Do It Afraid: A Sankofa Pilgrimage in the American South

Think. Learn. Say. Do.

Do it afraid.

That is how we began our pilgrimage together—gathered around quotations about reproductive injustice, racial violence, and courageous resistance. Among them were the words of Claudette Colvin, who was only fifteen years old when she refused to surrender her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus—nine months before Rosa Parks.

Reflecting on that moment, Colvin said, “It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other.… I couldn’t get up” (NPR/Margot Adler).

Colvin did not remain seated because she was unafraid. After she was arrested and the jail door closed behind her, fear and panic came over her. Still, she had already acted. Her story gave our group language for the posture we would need throughout our journey: Do it afraid.

The words we encountered before our departure prepared us for the difficult histories that awaited us on our Sankofa pilgrimage. Rooted in the Akan concept of Sankofa, the journey reminded us that we must look back and retrieve what has been forgotten if we are to move wisely and faithfully into the future.

Relacionado: How a cross-cultural trip brought Revelation 7:9 to life

Fifty ambassadors from the Iglesia Reformada en América convened in Atlanta, Georgia, where we visited the historic Old Fourth Ward before traveling to Alabama with our first stop in Tuskegee. From there, we journeyed to Selma and walked alongside the Rev. Cora Taitt and her resilient classmates from 1968—veterans of that historic era.

In Montgomery, we walked streets worn by the footsteps of those who sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott. We eventually made our way to worship in the profound tradition of the Southern Black Baptist church. Throughout it all, the Rev. Sharon Atkins served, led by the Holy Spirit among us—a soaring songbird and a tender pair of hands at the Communion table as we ate and drank together.

The historical markers, preserved testimonies, and graphic images we encountered demanded more than a casual “How was it?” from fellow travelers or the churches waiting for us back home. Our shared journey required scaffolding—questions that would help us interrogate the true work of Sankofa.

Four guiding prompts became our companions:

What are you thinking as Mr. Perry explains the horror of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, during which hundreds of Black men were denied treatment by the public health system for decades while the infection devastated their minds and bodies—and affected their wives and children?

What more do you need to learn about Bloody Sunday in Selma and the children—not even old enough to vote—who marched toward Montgomery demanding voting rights?

What will you say about the Equal Justice Initiative complex, with its holograms of enslaved and incarcerated people, its rows of names suspended overhead like Billie Holiday’s “strange fruit,” and its monuments made painfully vivid and real?

What will we, the church, do—inspired by Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, Selma’s Tabernacle Baptist Church, and Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church—to bring home what we fetched in the Deep South?

Think. Learn. Say. Do.

These were not simply reflection questions. They were invitations to accountability.

High school students from the Native American community in Gallup, New Mexico, walked alongside retired white missionaries and Black women pastors of Caribbean and African American descent. A bilingual Hispanic pastor translated each experience for a participant who otherwise might have missed it. There were white women who served in helping professions, a brilliant young Black intellectual from New York, and our fearless General Synod Council (board) president navigating the pilgrimage on wheels, as well as many others.

We came from different generations, cultures, denominations, geographic regions, and hues—including St. Thomas—but we were held together by one Spirit and one commitment: to keep walking without looking away.

To think.

To learn.

To say what must be said.

To do what must be done—even if we must do it afraid.

Now, the Reformed Church in America has at least fifty ambassadors still thinking, still learning, still speaking, and still doing hard things. We move toward a righteous vision of becoming a Apocalipsis 7:9 people—people from every nation, tribe, people, and language—honoring the journeys that brought us together, with the Lamb at the center of our questions, our discoveries, and our faithful action.