Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, should be Alive. They did not deserve to be killed because of their party affiliations as Democrats.
The child who was murdered last Wednesday, September 10, at school in Denver, Colorado, should be alive. There have been 45 school shootings in 2025.
Charlie Kirk should be alive. No one should be executed for their views. Charlie Kirk had some very troubling and hateful views, but he should be playing with his children and loving his wife. Charlie Kirk should not have been murdered for his views, no matter how disturbing they were; he should be alive.
The response to his murder is also extremely troubling. Why did racist white Christian nationalists target HBCUs? Why are public officials and media personalities spewing their toxic rhetoric following the murder of Charlie Kirk? People from Elon Musk, to Representative Nancy Mace, to Steve Bannon, and to actor James Woods, to name a few, have been using his death to attempt to gain leverage in their quest to disrespect the ministry of Jesus Christ. Republican Senator Thom Tillis told the National Journal that “he was really disgusted by some conservatives who used Kirk’s death to say we are at war.” Tillis called remarks like these “a cheap, disgusting, awful way to pretend like you are a leader of a conservative movement.”
And the four little girls who were killed on September 15, 1963, 62 years ago, should have been able to live out their lives. Sadly, they were killed in a cowardly act of hate by white supremacist males in Birmingham, AL, on September 15, 1963, in the Sixteenth Street Baptist church. The names of those girls are Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Carol Denise McNair (age 11), Carole Rosamond Robertson (age 14), and Cynthia Dionne Wesley (age 14). In addition to the girls, two Black boys were shot to death within seven hours of the bombing. Their names are Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware.
These children should not have been murdered. They had never uttered any political views. They had not been a part of any political movement. They had not disparaged any race or ethnic group. They were attending a Sunday hearing about their Savior, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whose whole life and ministry were focused on love, not hate, for anyone.
These babies should not have been killed. They did not raise the flag to half-mast, nor did they offer the weak “thoughts and prayers.” In fact, the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, blocked any prosecution of the perpetrators that the FBI had identified.
We remember these black babies who were targeted by anti-Christian hate against black people. They should not have been killed. They should have been allowed to live out their lives, but because of hate, racism, white supremacy, and the blasphemy of white Christian nationalism, they never got a chance to grow up.
They should not have been murdered, and we will never forget how hypocrisy and hate murdered them.
Question: Why do so many conservatives love the Old Testament more than they love the Lord of the Church, Jesus the Christ of Nazareth?
Be authentic, Be aware and Stay Woke. Uhuru Sassa.
The Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.”
- Rev. John E. Jackson
- Rev. John E. Jackson
- Rev. John E. Jackson
- Rev. John E. Jackson
- Rev. John E. Jackson
