When You Pray, Move Your Legs
By Antjuan Seawright, 7th Episcopal District
Whether we think of autumn’s cooler weather, the full harvest moon, Halloween’s candy corn, or funnel cakes at the county fair, October means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Regardless which of your heartstrings the month’s memories pull at, this year’s ripe pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns should remind us that we are just days away from the most consequential election of our lifetimes.
Wait…that’s wrong. My lifetime doesn’t yet stretch to 40 years and the longest-lived person in America currently claims 115 years. This is more important than that. In fact, it’s worth arguing that our nation hasn’t seen an Election Day this important since November 6, 1860.
That’s not hyperbole. That’s just how much is at stake. Whoever you are and wherever you live, on Tuesday, November 3, everything you care about will be on the ballot. Take a second and think about that.
If you’re like me, you say your prayers every day. I am going to assume that some of those prayers may have gotten a little more urgent since November 2016. I know mine have.
We’ve been praying for the chance to stand up for who you know we are and who we can be as a people. We’ve been praying to turn this nation away from violence, bigotry, and hate. We’ve been praying as our faith and the AME Church teaches. However, now, we can’t afford to rely on prayer alone. Like that great abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, “I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”
Regardless of where we first heard that expression—in the classroom, at Vacation Bible School, or sitting around the Sunday supper table—the meaning remains the same and it matters. It means that if we believe in prayer, we have to be the miracle. We have to do the work. We have to move like AMEs with purpose. We have to vote.
Let’s be honest. From abolishing slavery to standing up for economic, social, and equal justice for all, we have stepped forward every time our nation has needed political realignment or recalibration. It needs us again. So, it’s time to move our legs as we pray and be the change for which we pray.
Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic political strategist, founder, CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC, and a CBS News political contributor. Follow him on Twitter @antjuansea.
