d be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free.

Oh freedom,

Oh, freedom, Oh, freedom,

Oh, freedom over me.

The next time I hum freedom and amen, I hope to hear yours close to mine in the distance from the pew to the streets, on porches, and in offices alike. This isn’t about political parties, but in your wildest imaginable possibilities, imagine a world of us, where we all get to breathe and thrive. In the meantime, I need you to dream of life and live in love. We are living in a critical juncture that calls for us to refuse in the meantime as we survive a nightmare yet again. In the meantime, I have faith that love liberates. We deserve to live in dignity, care, and protection. Don’t turn away from the present; start living your freedom dream. It is always our time to believe, act, and dream. And I’ll live my wildest dream of a world to come in the meantime.