Pastor Demands KBJ Applause: "If You Can't Celebrate, Negro, You Have Lost Your Ever-Loving Mind!!!"

Pastor A. Byron Coleman III of Oklahoma City's Fifth Street Baptist Church expresses amazement during his worship service on April 10, 2022 (Palm Sunday) that black Christians are not universally giving a standing ovation for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

—TRANSCRIPT—

It was a historic occasion to watch the confirmation of the first African-American woman Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. I must be living in some alternative universe, because if the first African-American woman to sit on the Supreme Court was confirmed yesterday, then every African-American should be standing up applauding in churches all over the world.

Maybe it's just me, but I believe that that requires our utmost celebration. Because something that has never happened finally happened in this country. It doesn't mean that we don't still have more rivers to cross, but can we at least face five seconds and give God glory, that something that has never happened...

Okay, let me go ahead do it. I know I used her story in my introduction a few weeks ago, but please allow me to bask in this moment and glean some more biblical truths from this historic occasion.

Some people will simply miss this moment, as is obvious. Some people will simply go by this moment and not even think twice about it. Some churches won't even mention it during their liturgies, during service this morning. But that won't be the case here at Fifth Street Baptist Church, where we are unapologetically Christian and unashamedly black. Where we believe our theology informs our sociology. Where we refuse to dishonor the ancestors and not pay homage to them for their tears and their toughness, their pains and their prayers that got us to where we are today.

It is a travesty! If you cannot celebrate today something that our ancestors died for, something that our ancestors cried for, something that the ancestors shed blood for. If you can't celebrate, Negro, you have lost your ever-loving mind.

I said it. [blows raspberry]

Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq4p3SdCLRQ