This week’s reflection is written by The Rev. Steve Reedy who serves on the Cornelius Corps Board of Directors. He begins by sharing a story from 163 years ago this week about the courage and valor of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, a unit of the US Colored Troops (USCT). This is especially meaningful to me, because the Cornelius Corps was based for 19 years in the DC neighborhood named for the 54th’s commanding officer Col. Robert Gould Shaw. The Shaw neighborhood is the site of The African American Civil War Memorial that lists the names of all those who served in the USCT including the famous 54th Massachusetts. Yet Rev. Reedy’s message for us is not limited to Civil War history. He makes it clear that our nation’s struggle with white supremacy continues to manifest itself today by eliminating DEI initiatives through a distorted and racist form of “meritocracy.” He goes on to call us to resist current forms of racism as an essential aspect of following the Way of Jesus. Please take the time to read Rev. Reedy’s insightful reflection that connects past and present in a powerful way. Following the reflection, there are photos of The Shaw Memorial in Boston and the African American Civil War Memorial in DC.
Peace – Jim Melson, Executive Director
Organize, Train, and Take Courage
“If I die tonight, I will not die a coward.” These were the closing words of the letter written
by U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) soldier Lewis Douglass to his parents, Anna Murray
Douglass and Abolitionist giant Frederick Douglass. Lewis penned his letter on July 20,
1863, from a Union Army defensive trench after two days of ferocious battle against
Confederate forces at Fort Wagner. Together, Fort Sumpter and Fort Wagner guarded the
strategically important Charleston Harbor.
Lewis Douglass and his younger brother, Charles, were one of the first to volunteer to the
USCT, Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment. The unit was mustered shortly after Abraham
Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward signed the Emancipation Proclamation on
January 1, 1863. Since the beginning of the war, Frederick Douglass had been pressing
Lincoln privately and publicly to enlist African Americans in the cause.
The resistance to the idea in Northern states, their politicians, and in the Union Army was
reflective of endemic attitudes and ideas of White Supremacy. The belief that Blacks lacked
leadership capacity, intelligence, discipline, and the courage to fight was the same set of
arguments used in the American Revolution to deny African Americans their opportunity to
fight for freedom. And yet, African Americans fought for liberty then. Underneath this
resistance to letting African Americans fight was a fear that freedom could not be easily
denied to those who earned glory with sacrificed lives.
Into the second year of the Civil War, withering Union losses on the battlefield and shaky
political support pushed Lincoln into the pragmatic decision to lay the groundwork for
Black enlistment. The result was the Emancipation Proclamation. Douglass and the other
Abolitionist leaders had finally succeeded in changing Lincoln’s public war rationale to
African American freedom and equality. Prior, the political rationale was preserving the
Union and stopping the expansion of slavery to the frontier states. The previous rationale
represented only the interests of Northern White males: Wealthy White businessmen with
economic ties to the South and White working men whose wages and opportunities were
suppressed by slavery economics.
The addition of 175,000 USCT soldiers beginning in 1863 would prove to be decisive in the
war. The Battle of Fort Wagner was the pivot point in the battle for African American
equality. The 54th’s heroic action at Fort Wagner became a national sensation in the
Northern states. In its “prove it” moment, the unit was given the honor of being the first to
lead the charge upon the heavily defended Rebel ramparts. Forty percent of their unit was
lost to death or serious injury.
The 54th proved the worth of all African Americans with their actions. The stories of White
rank-and-file Union soldiers fighting next to the soldiers of the 54th told of the tremendous
courage of their Black comrades in the face of overwhelming Confederate fire. Soldiers
from the 10th Connecticut Infantry told of how the 54th saved their unit from obliteration by covering its retreat and taking massive losses. Burned into Northern national
consciousness was the image of the 54th regiment flag-bearer William Harvey Carney
holding the Stars and Stripes high during battle, despite severe injury. This was a symbolic
reversal of the painful memory of “Old Glory” taken down from Fort Sumpter at the war’s
outset. Carney was the first African American to be awarded the Medal of Honor, the
nation’s highest award for bravery in battle. However due to ongoing racism, he did not receive the medal until 1900.
And still today, the battle against White Supremacy continues. In June of 2026, the portrait
of General Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. was removed from the Pentagon’s Air Force Gallery.
James was a Tuskegee Airman who rose to become the first African American four-star
general in the history of the U.S. military. In March of 2025, the Department of Defense
webpage honoring Army Maj. General Charles Calvin Rogers was removed. Rogers was the
highest-ranking African American to receive the Medal of Honor.
The removal of public honors of Gen. James and Maj. Gen. Rogers represents a broad and
sweeping anti-“DEI” purge of the Armed Forces under the direction of Department of
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Since taking office, Hegseth has repeatedly interfered with
the work of the promotion boards of each branch. In June of 2026, Hegseth overruled a
promotion board’s list of candidates for Admiral by striking all female candidates and nine
African American candidates, ensuring the next generation of Navy admirals will be
overwhelmingly White.
These actions represent a policy with much larger scale in a military composed of five
million men and women with great social and ethnic diversity. Hegseth’s stated rationale is
“meritocracy,” which he believes DEI commitments weaken. Underneath his objection is
the same White Supremacy that animated the resistance to enlistment of African
Americans in the War for Independence and the Civil War.
Hegseth’s extreme brand of fundamentalist Christian nationalism is one of many strands of
Christian nationalism that have come into power through the current administration.
Everywhere and always, Christian nationalism is a movement where an ethnic group wills
to regain or increase power as a dominant group in a pluralistic setting. A significant
influence on Hegseth is fundamentalist Pastor Doug Wilson, a self-described “paleo-
Confederate” and slavery apologist and proponent of extreme patriarchy.
So, what to do? Like the 54th, plan, organize, train, and take courage. But ours are not the
weapons of this world in this fight for freedom for all people. Like Christ, our role is to be
witnesses of truth and advocacy for racial and social justice through direct, non-violent
action. Ours is to organize with like-minded people of goodwill. To learn and train with
organizations like Cornielus Corps. Our is to continue to work out together our faith in
Christ until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” In
restating the prophet Amos, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King declared in his 1963 “I Have a
Dream” speech that this vision will one day come to pass. Let us be brave as we work
together towards that end.
