An Open Letter from the Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to the United States Congress
To the sitting and incoming members of the House of Representatives and the Senate:
There is no honor in holding office while failing to fulfill its duties. When the people you have sworn to serve are being harmed, your silence is betrayal.
You were not elected to protect the powerful from accountability. You were elected to protect the people from the abuse of power.
We write as bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church—a church born of resistance to racial exclusion and sustained by the conviction that no human being was created to live beneath another’s heel.
We speak from the experience of Black America: the labor of Black women too often taken for granted; the dignity of Black men too often denied; the hopes of Black children too often deferred. We speak from congregations that feed the hungry, bury the victims of violence, care for the sick, and help families survive what public policy has failed to prevent, and push to turn out the vote every time there is an election.
We have always understood our obligation to all of humanity. A government permitted to deny one community its rights places every community’s rights in danger.
An election confers authority. It does not excuse cruelty, cancel constitutional duties, or elevate any leader above the law.
Congress must do more than express concern. It must act boldly, swiftly, and with the courage this moment demands.
What We Require of Congress
1. Tell the truth about the harm.
Name the harm done. Acknowledge the damage caused by racial discrimination, voter suppression, economic exclusion, and attacks on civil and human rights. Hear the people who bear that damage—not as talking points, but as witnesses.
Reconciliation without truth asks the wounded to make peace with the wound.
2. Account for every person in government custody and prosecute criminal behavior by ICE.
Investigate reports of unlawful detention, disappearances, and the denial of due process involving immigration enforcement and other federal agencies.
Account for every person detained. Give families answers. Ensure access to counsel and lawful proceedings. It is morally reprehensible to have children representing themselves in court. Hold officials responsible where evidence establishes abuse.
3. Defend equal opportunity.
Protect lawful diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts against political intimidation, misrepresentation, and irrational dismantling.
Those long denied opportunity deserve access, not another demand to wait their turn.
Protect fair access to education, employment, and public opportunity.
4. Investigate corruption without fear or favor.
Public office is a public trust—not a private inheritance, a family business, or a license for self-enrichment.
Investigate credible allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest, and misuse of public resources. Follow the evidence. Where the law has been broken, pursue accountability regardless of party, wealth, or position.
5. Protect the necessities of life.
Repeal or amend provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that reduce access to health care, food assistance, and educational opportunity.
Protect Medicaid and SNAP. Reject measures that place heavier burdens on students, seniors, people with disabilities, and families already struggling to survive.
When Congress finds billions for war and tax breaks for the wealthy but pleads poverty when children need food and families need health care, the issue is not scarcity. It is priorities.
6. Protect and strengthen affordable health care.
Defend the Affordable Care Act, and expand access to affordable coverage, prescription medicines, mental health services, and essential treatment. Protect the hospitals and clinics on which underserved communities depend.
7. Defend the vote.
Protect access to the ballot, safeguard fair elections, and confront intimidation and discriminatory voting practices.
Congress must answer Louisiana v. Callais with legislation that strengthens the Voting Rights Act and establishes enforceable safeguards against discriminatory and partisan manipulation of electoral maps. The response must be more than condemnation. It must be law.
The people’s right to choose their government must never be subject to the approval of those already in power.
8. Refuse indifference to Africa and the African diaspora.
Restore the money that was cut from USAID, costing millions of lives and contributing to the spread of famine and disease worldwide.
Support humanitarian relief, civilian protection, diplomacy, and peacebuilding in Sudan, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and across the Sahel and North Africa.
Protect refugees and displaced families. Reject racial preferences in refugee admissions, including any policy that privileges white South Africans while denying Black applicants equal consideration.
9. Choose peace over destruction.
Congress must not allow its conscience to be strangled by AIPAC funding or any other source of political money. No contribution should purchase silence about civilian suffering. Your oath is to the Constitution. Your duty is to the people—not to those who finance your campaigns.
We stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and Palestine. Israel must be safe, and Palestine must be safe. We call for an immediate end to war in Iran and the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Use the powers of Congress to protect civilians, support humanitarian relief, and pursue a just peace. Stop allowing corruption to cost lives.
The Choice Before You
Your oath binds you to the Constitution—not to a party, a president, or a donor. You answer to the people. And the command to love your neighbor demands more than words: it demands laws that protect the vulnerable and the courage to confront those who exploit them.
The time for pleading patience is over. People are suffering while you deliberate over the political cost of defending them. Every delay has a human price, and those already wounded are being forced to pay it. Their exhaustion is not consent. Their silence is not absolution. And a unity purchased with their rights is not peace—it is surrender to injustice.
Use the power entrusted to you. Stop the harm.
May the God of justice awaken your conscience and strengthen your courage. Go forth united in resolve, faithful to your oath, and ready to do what justice demands. Amen.
Respectfully,
The Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
Bishop Marvin C. Zanders II, President
Bishop Francine A. Brookins, Secretary
Bishop Wilfred J. Messiah, Senior Bishop
“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
—Amos 5:24 (NRSV)
