Nora Grace-Flood photo
Rev. Eldren Morrison: “The church has lost its activist spirit."
A former New Haven-based faith leader returned to Dixwell Avenue Monday to lift up Martin Luther King Jr.‘s legacy of church-led progressive political action.
That pastor is Rev. Eldren Morrison.
On Monday, Morrison traveled north from his current job helming the Shaw Temple African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Smyrna, Georgia to serve as the featured guest preacher at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day service at Newhallville’s First Calvary Baptist Church at 605 Dixwell Ave.
Monday’s sermon and service marked a homecoming of sorts for Morrison, who previously led Dixwell’s historic Varick AME Zion Church — and who founded Booker T. Washington Academy and chaired the city’s Board of Fire Commissioners — before heading south to lead a larger congregation in 2016.
The service also marked a campaign stop of sorts in Morrison’s run for national office as Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
Over his roughly half-hour-long sermon at First Calvary, Morrison focused on the idea that the Black church has played — and must continue to play — a prominent role in progressive national politics.
“The church has lost its activist spirit,” Morrison mourned as a packed audience of hundreds of attendees “Amen’d” in agreement. “The Black Lives Matter movement has almost no connection to churches in our cities,” he offered as an example. “We’re ineffective in our communities… We’re Pentecostal, but we’re powerless… We’re Baptist, but we’re broke.”
Monday's audience.
He stressed time and again that King fought for education and economic justice for African Americans. And that contemporary church leaders must do the same.
“We see this white-washed Dr. King, we celebrate a domesticated Jesus,” he said.
In reality, Morrison said, today’s leaders need to follow in King’s footsteps by introducing and advocating for “good trouble” — whether that’s demanding justice for Randy Cox, the New Havener paralyzed while in police custody this past summer, condemning the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, or demanding reparations for African Americans to help compensate for centuries of enslavement and discrimination.
“He came to see revolution as central to the church’s primary reason for being,” Morrison said of King.
“Whenever you start breaking generational curses, that’s good trouble,” he added. “Whenever you start calling out racist systems, that’s good trouble.”
“The Black church needs to get back into good trouble,” Morrison continued. “Every generation needs new leaders to keep the church relevant… where are our Dr. Kings?”
Then, he expressed his own church-political aspirations: “I’m running for Bishop,” he announced. “And every Christian ought to demand change in the Black community, because Black lives do matter!”
State Sen. Gary Winfield.
As Morrison alternated preached on King’s legacy, he was joined by a slate of local politicians and religious leaders who also evoked the words, policies, and actions of the late civil rights icon.
While in line to speak as the guest preacher at the Greater New Haven Clergy Association’s service – hosted by Rev. Dr. Boise Kimber, who leads First Calvary – Morrison was accompanied by state Attorney General William Tong, New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield, and former city Mayor Toni Harp.
Among those spotted in the crowd of hundreds attending the service were Mayor Justin Elicker, Democratic mayoral challenger Tom Goldenberg, and potential Democratic mayoral challenger Liam Brennan. Host Rev. Boise Kimber, meanwhile, also stood ready to speak to his own run for President of the National Baptist Convention.
Rev. Boise Kimber.
Between musical performances of pieces like the Black National Anthem and readings of Bible verses, Harp welcomed Morrison back to New Haven and celebrated his own legacy as a King-like leader championing equitable education and empowerment. Tong reflected on the small-scale work required to catalyze the kind of change King has become symbolic of championing on a global scale. And Winfield urged everyone to consider freedom in terms of economic and intellectual independence, as King did.
Morrison catches up with Mayor Elicker post service.
Hi readers, this is New Haven Independent Editor Tom Breen, writing in to explain why I removed a section at the end of this article about a fundraising pitch made at the end of Monday's service. I received a call this morning from a few people who attended the service who took great umbrage with the fundraising part of the article. The people who reached out were not involved in the organizing of the event and did not stand to benefit from the fundraising, and are community members whose opinions and perspectives I value. They argued that the way that the article presented the fundraising at the end of the story was disrespectful to the service and its attendees and unduly overshadowed the central message of the service about revitalizing a progressive political activism in the Black church. While my colleague Nora did not do anything wrong or write anything inaccurately in her reporting on the fundraising pitch at the very end of the service, I believe I erred as editor in my inclusion of that section at the end of the article. After reflecting on it a bit more, I decided to edit the article again, remove the section about the closing fundraising pitch, and remove the comments piling on about the fundraising pitch. Again, while I don’t believe anything in the original article was inaccurate, I also see my responsibility as editor of a local news site as being open to good-faith criticisms from readers and community members. Thank you for reading, and I'm sorry for my initial mistake as editor and for causing confusion by editing the piece.