St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church
Sunday, February 12, 2017 — 25-year-old candidate for Cambridge City Council Samuel Gebru delivered an emotional Founder's Day Address to both morning services at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Reverend Ellis I. Washington, Senior Pastor of St. Paul Church, the oldest Black Church in Cambridge, invited Samuel to deliver a keynote address on his personal faith journey as an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, the importance of public service and vocation, the centuries-old history between Ethiopians and African Americans and its ties to the enduring struggle for civil and human rights in Cambridge and nationwide.
Speech as prepared — check against delivery
Founder’s Day Address by Samuel M. Gebru
St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Pastor Ellis: thank you so much for the warm introduction and for extending this great honor to deliver an address to St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church. This congregation is an iconic religious and cultural institution in our city.
To the Reverend and all of my brothers and sisters in Christ: good morning!
I stand before you foremost as a child of God and as a sinner. I ask that you pray for me—pray that I am given the wisdom, patience, humility and compassion necessary to embark on this new life journey of seeking public office.
I am humbled by this opportunity to be here with you, Cambridge’s oldest Black Church, during Black History Month. This is my second speaking engagement at St. Paul. I was invited by my friend and role model Professor Charles Ogletree to participate as a panelist in the 2009 Bishop Richard Allen Lecture Series. Professor Ogletree that year moderated a panel discussion, just one month after President Obama’s historic inauguration, on the impact of his presidency to Black America. I was honored and humbled to participate on that panel as a high school student sitting with distinguished community and political leaders. I thank Kathy Reddick for introducing me to Professor Ogletree and I thank the Reverend Dr. LeRoy Attles for warmly welcoming me to this congregation in 2009.
Like Pastor Ellis, I also had childhood dreams about becoming a commercial airline pilot. I wanted to fly Boeing aircraft all over the world for Ethiopian Airlines. But in 2004, as a 12-year-old 8thgrade student at Cambridgeport School, I quickly learned that God had different plans for me. I had returned to Cambridge from a summer vacation in my native Ethiopia—which was just starting around that time to pick up economically and developmentally after decades of unrest—when one afternoon I stumbled across an Oprah Winfrey Showepisode on Ethiopia. Naturally, I watched.
Oprah’s guest was Dr. Catherine Hamlin, currently a 93-year-old Australian medical doctor who, after over 50 years, still lives and serves in Ethiopia. Catherine and her late husband Reginald Hamlin, both obstetricians and gynecologists, were called to serve in Ethiopia. They were young, passionate and idealistic but firmly grounded in their Christian faith. The Drs. Hamlin arrived in a country that had no modern resources for pregnant women. If you were pregnant in Ethiopia in the 1950s, the message was simply: “good luck!”
The Hamlins set up a program to teach midwives at a government hospital in the capital city of Addis Ababa. What was supposed to be a short-term assignment in Ethiopia turned into a life calling when they learned about the horrors of obstetric fistula, a hole in the tissue between the bladder, vagina and/or rectum. An obstetric fistula, which is commonly found in developing countries like Ethiopia, forms during obstructed childbirth primarily caused by a malposition of the fetus or a small female pelvis, which can be linked to malnutrition. In any country with resources, such as the United States, doctors would perform an emergency C-Section to ensure that the mother and child are safe. No one knows about obstetric fistula because it is non-existent in the developed world. But in countries where childbirth injuries still persist, it is sadly not given the critical attention it deserves because it is an issue that only impacts women.
As I watched this episode after school and learned about the untold horrors that some of my sisters, mothers and aunts face in countries like Ethiopia, I became compelled to act. It was at this exact moment that God revealed to me my true calling—and like Pastor Ellis, my true calling wasn’t flying airplanes. My calling, God’s revelation to me is and was public service—the undying, burning, impatient, loving desire to put others before self, to commit to serving something bigger than oneself and to do it with limitless compassion.
We are taught in Galatians 5:13 (NIV): “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”
Love is the key word. It’s an active word. We are told to serve each other, but to serve with loving humility. Remember my freedoms—my freedom as a man to never have to worry about having a childbirth injury or being pregnant for that matter—my freedom as an American to never have to worry about poor or non-existent health systems—and my freedom as a Cantabrigian, to be blessed with an abundance of opportunities, social programs and services.
I picked up my phone and frantically called my mother at work. The worried woman she is, my mother thought something was wrong. But I called to tell her about obstetric fistula and how I wanted to do something about it. I began a fundraising effort with other Ethiopian American youth in the area, the youngest was in 6thgrade, the oldest in 12thgrade and I was in 8thgrade. In 2005, as a bunch of kids with no fundraising or leadership experience, we were able to finance the fistula repair surgery of 11 women in Ethiopia.
Catherine and Reginald Hamlin refined and perfected the obstetric fistula repair surgery and began operating on women in 1974. The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital has never turned down a woman and all care is free for the patients—but they can only do this through generous contributions. The Hamlins turned despair into dignity—their service to the women of Ethiopia was given humbly and lovingly. The horrors of obstetric fistula include incontinence—losing control over the bladder—shame and segregation from the family and community. The United Nations estimates that more than 2 million women worldwide live in silence with untreated obstetric fistulas with up to 100,000 new cases annually.
Catherine Hamlin’s inspiring story and my subsequent fundraising efforts marked the formal start of my vocation. The word “vocation” has Latin roots, meaning “to do God’s calling”— a sort of spiritual call to arms. In an ethics and moral leadership course I took in college, we discussed vocation as being the intersection between God’s will and our talents, skills and passions.
In his book Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, author Frederick Buechner correctly states: “The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” That place, that intersection is vocation. My “deep gladness” is serving others. And the “deep hunger” in this instance of my life was maternal health. Early on, I learned that a problem doesn’t have to be your problem for it to be a problem. Women’s health and women’s rights matter to me although I will never have to deal with the issues they face.
I was raised in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and remain a devout follower. I was baptized as an infant, grew up serving on the choir, became somewhat of an equivalent to an altar boy and also taught Sunday School as a teenager. For a while, I had a desire to become an ordained deacon. But, as anyone here can attest, there are many ways to serve Christ and I feel I better serve the Lord and my fellow humans through my work in politics, public service and philanthropy than as an ordained clergyman.
However, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church will always guide my life. The Church is more than my religious institution, it’s my culture, my identity—the Church informs my faith and work. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is inseparable to Ethiopian identity and history. Until the 1974 ouster of Emperor Haile Selassie, the Church was the state. Ethiopia’s monarchs drew their power and legitimacy from the Church Fathers. Further, Ethiopia’s unique calendar, alphabet, numerical system and musical notations all have their roots in the Church. God is truly Ethiopia’s compass.
For a country that was never colonized, an Ethiopian clergyman friend of mine always likes to remind me that Ethiopia was actually colonized by the Holy Spirit—and very early on! As Pastor Ellis jokingly said to me the other day, “Y’all are the original Christians!” Long before Europe turned to Christ, Ethiopians were practicing an ancient form of Christianity that dates back to Phillip the Evangelist and the Ethiopian eunuch. The Acts of the Apostles 8:26-40 teaches us the story of the Ethiopian eunuch, who was minister of finance to Queen Candace of the Ethiopians. We know her as Queen Gersamot Hendeke VII, who ruled from ca. 42-52 AD.
The Ethiopian was in Jerusalem to worship—we know he wasn’t pagan. The Ethiopian Royal Court was Black and Jewish before Christ. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba’s Old Testament relationship produced a son, King Menelik (“son of the wise man”), and with that the beginning of the Ethiopian Solomonic Dynasty, which ended in 1974 with Emperor Haile Selassie.
Phillip found the eunuch reading the Book of Isaiah and ultimately baptized him—sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. The Ethiopian eunuch returned to the Royal Court spreading the Good News and there began the early roots of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which was formally established in the early 300s AD.
Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and Ethiopia itself have long captivated the imaginations of the African American and African Caribbean people. Since enslavement, African Americans were told that they were worthless—marked by God to be damned eternally as slaves. But that is where Ethiopia came into the picture. Ironically, when Black slaves were told that they were condemned by God, the Christianity that their masters used to justify their ability to enslave Blacks was the same religion that African Americans found comfort within.
The slaves read Amos 9:7, which compared the children of Israel to the children of Ethiopia. And perhaps most famously, they read Psalm 68:31 (NKJV), “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”
Beloved: how could a people that were deemed sub-human be held in an important capacity within the religion that was used to enslave them? It simply couldn’t be done. And the African American slaves knew that, too. So there became a sense of promise with Ethiopia. There became a sense of imagination, inspiration and comfort with Ethiopia. They would proudly proclaim, “No, I’m not your slave—I’m an Ethiopian!”
Ethiopia to African Americans was and still is an institution; it’s an identity, much beyond just a state with clearly defined borders. The Ancient Greeks referred to all the lands south of Egypt as Ethiopia, meaning the “land of sun-burnt people.” Even here, in the United States, there was an African American regiment that fought in the Revolutionary War for the Continental Army called “Allen’s Ethiopians,” named after your founder, Bishop Richard Allen. During the colonial-era Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was the torchbearer of African unity and self-determination. Ethiopia remains the spiritual and ancestral home for all oppressed people of African descent, especially in the diaspora, a place where they would find unity in diversity, strength in sovereignty and trust in God.
The history between Ethiopians and other African Americans spans over 200 years. While most of us think that Ethiopians initially came to the United States as refugees in the 1970s and 1980s, they actually came as merchants and scholars as far back as the early 19th century. Of course, this was the era of enslavement. For Ethiopians who came from a sovereign country led by Black African Christian monarchs, it was unsettling to see the effective dehumanization of Blacks in America. This was the very foundation of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, one of the most well-known African American institutions in the United States that is named after Abyssinia, the ancient name of Ethiopia.
After Ethiopian merchants refused to worship in segregated congregations in New York, they were able to work with free African Americans to establish the Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1808. To celebrate their bicentennial, the Church’s current pastor, the Reverend Dr. Calvin Butts III, and nearly 200 members of his congregation went on a pilgrimage to Ethiopia. This was in the words of brother James Weldon Johnson, “True to our God, true to our Native Land.”
Ethiopia was and still is featured prominently in African American literature, culture, arts and politics. In 1896 when Ethiopia defeated Italy in the Battle of Adwa, in what was Africa’s first victory over a European colonizer, poet Paul L. Dunbar wrote “Ode to Ethiopia” in which he proudly proclaimed, “Be proud, my race, in mind and soul.” When Italy tried to invade Ethiopia again in the 1930s, poet Langston Hughes wrote “Call of Ethiopia”:
Ethiopia
Lift your night-dark face,
Abyssinian
Son of Sheba’s race!
Your palm trees tall
And your mountains high
Are shade and shelter
To men who die
For freedom’s sake
But in the wake of your sacrifice
May all Africa arise
With blazing eyes and night-dark face
In answer to the call of Sheba’s race:
Ethiopia’s free!
Be like me,
All of Africa,
Arise and be free!
All you black peoples,
Be free! Be free!
Ethiopia and the United States formally established diplomatic relations in 1903 and the first trade deal was conducted a year prior in 1902. The U.S. purchased over $800,000 in coffee. By the way, if you didn’t already know this: Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee; it’s the only place in the world where the coffee bean grows wild.
The first official Ethiopian delegation to the United States was in 1919. The Ethiopian delegation did two very important things that still resonate with the African American community. First, they spoke out against the dehumanization and racial segregation that Blacks experienced. This move, in what could have been regarded to as being very undiplomatic, was at a time when Jim Crow laws ruled the United States. Ironic to African Americans was the very warm reception that the Ethiopians—Blacks—received. The second most important thing worth mentioning was that the Ethiopian delegation sent a standing invitation to African Americans to repatriate to Ethiopia. Today, thousands of African American and African Caribbean people have relocated to Ethiopia and are undertaking significant economics investments, settling all over the country, including in the famous Jamaican settlement of Shashemene, south of Addis Ababa.
Decades later, when Italy tried to invade Ethiopia in the 1930s, the Ethiopian resistance was aided by great support from African Americans. It was at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York where African Americans gathered daily to organize and discuss how to protect Ethiopia’s sovereignty. African Americans forfeited their U.S. citizenship to join the Ethiopian military. Perhaps most famously, Tuskegee airman Col. John C. Robinson, nicknamed “The Brown Condor,” joined the Ethiopian resistance and contributed significantly to the advancement of the Ethiopian Air Force. The Brown Condor and other African Americans such as Col. Hubert F. Julian supported the establishment of Ethiopian Airlines in the 1940s by helping train some of the first pilots. There’s a plot of land in Addis Ababa where some of these African Americans are buried today, including the Brown Condor. These proud men and women of faith and valor were true to their God and certainly true to their native land.
The undying inspiration many African Americans continue to receive from Ethiopia as our collective spiritual and ancestral homeland helped inspire many Black greats over the centuries like Prince Hall, Phillis Wheatley, Robert Alexander Young, Henry Louis Gates, Alain Locke, Madam C.J. Walker and her daughter A’Lelia Walker, Nat Turner, W.E.B. Du Bois, Meta Warrick Fuller, Cornel West and many others.
The inspiration and promise of Ethiopia helped inspire African Americans from enslavement to Civil Rights. It helped the Right Reverend Richard Allen and his colleagues when they, as free African Americans, founded the AME Church. And since 1870, this congregation, St. Paul Church, and the entire AME Church has been deeply involved in political and social activism.
The Civil Rights Movement did not end in 1964. We are still fighting for the promise of our great country. We are still fighting to be included in the American Dream. The Black Church, with its spiritual ties to Ethiopia and Pan-Africanism, has served as the bedrock for this movement. The Black Church gave us a young Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr., whose hallowed words would go on to change the course of our great nation.
Our struggles as Africans and African Americans are not mutually exclusive. Our identity and histories are shared. Our values similar. And our God, one.
Emperor Haile Selassie advocated for all Black people, regardless of location, origin and religion, to learn, preserve and defend their history. In his hallmark 1936 speech to the League of Nations, which would earn him TIME Magazine’s Man of the Year, the King of Kings underscored the concepts of self-determination and collective security for all Black people, not just Ethiopians. It’s what he advocated for in 1963 when he was in the United States on a state visit with President John F. Kennedy. It’s what he did, when he financed and supported Black liberation movements in Africa and the Caribbean.
We, all of us here, especially the young ones like me, must be aware of the rich and vast history and achievements we come from. Our histories are not mutually exclusive. Our identity is shared beyond borders. Our unity as the children of God is what will achieve our ultimate desire of a Cambridge, an America and a world that is inclusive, free and just.
And I’ll be the first to say: without the blood, sweat and tears of African Americans, who fought for racial equality and respect for civil and human rights in the United States, we Ethiopian and other African immigrants would not be able to join people of other races in restaurants, universities and in the workplace. As much as African Americans value Ethiopia, we Ethiopians must mutually value the achievements and perseverance of those who paved the way for us to enjoy our freedoms in this great country. Indeed, we are all indebted to them.
The Civil Rights Movement is not over. The movement is still alive in Cambridge. The movement lives on through you, through me and through our institutions like St. Paul Church. It is only under God that we can work towards a better, more inclusive Cambridge.
Scripture teaches us to “encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone” and that as we have freely received, we shall freely give. We are taught to “bear one another’s burdens.” It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that we live in a community with inclusive housing for all. It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that those at the decision-making table represent our values. It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that our economy and public education system provide opportunity for all.
As an immigrant raised by a single mother, I know firsthand the challenges so many of our Black and immigrant families are facing in Cambridge and beyond, especially those headed by single mothers. I am a witness to how strength in the Lord can carry oneself from hardship to joy. I am a witness to the power that I have—that we all have—when we take upon the shield of faith against darkness and despair. And with the current political unrest throughout our great nation, now more than ever we must be firm and steadfast in our faith and values.
Beloved: The Movement is not over when so many of our families are getting priced out of their homes.
Beloved: The Movement is not over when the public education system leaves behind our most vulnerable.
Beloved: The Movement is not over when we work two or three jobs just to be considered low income.
Beloved: The Movement is not over when the people making decisions for us don’t listen to us.
Beloved: The Movement is not over when the new innovation jobs aren’t for us.
Beloved: The Movement is not over until everyone in our city, state, country and indeed everyone in God’s great Earth has the opportunity to realize their fullest potential.
Beloved: The Movement is us and the time is now!
I thank you!