The Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church is in a leafy section of Northwest Philadelphia. Driving the 30 or so minutes from downtown, you travel along narrow, winding roads through the fall colours of Fairmont Park, along the Schuylkill River and through Germantown’s quiet neighbourhoods.
Enon Tabernacle is a huge building, said to be the largest African American church in the state, and seats thousands in comfortable, red-cushioned pews. Massive screens and speakers amplify the service, which features a full band to add music to prayer.
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It is a calm and calming place, one that feels very much removed from the fractious political battles taking place across America. But politics was nevertheless on Rev. Alyn Waller’s mind on a cloudy Sunday morning.
Sitting in his office between morning services, Waller points to a black and white photo featuring him as a child sitting with Martin Luther King Jr. The photo was taken in 1967, just before King’s assassination.
Reflecting on the political challenges of America in 2022, Waller expressed concern that his generation, the first to grow up in the Civil Rights era, may have forgotten some of the lessons leaders like King tried to teach them.
“If I want to be equal to you,” Waller said to a white reporter, “I have to be faster than you. If I want them to see me as the same as you, I’ve got to be better than you.”
“That’s how I was raised. And I think we raised our children to say, you know what? It’s all clear now, we made it right,” Waller said.
“And I think that’s some of the animus and some of the anger our children have, because this stuff is hitting them and they’re confused.”
Whatever the outcome of Tuesday’s election, Waller said he and his community need to be prepared. In the case of a “red wave,” Waller said, minority communities in America have to worry about institutions being turned against…
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