African-American Leaders Pray

Historically, African-American people have been known to be very spiritual. From the old negro spirituals sung during slavery, to using prayer as a catalyst for divine intervention during the civil rights movement, spirituality and spiritual practice have shaped the lives of many African-Americans, from the troubled past to our hopeful present. The Ascension Blog would like its readers to be uplifted by the prayers of some of our great black forefathers and foremothers. Their prayers blessed them, and their prayers will certainly bless us too. After reading these special prayers, you will move into a special spiritual space.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: “Giving Thanks for a Committed Life”

 O GOD, our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for this golden privilege to worship thee, the only true GOD of the universe. We come to thee today grateful that thou hast kept us through the long night of the past and ushered us into the challenge of the present and the bright hope of the future. We are mindful, O GOD, that man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of things and humanity is not GOD. Bound by our chains of sin and finiteness, we know we need a savior. We thank thee, O GOD, for the spiritual nature of man. We are in nature but we live above nature. Help us never to let anyone or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Give us the strength to love our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us. We thank thee for thy Church, founded upon the word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray, but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended on us and not upon thee. Then, finally, help us to realize that man was created to shine like the stars and live on through eternity. Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace, help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all of GOD’s children—Black, White Red, and Yellow—will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the kingdom of our LORD and of our GOD, we pray. Amen.

Our most celebrated leader, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., walked everywhere in Montgomery, Alabama during the bus boycott. He was sidestepping snarling dogs, swinging billy clubs, and torrential house fires in Birmingham. We remember the gentle, patient courage of Dr. King as he made the teachings of Jesus the literal rule for loving, which is evidenced in this prayer.

Sojourner Truth: “Do For Me GOD”

O GOD, you know I have no money, but you can make the people do for me, and you must make the people do for me. I will never give you peace till you do, GOD. Amen.

The indefatigable Sojourner Truth, a former slave, who became outspoken in her defense of human dignity, often spoke to GOD in a no-nonsense way. She believed that if she was to do GOD’s work on earth, Divine Providence should be with her each step of the way.

Harriet Tubman: “Unconditional Affirmation”

I’m going to hold steady on YOU, an’ YOU’VE got to see me through. Amen.

This ejaculation was recited regularly by Harriet Tubman when she led runaway slaves to freedom to the North. The nineteenth century “Moses,” herself having been enslaved, never lost a person along the Underground Railroad and attributed her success to her deep belief in GOD. She would say this prayer just as she began to engineer one of her daring escapes.

W.E.B. DuBois: “Give US Grace”

Give us grace to dare to do the deed which we well know cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease, or the words of men’s mouths, or our own lives. Mighty causes are calling us—the freeing of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty—all these and more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifices and death. Mercifully grant us, O GOD, the spirit of Esther, that we say: I will go unto the King and if I perish, I perish. Amen.

Educator and civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois became the first African-American to receive a doctorate from Harvard. He was an agnostic for much of his life. Nonetheless, he wrote dozens of exquisite spiritual entreaties. In the above prayer, he recalls the Old Testament figure of Esther, who daringly confronts her husband, King Xerxes, and demands that he overturns his court’s order to kill all the Jews of the Persian Empire.

Malcolm X: “Prayer to Allah”

I submit to no one but Thee, O Allah, I submit to no one but Thee. I submit to Thee because Thou hast no partner. All praise and blessings come from Thee, and Thou art alone in Thy kingdom. Amen.

This prayer, which stems from the teachings of the Koran, has had some significance in recent U.S. history. To Malcolm X, who was an avowed racist for a good portion of his adult life, it became the catalyst for his personal conversion. On a pilgrimage to the Mecca in 1964, he witnessed tens of thousands of Muslims, including “blond-haired, blue-eyed men I could call my brothers,” reciting these words, and he realized that he could no longer adhere to his prejudices.

Mary McLeod Bethune: “Symphony of Life”

Father, we call Thee Father because we love Thee. We are glad to be called Thy children, and to dedicate our lives to the service that extends through willing hearts and hands to the betterment of all mankind. We send a cry of Thanksgiving for people of all races, creeds, classes, and colors the world over, and pray that through the instrumentality of our lives the spirit of peace, joy, fellowship, and brotherhood shall circle the world. We know that this world is filled with discordant notes but help us, Father, to so unite our efforts that we may all join in one harmonious symphony for peace and brotherhood, justice and equality of all opportunity for all men. The tasks performed today with forgiveness for all our errors, we dedicate, dear Lord, to Thee. Grant us strength and courage and faith and humility sufficient for the tasks assigned to us. Amen.

Born into a family of seventeen children whose parents had once been slaves, Mary McLeod Bethune became one of the most indefatigable voices for global equality and understanding in the immediate years before and after World War II. She was a self-assured educator, activist, and columnist. She found that prayer was one of life’s great comforts. Here she expresses her firm belief in the beauty and diversity throughout the world.

Duke Ellington: “The Duke’s Prayer”

L

    GOD

V

E

In the last years of his life, musician and composer Duke Ellington realized that his time was short and he regretted that he had not fully conveyed in his music his deeply held spirituality. In his quest to add to his legacy, he wrote a series of ecumenical pieces that became part of his Sacred Concerts. In his last Christmas card to his friends, he personally designed this prayer as a personal expression of GOD’s inextricable love for mankind.

Frederick Douglass: “In Search of Freedom”

You are loosed from your moorings and are free; I am fast in my chains and I am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I was free! O that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! Betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O GOD, save me! God deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any GOD? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught or get clear. I’ll try it. I had as well died with ague as the fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! Yes! God helping me, I will. Amen.

Through prayer and introspection, Frederick Douglass tried to make sense of his enslavement on a Maryland Plantation. This piece, calling out to GOD for deliverance, was taken from his riveting autobiography published seven years after his escape to freedom.

Paul Laurence Dunbar: “A Prayer”

O LORD, the hard-won miles

Have worn my stumbling feet:

Oh, soothe me with thy smiles.

And make my life complete.

The thorns were thick and keen

Where’er I trembling trod;

The way was long between

My wounded feet and GOD.

Where healing waters flow

Do thou my footsteps lead.

My heart is aching so;

Thy gracious balm I need. Amen.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American to gain widespread fame as a poet. His ability to use different conversational dialects made his works accessible to a vast audience. This particular prayer was written as a personal retrospection not long before he died at the age of thirty-four, in 1906, from tuberculosis.

George Washington Carver: “Upon Seeing a Sunset”

O GOD, I thank Thee for such direct manifestation of Thy goodness, majesty, and power!

George Washington Carver was an inventor, scientist, and social activist. He believed that human knowledge and the hand of GOD were inextricably linked. While one could not test a personal relationship with GOD to the satisfaction of individuals through human quantification, he believed in the existence of an Almighty and that Divine Providence had a plan for everyone. In composing this simple expression of Thanksgiving, Carver was recording his reactions in witnessing a spectacular sunset not far from his laboratory at Tuskegee University in Alabama.

Coretta Scott King:” A Public Prayer for Divine Perspective”

Eternal and everlasting GOD, who art the Father of all mankind, as we turn aside from the hurly-burly of everyday living, may our hearts and souls, yea our very spirits, be lifted upward to Thee, for it is from Thee that all blessing cometh. Keep us ever mindful of our dependence upon Thee, for without Thee our efforts are but naught. We pray for more Thy divine guidance as we travel the highways of life. We pray for more courage. We pray for more faith and above all we pray for more love. May we somehow come to understand the true meaning of Thy love as revealed to us in life, death, and resurrection of Thy son and our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. May the Cross ever remind us of Thy great love, for greater love no man hath given. This is our supreme example, O GOD. May we be constrained to follow in the name and spirit of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Coretta Scott King, the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote her own spiritual essays and prayers attesting to her abiding faith in GOD. Her spiritual horizons expanded dramatically during her marriage and throughout her life-changing experiences in the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, when she composed this piece.

The prayers of Black people reflect the various elements of our heritage; it also brings forth personal religious beliefs and vital social reform. We are powerful beyond measure when we pray together.

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya