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May 3
Septima Clark, Pete Seeger, Leyla Zana, and Sarah the Martyr
David Barnhart
May 03, 2025
The Dark Hedges, Ireland, 2022. Own photo.
Today’s a long one, because there’s lots of “Good Troublemakers” to celebrate.
Today in 1963, Bull Connor set fire hoses and police dogs on children who were marching for civil rights in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama. His violent tactics garnered national attention and helped sway public opinion toward the struggle for Black freedom.
Today is the birthday, in 1898, of Septima Poinsette Clark. She was a teacher and an advocate for Black teachers. When South Carolina banned teachers from participating in the NAACP, she refused and was fired from her job. After working at the Highlander Folk School, she created “Citizenship Schools” as a way of empowering Black people to read and vote. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to her as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.
Today is also the birthday of Pete Seeger, in 1919. I shared about this saint on January 27.
Today is the birthday, in 1961, of Leyla Zana, a contemporary saint who speaks up for the Kurdish people and against human rights abuses in Turkey against the fascist regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. She has been outspoken about her philosophy of nonviolence, but has been imprisoned multiple times over accusations of being a “terrorist.”
Today is the feast day of Sarah the Martyr, who died in 303. One of the miracles associated with her was that when she feared they would not survive an ocean storm, she baptized her two sons herself. When she brought them to the pope to be “properly” baptized, the water miraculously froze and they were unable to be baptized. This showed that God considered their baptisms - by a layperson and a woman - to be valid.
Reflection:
Regarding Septima Poinsette Clark’s middle name, it is fitting to note that her father’s enslaver was a U.S. Representative and the Secretary of War, after whom the flower was named. The flower’s indigenous name is “cuetlaxochitl.” You can learn more about it here, and why we should probably stop referring to it by his name.
Regarding her teaching, it is also fitting that yesterday we remembered Paulo Friere, whose philosophy of liberation through grassroots education was preceded by Septima Clark’s work.
She said,
“I just tried to create a little chaos. Chaos is a good thing. God created the whole world out of it. Change is what comes of it.”
She also said,
“We consciously taught the message that we all lose when there is violence, and we can all win if we can find a way to resolve our differences without being destructive.”
She also said,
How could it be that a nation which said, “Give me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” a nation which has literally salvaged so many of the down-trodden of Europe, a nation which has created the highest standard of living known to man; a nation which has established the unique idea of education for all its citizens; a nation whose technological achievements have caught the imagination of the world—how is it that the citizens of such a nation seem overwrought with a sense of chaos?
On a personal level I was awed by the very idea of chaos on a world wide basis. Henry Brooks Adams (historian and philosopher) said, “Chaos often breeds life.” James Walden Johnson (author and educator) in his epic poem “The Creation” said that God viewed chaos and cried out, “I’ll make me a world.”
Therefore it seems to me that the chaos we had created in the richness of the earth, in our variety of governments and institutions and in the minds of “We the People” present us now with a very special gift, the opportunity to breed new life for all of us.
Leyla Zana has said,
I have defended democracy, human rights, and brotherhood between peoples. And I’ll keep doing so for as long as I live.
I love life and want to hold onto it. But my passion for justice for my tormented people, for their dignity and freedom, must be greater still. For of what value is a life of slavery, of humiliation and contempt for that which you hold most dear: Your identity! I will therefore not give in to the Turkish Inquisition.
Prayer: God, you created everything out of chaos. Help us not to fear chaos, but to strive for justice and holiness in the midst of it. Amen.