The brutal arrest and eventual death of Tyre Nichols shocked a nation, but Tulsa’s religious leaders feel it came as no surprise.
Morning Star Baptist Church hosted an inter-faith vigil Sunday to honor the 29-year-old from Memphis. The program was structured for healing, but the room contained a distinct sense of exasperation.
The video of Nichols’s arrest sickened and, in the worst way, captivated a country unable to look away. The people of Tulsa were no exception.
But when Dr. Rodney Goss, Morning Star Baptist Church’s pastor, saw that video from Memphis, he didn’t see Tyre Nichols. He saw a brother.
“I’m just at a place where silence is complicity,” he said. “We cannot call ourselves leaders of our peoples, our parishioners, and our constituents, and never speak out against injustice as if nothing has transpired.”
Goss has found himself mourning a brother.
“You know what I just got finished doing?” he told a dignitary in his office. “Calling my momma. I had to call my momma. I was so miserable, I had to call my mom.”
But Goss is fighting alongside his brothers and sisters for systemic change.
“We want to make it loud and clear that we’re past the kumbaya moments,” he asserted.
He’s fighting alongside Tulsa’s religious leaders. Representatives from churches, synagogues, and mosques took the stage during the vigil. One of them was Rev. Marlin Lavanhar, senior minister at the All Souls Unitarian Church.
“We want to gather together to heal the collective emotional impact on the psyche of our community,” Lavanhar said, “particularly the African-American community.”
The sad truth, he said, is vigils of this nature happen far too often.
“This just takes the scab off a wound that really has never healed,” Goss said. “This doesn’t surprise us.”
“Hopefully, if we can make change,” Lavanhar said, “we won’t have to keep holding vigils like this.”
“Enough is enough,” Goss added. “I’ve just had enough. And I’m very angry. And I don’t care who knows about it. We just need to make some noise – enough noise until some change comes. When we say this must stop, that’s exactly what we mean. We ain’t going nowhere.”
“I think there’s always an expectation that gentleman politics will prevail,” he continued. “We’ll sit down and be nice and beg for a seat at the table, and somebody will stroke our ego and make us feel good, and philanthropy will win the order of the day. This time, we’re saying that’s not gonna happen. I don’t want to hear none of that. This is an aggressive approach to a problem that ain’t gonna change until we change it.”
While Goss said promises of “change” are often vague, he knows exactly what he wants to see.
“This is not a perfect world; it’ll probably never be,” he admitted. “But the kind of changes we’re talking about are changes that include accountability. Changes that include transparency. And how about changes that have inclusion, where the community has something to say?”
“Is anybody here gonna stand with me?” he later asked the vigil to raucous applause. “I said, is there anybody here in this house that’s gonna stand with us? Because being Black in America is not easy! Being Black in America is painful! And it’s hard! And I’m angry!”
“Y’know, trauma lives in our bodies,” Lavanhar said. “And one of the ways that we can deal with that is by singing together, by moving our bodies together, and by recognizing that we can change things.”
As Tulsans of all backgrounds raised their voices in song, prayer, and protest, they knew in their hearts that change will come.