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For the last Sunday in Black History Month, I was at home in Durham today & got to share w/ our church family what Ann Atwater taught me. America’s future depends on the wisdom of black history. I’m a witness. A thread... 
When Ann was a young single mother in the 1960s, struggling to make ends meet, Howard Fuller from Operation Breakthrough recruited her to come to a community meeting & learn what was possible if people organized. He helped her get her rental property repaired...
Ann ended up attending a 17-week Community Action Technician training & becoming director of organizing for Durham’s United Oganizations for Neighborhood Improvement. If people connect & speak up for one another, she said, we can all have what we need.
By 1969, she was named Durham’s “Woman of the Year”—not b/c she had achieved some great heights herself, but b/c she had helped a whole community learn that people could work together to change the conditions of their lives.
Maybe her biggest challenge—and one we still face—was the backlash of white supremacy when blacks people organized. The Klan fought Ann at City Hall & in the streets.
But she learned to see thru the way race is used to pit poor black people against poor white people in America. And she befriended CP Ellis, the man who led Durham’s Klan klavern. No one told the story better than she did...
This is the story that @BestEnemiesFilm is bringing to theaters April 5th. It’s a story that shows us the America that’s possible & the America that has never yet been.
Ann taught me the power of the gospel to show us a better way in this world. You can download a Bible study I wrote to accompany “The Best of Enemies” story here: static1.squarespace.com/static/5882305…
Learn more about Ann at the Ann Atwater Freedom Library: schoolforconversion.org/ann-atwater-fr…
Also, here’s @TherealTaraji on what she learned from playing Grandma Ann...
