DESCRIPTION:

Interview with Nathaniel Smith, Founder, The Partnership for Southern Equity. 

The Reverend Doctor Melissa Sexton is a post-doctoral fellow in the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine and an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.  Dr. Sexton is completing a practicum with the Interfaith Health Program as part of her fellowship; as part of that work, she is interviewing those with particular insights into the religious and spiritual dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak and our responses to it. 

The interview begins with Nathaniel situating the current challenge of COVID-19 in light of America’s racial history—a history of racial violence but also of great courage.  Drawing on the lessons learned and gains fought for through the civil rights struggle, Nathaniel recounts the vision for founding the Partnership for Southern Equity and its work to champion racial, social, and economic equity.  Such efforts reflect social-political commitments; they also reflect theological and spiritual principles. 

Reflecting on the spiritual dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nathaniel describes how responses have revealed both acts of prophetic leadership and disheartening examples of idolatry where economic concerns have taken priority over human lives.  These issues are theological; in Nathaniel’s home state of Georgia, they are also racial issues.   He calls white Christians not merely to express solidarity with Black friends on social media but also to leverage their own social power to support structural, transformative change.