Getting to the Promised Land by Kevin W. Cosby

That line- we, as a people, will get to the promised land-has occupied a permanent place in my mind. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.

And in what is now both a poignant and strikingly premonitory aspect of that speech, King reflects on his own mortality, alluding to a scene from the Bible: Like any man, I would like to live a long life, he says. was assassinated less than twenty-four hours after he gave what many consider to be the greatest speech of his life. Cosby calls all Americans to move from a place of relative nonengagement and detachment to a place of active support of ADOS’s efforts for justice and healing.

In the stories of Nehemiah and other biblical leaders, Cosby finds inspiration on how to rebuild Black America including the necessity of government reparations for ADOS. After learning about his people’s dire situation in Jerusalem, Nehemiah wept and was moved to lead efforts to rebuild the wall around the city with money (reparations) obtained from the imperial government. A Jew born in exile, Nehemiah landed a somewhat privileged position in the Persian king's court. Cosby lays out the first theology of the ADOS movement, turning the traditional lens of Black liberation theology from Moses leading escaped Hebrew slaves in Exodus to other biblical leaders like Solomon, Daniel, and Nehemiah. But the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) hold a unique claim to economic and reparative justice: for ADOS, after all, is the only group whose ancestors were forcibly brought to America, enslaved, built much of the wealth of the country, yet continue to be specifically excluded from the same social, political, and economic rights of other Americans. Too often, all oppressed people in America are lumped together under the moniker 'people of color,' as if each group's experience under the yoke of systemic racism has the same economic and social repercussions.

Getting to the Promised Land by Kevin W. Cosby