It's fitting that the Rev. Harold Middlebrook was born on Independence Day | Opinion

When the Rev. Harold Middlebrook walked into a community meeting where I was present, someone shouted out, “Here comes the church!” He seems to bring all the authority of the apostolic tradition with him wherever he goes. He might be preaching the gospel or speaking up for civil rights, voting rights, a living wage, ending gun violence or some other righteous cause. Whenever he walks into the room, help is on the way. Here comes the church.

Middlebrook was born in Memphis on July 4, 1942. He turns 80 this year. As an adult he marched with his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in that city as part of the Poor People’s Campaign helping sanitation workers in their efforts to get better pay and working conditions. More importantly, he worked for human dignity in the face of economic humiliation and degradation. The iconic signs from those marches declared: “I AM A MAN.”

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He learned a similar lesson as a child from his grandmother, “Big Momma,” who told him, “You are somebody.” She taught him to meet disrespect with self-respect. Years later, he would share the stage with a presidential candidate, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who would lead crowds in an enthusiastic chant of “I am SOMEBODY.” These words serve as a helpful affirmation for anyone who feels put down by the bullies of the world: “I am SOMEBODY.” For many at the rally the message of the chant was new,  but not for Middlebrook. He learned it from his grandmother long ago.

Middlebrook and I once swapped pulpits. He preached at my church. I preached at his church. I told a fellow minister about this arrangement and he said irreverently, “I don’t swap pulpits with good preachers.” In retrospect I can see his point. My congregation got the better end of that exchange.

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Baptist services run longer than Unitarian ones. He preached at my church and got back to his own congregation before my sermon even began. As a Baptist minister he was not above giving a Unitarian minister a little ribbing. When someone came up for the altar call after the sermon, he looked at me and said in a tone of disbelief, “You saved a soul?” What can I say? The Lord works in mysterious ways.

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In addition to the Memphis campaign, Middlebrook was present at many other civil rights movement milestone actions in Atlanta, Birmingham, Selma and other places throughout the nation. An honest retelling of his life story might get a teacher accused of teaching critical race theory. Abolitionist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Go where freedom is not and say, ‘I am for it!’ ” Middlebrook has put those words into action. He knows the heavy costs of the fight for freedom, the martyrs who have died along the way, the children of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, the young college students buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi, the murder of Medgar Evers and the assassination of his friend and mentor Dr. King.

In 1852 Frederick Douglass gave a speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” The celebration of “freedom” rang hollow for him in a time when America actively kept men, women and children in bondage. Proclaiming liberty while practicing slavery smacked of gross hypocrisy. Of course, the Fourth of July is also the birthday of Middlebrook, a freedom fighter who hasn’t given up the fight. How shall we celebrate his 80th? Register to vote, show up on election day, vote for candidates committed to equality, organize for change, go to community meetings, and when Middlebrook walks into the room, know that help is on the way. Here comes the church!

Chris Buice is minister of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. 

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: It's fitting that Rev. Harold Middlebrook was born on Independence Day