November 18

Harry T. Moore, Howard Thurman, and Margaret Atwood

Author

David Barnhart
November 18, 2025

Kohlrabi, 2025. Own photo.

Today is the birthday of Harry T. Moore, in 1905, who, along with his wife, Harriet, were teachers and civil rights activists. They were the first victims of the Civil Rights Movement on Christmas night in 1951, when members of the Klan bombed their home. They had been registering people to vote and exposing lynchings and crimes committed by the police. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1899, of Howard Thurman, pastor, theologian, and civil rights leader. 

Today is the birthday of author Margaret Atwood, in 1939, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, among many other things. I include her in my list of saints because in her fiction as well as her essays, she shares insights about faith and Christianity that I believe are accurate and helpful, especially for our time (see below). 

Reflection: 

Among too many other quotable sayings, Howard Thurman said these timely things: 

“During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.”

and

“If a man is convinced that he is safe only as long as he uses his power to give others a sense of insecurity, then the measure of their security is in his hands. If security or insecurity is at the mercy of a single individual or group, then control of behavior becomes routine. All imperialism functions in this way.”

Margaret Atwood, as quoted by Anna Czarnik-Neimeyer (this link goes to her blog, which is worth a read): 

“People have sometimes said to me, ‘Oh this book [The Handmaid’s Tale] is really anti-religion.’

And I’ve said, ‘No, that’s not the point.’

Religion has been- and is in other parts of the world today- used as a hammer to whack people on the heads with.

But it also has been- and is today- a sustaining set of beliefs and community that gets people through those things.

So, in my book, I have the regime doing what totalitarian regimes do, which is eliminating the competition. They get rid of all the other religions as much as they can, and some of them go underground. Noteworthily, of course, the Quakers take the role that they have before, setting up underground escape routes for people. So [religion] has always had those two kinds of functions.”

In The Year of the Flood, Atwood shares songs from a fictional religious group dedicated to environmental restoration. Here are the lyrics to one of them: 

“Who is it tends the Garden,
The Garden oh so green?
’Twas once the finest Garden
That ever has been seen.
And in it God’s dear Creatures
Did swim and fly and play;
But then came greedy Spoilers,
And killed them all away.

And all the Trees that flourished
And gave us wholesome fruit,
By waves of sand are buried,
Both leaf and branch and root.
And all the shining Water
Is turned to slime and mire,
And all the feathered Birds so bright
Have ceased their joyful choir.

Oh Garden, oh my Garden,
I’ll mourn forevermore
Until the Gardeners arise,
And you to Life restore.

— From The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook”

Prayer: God, we are in a cosmic battle between the forces of human greed and wealth accumulation, on the one hand, and the Earth and her living beings, on the other. Help your gardeners to arise and lead. Amen.