This episode of The Justice Briefing is different. Instead of starting with a current event and working backward to the history, Dr. Jemar Tisby does what he loves most: he tells stories.

Diving back into primary source research for his new Substack series, History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Rights Edition, left him feeling like a grad student again, brimming with material he could not wait to share. So he devoted a full episode to three of those stories.

The first is about the Congress that refused to seat more than sixty former Confederates in December 1865, overrode a president more than a dozen times, and wrote insurrection into the official record.

The second is about the 1868 Charleston constitutional convention, the only one in American history with a Black majority, where recently emancipated men wrote the most democratic document South Carolina had ever seen and included the children of the people who had enslaved them.

The third is about Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate and enslaver who became attorney general and prosecuted the first Ku Klux Klan out of existence for forty years.

Taken together, the three stories make one argument: Congress has the power, it lacks the will, and history has the receipts.

Topics Addressed

• Why the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan disbanded in the mid-1870s and did not reconstitute until 1915
• The 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention: 76 Black delegates out of 124, and the only Black-majority state legislature in U.S. history
• What Black delegates actually wrote into the state constitution, including free public schools, protected suffrage, women's property rights, and a permanent ban on secession
• The three Enforcement Acts, and why the Ku Klux Klan Act finally worked by naming the state itself as the defendant

Resources Referenced

• Here's What Congress Did When Members Had a Spine
• When Black People Wrote the Constitution
• When the Department of Justice Prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan Out of Existence
• The Spirit of Justice by Jemar Tisby: bit.ly/spiritofjustice
• A Way Forward: Hope in Uncertain Times, Nashville, August 28-30, with Rep. Justin Pearson, Shane Claiborne, and others. Free, but registration is required: Register here

Support This Work

History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Rights Edition runs weekly through the 2026 midterms, roughly twelve installments in all. The episodes are free. The articles are free. The research is not.

If this is the kind of work you want more of, become a paid subscriber at JemarTisby.Substack.com. It is $5.83 a month on the annual plan. Less than six dollars for history from a PhD historian who spent years learning the tools of the discipline to bring it to you.

Stay informed. Stay faithful. Stay in the fight.

On the 61st anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, Dr. Jemar Tisby closes a full history of the law by turning to the fight over it right now.

What took blood and marches to win in 1965 has been taken apart in the thirteen years since 2013, from Shelby County to Louisiana v. Callais, and almost nobody marched.

Dr. Tisby refuses to end there. He points to the faith leaders already mobilizing to protect the ballot before the November midterms, from William Barber's 100 days of action to the poll chaplains and peacekeepers being trained in local churches, and he names the moment for what it is: the civil rights movement of our generation.

The episode also launches History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Edition, Dr. Tisby's three-month series tracing the struggle over the vote from Reconstruction to today.

In This Episode

• Why 2026 is the civil rights movement of our generation, and how the April march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge echoed 1965
• How the Voting Rights Act was taken apart in thirteen years, from Shelby County to Louisiana v. Callais
• Faith leaders mobilizing before the midterms, including William Barber's 100 days of action
• Poll chaplains and peacekeepers: protecting voters, protecting ballots, and protecting the system itself
• The launch of History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Edition on Footnotes
• The closing charge: register, check your registration, and take somebody with you

Resources Referenced

• The Washington Informer, "Faith leaders start 100-day countdown to Nov. 3 election," featuring Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Tony Lee of Community of Hope AME Church: https://www.washingtoninformer.com/faith-leaders-midterm-vote/
• Black Church PAC and its Freedom Summer events: https://www.blackchurchpac.org/
• All Roads Lead South Coalition, organizers of the 2026 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge
• History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Edition, Dr. Tisby's new Footnotes series: https://JemarTisby.Substack.com

Support The Justice Briefing

The Justice Briefing runs on readers and listeners, not advertisers. If it helps you make sense of this moment, the best way to support it is to subscribe to Footnotes at JemarTisby.Substack.com. The annual plan comes to $5.83 a month, it keeps this work independent, and it puts every installment of History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Edition in your inbox from now through the midterms.

The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee just voted to have South Carolina lead off the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries, and Dr. Jemar Tisby explains why that decision matters more than the news cycle will let on.

He walks through what a primary actually does, why the order of states determines momentum, money, and makes the case that this is a win for the party.

In this episode:

• What a primary actually is, and why it is not a direct vote for the nominee
• Why the order of states determines momentum, media coverage, donor confidence, and who drops out
• The South Carolina versus Nevada split and the case Latino leaders made for Nevada
• The progressive objection to a Southern first primary and what it assumes about Black Southern voters
• Six things candidates should do over the next 18 months to earn Black votes

Resources referenced:

• Previous episode: "What Every Social Movement Must Do"
• Dr. Tisby's YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@JTisby

Support the show:

There are no ads on The Justice Briefing and no sponsors. Paid subscribers are the ones who make this work possible. If the breakdown of the 2028 primary calendar was useful to you weeks before it becomes a headline, become a paid subscriber at JemarTisby.Substack.com.

On the Fourth of July, the White House released a 160-page report accusing the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History of "ideological capture."

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby reads the report's own words, walks through the two congressional hearings it triggered, and makes the historian's case that the charge is a confession.

His argument is simple: there is no such thing as objective history. Facts are objective, but facts do not interpret themselves, and interpretation is the work of the craft. When the right demands "straightforward" scholarship, what they really want is a story that agrees with them.

This is not about erasing the founders. It is about expanding the narrative to tell the whole truth. History does not repeat itself, Dr. Tisby reminds us, but it rhymes.

In This Episode

• Why "objective" history is a myth, and why interpretation is the historian's job
• The fundamentalist "plain reading of Scripture," and what it shares with the demand for "straightforward" history
• Narratives of declension and their link to "Make America Great Again"
• Inside the two congressional hearings, and which committee actually holds jurisdiction over the Smithsonian
• The witnesses behind the report: the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, and Hillsdale College
• PragerU, the 1776 curriculum, and this White House's record on history
• The Lost Cause, the UDC textbook committee, and the Dunning School
• Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson on expanding the narrative, plus the ARC of Racial Justice as practical next steps

Resources Referenced

• Saving America's Story, the White House report on the National Museum of American History
• W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (1935), and its chapter "The Propaganda of History"
• Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)
• Dr. Tisby's article on the Dunning School, at JemarTisby.Substack.com
• Jesus Was a Migrant, the first film from Tisby Studios, at jesuswasamigrant.com

Support the Show

The Justice Briefing is independent and listener-supported. Dr. Tisby is not attached to any institution on a full-time basis, which means this history reaches you because readers and listeners make it possible. If this episode gave you the background the headlines skip, support the work at JemarTisby.Substack.com. An annual membership comes out to just $5.83 a month, and it keeps the weekly articles and podcast coming.

What is the one thing every social movement must do before anything else? In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby argues that it is not fundraising, filing for nonprofit status, or even getting out the vote. It's something much more foundational.

Drawing on his training as a historian of race, religion, and social movements, Dr. Tisby traces the pattern across four eras of American history. In every case, the injustice that moved people to act was violent, visible, and visceral.

Dr. Tisby then turns to the present. ICE keeps killing people, and he makes the case that under this administration, immigration is the tip of the spear: the most public, most violent, most visceral campaign of them all.

In This Episode

• Why every social movement must find the injustice that evokes the most moral outrage and press on it until progress comes
• The "violent, visible, visceral" test for what actually mobilizes people to act
• How abolitionists, Ida B. Wells, civil rights activists, and the Black Panther Party each pressed on their era's defining injustice
• The recent ICE killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araújo in Houston and Johan Sebastián Durán in Maine
• The 2,000-arrests-per-day quota, masked agents, unmarked vehicles, and the lack of accountability fueling reckless violence
• Why immigration is the tip of the spear for this administration, and why attacks on voting rights struggle to spark the same outrage
• The story behind Tisby Studios' first film, Jesus Was a Migrant, and why it is distributed through group screenings
• Concrete action steps: booking a screening, abolishing ICE, taking off the masks, demanding accountability, and emphasizing the ethics of the kingdom

Resources Referenced

• Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, on nonviolent coercion and the healthy tension that forces a society to confront its prejudice
• The Black Panther Party's Ten-Point Program
• The Color of Compromise by Dr. Jemar Tisby, and its closing chapter, "The Fierce Urgency of Now," which introduces the ARC of Racial Justice
• Jesus Was a Migrant (JesusWasAMigrant.com)
• Last week's episode, "What Mainstream Media Keep Getting Wrong about Douglas Wilson"

Support the Podcast

The best way to support The Justice Briefing is to become a paid subscriber at JemarTisby.Substack.com. Fewer than 5% of subscribers are paid; the $70 annual plan comes out to about $5.83 a month, and it keeps this podcast, and this kind of history, coming every week.

The Justice Briefing | Show Notes

What Mainstream Media Keep Getting Wrong About Douglas Wilson

NPR just gave Douglas Wilson another splashy, in-depth interview, and Dr. Jemar Tisby has a problem with it.

Not that the media covers Wilson: the pastor from Moscow, Idaho has a direct line to power through his disciple Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, and that is newsworthy.

The problem is how they cover him.

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Tisby makes the case that respectful, on-location, one-on-one coverage does exactly what Wilson wants.

From there, Dr. Tisby walks through who Wilson is and what he actually believes, from his rejection of the Nineteenth Amendment to his vision of a theocratic America, then names a better way to cover him.

The real question is not what Wilson believes. It is who gets to speak for Christians, and which version of God and country will prevail.

In This Episode

• Why NPR, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times keep making the trip to Moscow, Idaho
• The one line where Wilson admits a "respectful hearing" is the win he is after
• Wilson's theology explained: reformed fundamentalism, postmillennialism, biblical patriarchy, classical Christian education, and dominionism
• His views on repealing the Nineteenth Amendment and "household voting"
• How the Gospel Coalition, Desiring God, and other evangelical platforms gave Wilson legitimacy years before the mainstream media did
• Why the coverage centers Wilson, on his own turf, with no counter-voice in the frame
• The lack of racial analysis in most coverage of Wilson and Christian dominionism
• A better model: pass the mic to the scholars, pastors, and survivors who resist him

Resources Referenced

Scholars and books that offer a counter-narrative

• Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
• Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth
• Sheila Wray Gregoire, She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up
• Tia Levings, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy
• Sarah Stankorb, Disobedient Women: How a Small Group of Faithful Women Exposed Abuse, Brought Down Powerful Pastors, and Ignited an Evangelical Reckoning
• Anthea Butler, White Evangelical Racism
• Obery Hendricks, The Politics of Jesus
• Bryan Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church

Survivors speaking out

• Sons of Patriarchy (sonsofpatriarchy.com), hosted by Sarah Bader and Peter Bell

Support the Show

The best way to materially support The Justice Briefing is to subscribe to Footnotes at JemarTisby.Substack.com, the #4 ranked publication in the history category. Your subscription is what keeps this work independent and coming to you every week.

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, white Christian nationalists are telling their version of the story: that America was founded as a Christian nation.

In part two of his America 250 series on The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby argues that there is a better, more truthful story to tell if we know how to tell it, and that telling it requires something most churches have never named: a theology of history.

Dr. Tisby is a historian and a believer, and he makes the case that those two things belong together, and that Christians should be passionate about truth and history.

Topics Addressed

• Anniversaries as arguments about the past, and how they shape who we were, who we are, and who we must become
• What white Christian nationalists actually mean by "Christian nation": theocracy, a covenant like ancient Israel, Christian privilege, and a religious test for being a "real" American
• The restoration narrative of fear and grievance, and why regression differs from progression
• The biblical case for a theology of history: the Bible as a history book, and God's repeated command to remember
• The dangers of forgetting, and why memory is a guardrail against idolatry and injustice
• History and identity: how the power to tell the story is the power to shape identity
• The church's abdication of teaching history, and the "potato chips" problem of getting your history from social media
• Applying the ARC of Racial Justice (Awareness, Relationships, Commitment) to doing history well

Resources Referenced

• Part one of the series: "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" on The Justice Briefing
• "James Baldwin Was Right About Patriotism," drawn from the autobiographical note in Notes of a Native Son
• "The Trick Inside Frederick Douglass's Fourth of July Speech"
• "How Gerald R. Ford Celebrated Black History During America's 200th Anniversary"
• The Spirit of Justice and How to Fight Racism by Dr. Jemar Tisby
• Primary sources: the U.S. Constitution and First Amendment, the Treaty of Tripoli, the Danbury Baptist letter, and the Declaration of Independence
• Scripture: Deuteronomy 8, Psalm 77:11, Luke 22:19
• "Echoes of Injustice: From Manzanar to Mass Deportation," a mini documentary on the YouTube channel (YouTube.com/@JTisby)
• Christians Against Christian Nationalism, by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty
• Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) at prri.org

Support This Work

Everything I do here is available for free, but I would really like your help. This kind of truth-telling at the intersection of faith, history, and justice is possible because of the people who choose to support it. Subscribe at JemarTisby.Substack.com: $5.83 a month on the annual plan, and help make this work possible.

Stay informed. Stay faithful. Stay in the fight.

How should we think about the Fourth of July, a day dedicated to celebrating independence and freedom, in light of the unfreedom of race-based chattel slavery?

What do we do about the fact that of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence 41 of them held slaves?

Do those noble words of the Declaration stating that “all men are created equal” apply to anyone other than wealthy white men?

Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved 19th century abolitionist, has something to say.

We take his speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July” as our primary text for exploring the tension between liberty and bondage in U.S. history.

Listen and share!

Right now, curricula across this country are being rewritten to erase exactly the tension Douglass named in 1852. Subscribe and make sure this history does not get edited out from under you. JemarTisby.Substack.com

As the country marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, one claim is everywhere: the United States was founded as a Christian nation.

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby refuses the flat yes or no and insists on the first move any honest answer requires, which is to define the terms.

If "Christian nation" means a country shaped by Christians and their ethics? Does it mean a government with an official, state-sanctioned church?

History has the receipts,

Dr. Tisby walks through the primary sources, from Article VI and the First Amendment to the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and the Treaty of Tripoli, and he traces the longer backstory of Henry VIII and the colonists who fled state religion.

In This Episode

• Why "define your terms" is the first move in answering the Christian nation question
• The sense in which the claim is true and the sense in which it is false
• History has the receipts: Article VI, the First Amendment, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and the Treaty of Tripoli
• Henry VIII, the Act of Supremacy, and why colonists fled state religion
• The difference between the separation of church and state and the separation of faith and politics
• The Enlightenment roots of the Declaration
• What white Christian nationalists actually mean, and why the slogan works as a permission structure for power

Resources Referenced

• The Christian Past That Wasn't: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths That Hijack History by Warren Throckmorton
• The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance by Jemar Tisby
• The Color of Compromise (book and video study) by Jemar Tisby
• Rededicate 250, National Mall, May 17, 2026
• Primary sources: Article VI of the U.S. Constitution; the First Amendment; the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786); the Treaty of Tripoli (1797); the Act of Supremacy (1534); John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government

Support the Show

Support The Justice Briefing by subscribing at JemarTisby.Substack.com, where Dr. Tisby brings the receipts every week so you can answer questions like this one from an informed perspective.

This week on The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby breaks down why Juneteenth and America 250 are not the same kind of anniversary, even though they fall just weeks apart this summer.

Dr. Tisby argues that America 250 asks the nation to celebrate how great it has been, while Juneteenth asks a harder, more honest question: how free are we, really?

Using a ten-point comparison chart, he walks through what each holiday marks, whose freedom it centers, and what's at risk of being lost or co-opted in 2026.

Dr. Tisby also explains why this year carries extra weight.

With a White House actively promoting a whitewashed version of history through initiatives like Freedom 250 and PragerU's Freedom Trucks, he makes the case that you cannot responsibly celebrate the country's anniversary while erasing the centuries of bondage that came before emancipation.

In This Episode

• The origin of Juneteenth and the text of General Order No. 3
• Why the Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free enslaved people
• How U.S. slavery was uniquely race-based, matrilineal, and perpetual
• The White House's "Freedom 250" rebrand and PragerU's Freedom Trucks
• A 10-point T-chart comparing Juneteenth and America 250
• What it looks like for white and Black Americans to commemorate Juneteenth differently

Books Referenced

• How to Fight Racism by Jemar Tisby
• I Am the Spirit of Justice by Jemar Tisby (picture book)
• Stories of the Spirit of Justice by Jemar Tisby (middle grade and up)

Support the Show

If this episode helped you think more clearly about faith, history, and justice, the best way to support it is to subscribe at JemarTisby.Substack.com. Paid subscriptions fund the research, the production, and the in-person interviews that make episodes like this possible.

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby breaks down the Southern Baptist Convention's recent vote to amend its constitution—by a 77 percent margin—banning women from preaching to assembled congregations.

Dr. Tisby draws on his own history with the SBC to offer an insider's analysis of what the Truth and Unity Amendment actually says, why Al Mohler pushed for it, and what the election of new SBC president Willy Rice signals about the denomination's continued rightward turn.

But Dr. Tisby goes deeper than the headlines.

Tracing the SBC's origins back to 1844 and the case of James Reeve—an enslaver whose deliberate nomination as a missionary candidate was the spark that led to the denomination's founding—Dr. Tisby makes the case that the SBC's patriarchy and its racism are not two separate problems that happen to coexist.

They share a common theological architecture: the divine sanctioning of hierarchy, the use of Scripture to compel submission, and the punishment of those who resist.

From the household codes that justified chattel slavery to the amendment that just passed, the logic is the same, and understanding that connection, Dr. Tisby argues, is essential to understanding what faithful resistance must look like today.

In This Episode...

• The Truth and Unity Amendment, what it says, and why Al Mohler pushed for it even though the restriction on women pastors was already denominational policy
• The case of James Reeve—the 1844 missionary nomination that was a deliberate pro-slavery provocation and led directly to the founding of the SBC
• How the biblical defense of racial hierarchy and the biblical defense of gender hierarchy draw from the same New Testament household codes
• The “purity of white womanhood” trope—how white women were simultaneously subordinated to white men and weaponized against Black people
• Saddleback Church, Beth Moore, and the enforcement mechanisms the SBC already had in place before this amendment
• The parallel between the SBC’s centralizing of authority and unitary executive theory in the Trump administration
• The election of Willie Rice as SBC president and what it signals about the denomination’s further rightward turn
• Why you cannot address patriarchy in the SBC without also addressing its racism and why the denomination is case in point

I believe women are called and qualified to preach and pastor. And I name the links between racism and patriarchy. If that’s the kind of insight you value, become a paid subscriber. JemarTisby.Substack.com

Host a screening of Jesus Was a Migrant: jesuswasamigrant.com

In this urgent episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby breaks down the Supreme Court's latest ruling in Allen v. Milligan--a decision that allows Alabama to eliminate one of its only two majority-Black congressional districts just months before the 2026 midterm elections and while primaries are already underway.

Drawing on his training as a historian and his recent trip to Selma to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Dr. Tisby explains how the Court's selective application of the Purcell Principle exposes a legal system being weaponized to dilute Black political power rather than protect it.

He traces the historical roots of Black voting patterns from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement to make the case that Black voters aren't loyal to a party--they're loyal to their survival.

Dr. Tisby also examines the Congressional Black Caucus's pointed letter to Corporate America, holding hundreds of major corporations accountable to voting rights commitments they made publicly in 2021--and demanding they prove those words still mean something before a June 9th deadline.

From the courtroom to the boardroom, Dr. Tisby asks the question that drives the entire episode: do you care?

In This Episode

• The Supreme Court's ruling in Allen v. Milligan and what it means for Black congressional representation in Alabama
• What the Purcell Principle is, where it comes from, and why the Court is applying it selectively
• How the Louisiana v. Callais decision gutted the Voting Rights Act and opened the door to rapid redistricting across the South
• Why Republicans stand to gain up to 15 additional House seats through redistricting — and what's at stake in the 2026 midterms
• The historical roots of Black voting patterns, from Reconstruction and the New Deal to LBJ's Civil Rights Act
• Governor Kay Ivey's response to the ruling — and what the language of "states' rights" has always meant in the context of Black political power
• The Congressional Black Caucus's letter to Corporate America and its June 9th deadline for action
• Justice Sotomayor's dissent — and why Dr. Tisby says every justice-minded person should be reading it

We have a lack of voices raising the alarm about voting rights in the church. If you think that work is important, you can help make it possible. Become a paid subscriber today. JemarTisby.Substack.com

A news report just revealed that children are still being separated from their parents in the immigration crackdown. We must speak up. This film will help you. Host a screening of Jesus Was a Migrant: jesuswasamigrant.com

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby examines the stunning victory of Ken Paxton in the Texas Republican Senate primary and asks what it reveals about the moral state of American politics. Despite years of scandals, impeachment, felony indictments, and allegations of corruption, Paxton not only survived politically—he won decisively. Dr. Tisby explores why voters embraced a candidate with such a record, how loyalty to Donald Trump has eclipsed character as a political qualification, and why this race represents a larger battle over the meaning of Christianity in public life. Contrasting Paxton's vision of faith with that of Democratic nominee James Talarico, Dr. Tisby argues that Texas is becoming a testing ground for two competing religious and political visions: domination versus care, power versus conscience, and white Christian nationalism versus a faith rooted in justice and love.

In This Episode

• Why Ken Paxton's primary victory shocked even seasoned observers of American politics
• The corruption allegations, impeachment, and legal controversies surrounding Paxton
• How loyalty to Donald Trump became more important than character or experience
• Why Paxton's victory signals a deeper shift within the modern Republican Party
• The contrast between Paxton's and James Talarico's competing visions of Christianity
• How white Christian nationalism shapes contemporary political debates
• Why Black Christian political traditions are often overlooked as authentic expressions of faith
• What the Texas Senate race reveals about power, religion, and democracy in America

When corruption becomes normal, context becomes essential. To support independent analysis at the intersection of faith, history, and justice that helps make sense of this political moment, become a paid subscriber: JemarTisby.Substack.com

Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@jtisby

Follow on Instagram: instagram.com/jemartisby

Episode Description

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Jemar Tisby confronts a pressing question facing the American church: Why are so many pastors silent about voting rights in this moment? Drawing from his firsthand experience at the “All Roads Lead to the South” march and rally in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, Tisby connects today’s attacks on voting rights to the long struggle for Black political power during the Civil Rights Movement. He reflects on the spiritual weight of marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the legacy of Bloody Sunday, and the urgent need for moral courage from clergy and congregations alike.

Tisby also examines the Supreme Court’s recent Voting Rights Act ruling, critiques pastoral silence through the lens of God's Long Summer and Letter from Birmingham Jail, and challenges churches to move beyond “deracinated piety” toward the concrete application of Christian ethics in public life. This episode is both a prophetic critique and a pastoral plea for believers to speak up, organize, and act courageously in what Tisby calls “the civil rights movement of our day.”

In This Episode, You’ll Hear About:

• The “All Roads Lead to the South” march and rally in Selma and Montgomery
• Why voting rights are deeply personal in the Black freedom struggle
• The Supreme Court ruling that further weakened the Voting Rights Act
• How racial gerrymandering operates under the language of “colorblindness”
• The silence of many pastors and churches around voting rights
• Martin Luther King Jr.’s warning about the “white moderate” from Letter from Birmingham Jail
• The example of Reverend Douglas Hudgins and church complicity during segregation
• Biblical models of courage, prophetic witness, and justice in times of crisis

Works Referenced

• God's Long Summer by Charles Marsh
• "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr.

Register for The Justice Journey

The next cohort of The Justice Journey begins June 2nd. This eight-week online course explores the biblical, historical, and practical foundations of justice and faithful public witness. Join a community committed to truth-telling, courage, and action in this critical moment.

JemarTisby.Substack.com

Support The Justice Briefing

If you value independent analysis at the intersection of faith, history, and justice, support this work by becoming a paid subscriber.

JemarTisby.Substack.com

The Trump Administration has released a massive new report from its “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,” arguing that conservative Christians were targeted by the federal government under President Biden.

The report frames conflicts over abortion, LGBTQ rights, education, COVID policies, and workplace protections as evidence of anti-Christian discrimination.

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby examines the report’s arguments, historical claims, and political implications. He explores how white Christian nationalism uses grievance politics, why some Christians conflate losing cultural dominance with losing religious freedom, and what happens when Christianity becomes closely aligned with state power.

This episode also asks a deeper question: What kind of faith are we cultivating if Christianity requires political dominance to feel secure?

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Trump’s “Anti-Christian Bias Task Force” and Executive Order 14202
• Why the report focuses heavily on abortion, gender, and sexuality
• The difference between religious freedom and religious privilege
• How grievance politics fuels white Christian nationalism
• Why “Christian America” rhetoric pushes certain groups to the margins
• The relationship between Christianity and state power throughout history
• How pluralism gets reframed as hostility toward Christianity
• Why true faith does not depend on cultural dominance to survive

Join The Justice Journey Waitlist

Subscribe to Dr. Jemar's YouTube page.

If you value historically grounded analysis on faith, politics, and justice, support The Justice Briefing by becoming a paid subscriber at JemarTisby.Substack.com.

Conservatives on the Supreme Court dealt what amounts to a “death blow” to the Voting Rights Act.

But you don’t have to be a legal scholar to understand what really matters here.

The effect is to dilute the voting power of Black people and other people of color who tend to vote Democratic. 

But the entire decision rests on a faulty understanding of racism and how to address it.

This assumption has a name: colorblindness. It is not a virtue.

If race caused the inequality, then race must be named in order to create equity. 

In this episode you’ll hear about…

• What the Supreme Court just did to the Voting Rights Act and why some are calling it a “death blow”
• How shifting from discriminatory impact to intent makes voting rights cases nearly impossible to win
• Why this decision could dilute Black voting power while appearing race-neutral
• The long history of voting rights—from Dred Scott v. Sandford to the Fifteenth Amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965
• How racism adapts over time and why “race-neutral” laws can still produce unequal outcomes
• The flawed logic of colorblindness and why ignoring race doesn’t solve racial inequality
• Why many churches are ill-equipped to respond to this moment—and how that happened
• Practical ways to mobilize, dissent, and take action—from local engagement to national advocacy

The best way to support The Justice Briefing is to become a paid subscriber: JemarTisby.Substack.com

Book a screening of our short documentary: Jesus Was a Migrant

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Jemar Tisby examines the recent spotlight on Douglas Wilson—and why his influence is not new, just newly visible.

For years, Black Christians and other truth-tellers warned about Wilson’s theology, his views on race and gender, and his vision for a theocratic society. Those warnings were largely ignored. Now, as his ideas gain wider attention, the consequences are becoming harder to dismiss.

Tisby explores who Douglas Wilson is, how his influence spread through evangelical institutions, and what this moment reveals about the church’s failure to heed earlier warnings. This episode is a call to discernment, accountability, and a renewed commitment to protecting the vulnerable.

Summary article on Church Leaders

Sons of Patriarchy

The Justice Briefing is completely independently produced and powered by listeners like you.

Become a paid subscriber: JemarTisby.Substack.com

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby makes a clear and urgent case: stop trying to persuade white Christian nationalists. After nearly a decade of hardened political and theological divisions, the question is no longer who is confused—it’s what we do with the clarity we now have.

Drawing on history, current events, and a powerful re-reading of Mark 6, this episode reframes faithfulness not as endless argument, but as discernment, boundaries, and strategic action. If you’ve felt drained by unproductive debates, this conversation will help you reclaim your time—and your mission.

In this episode:

• Why this is a moment of moral clarity, not confusion
• The limits of persuasion in polarized media ecosystems
• The anatomy of white Christian nationalism
• How the church has weaponized “unity”
• A biblical case for setting boundaries (Mark 6)
• Why Jesus instructs his followers to move on
• Where to invest your energy for real impact

Study cited in episode: "When Fox News viewers flip to CNN, their opinions shift too, study finds"  https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/04/07/when-fox-news-viewers-flip-to-cnn-their-opinions-shift-too-study-finds/

Book your screening of our short documentary "Jesus Was a Migrant": jesuswasamigrant.com

The best way to support The Justice Briefing and our indie film studio, Tisby Studios, is by becoming a paid subscriber: JemarTisby.Substack.com

People keep asking me, “How did it go?”

And I understand the question.

But there’s actually a better question.

The better question is, “What did last night signal?”

What happened last night was more than just a sold-out film premiere.

It was a signal. A shift. A glimpse of what the future of Christian storytelling could be.

This film is the first official production of Tisby Studios.

It’s proof that there is an audience for what I call Transformational faith films—stories that don’t just resolve tension, but channel it into action.

This is not a one-off project.

It’s the beginning of a pipeline.

Take Action

If this reflection with you—if it challenged you, unsettled you, or stayed with you—here are a few ways to take the next step:

1. Become a paid subscriber

Most of the support for this film came from this community.

If you want to see more projects like this—films that tell honest stories about faith, history, and justice—become a paid subscriber to Footnotes. Or upgrade to our FOUNDING TIER.

That’s how we keep building.

👉🏾 JemarTisby.Substack.com

2. Host a screening in your community

This film is meant to be experienced together.

Not alone on a screen, but in a room where people can turn to one another at the end and ask:

“What are we going to do?”

If you want to bring Jesus Was a Migrant to your church, school, or organization, start here:

👉🏾 jesuswasamigrant.com

3. Share this post

If this vision resonates with you, share it.

This is how movements grow—person to person, room to room.

If last night showed us anything, it’s this:

The future of Christian storytelling won’t be safe, simple, or sentimental—it will be truthful, communal, and transformational.

And the question now isn’t what we watched.

It’s: What are we going to do next?

P.S. Mark your calendar for a LIVE ONLINE SCREENING of Jesus Was a Migrant.

April 16, 7:30 pm ET. (registration details forthcoming)

Book a screening: JesusWasAMigrant.com

Support transformational faith films: JemarTisby.Substack.com

Right now the Christian film industry is dominated by what I’ve called “Devotional” films.

These films are often produced by people promoting a conservative—even fundamentalist—and heavily right-leaning version of Christianity.

Not every film needs to do everything. And each type of film has its place.

But we need more films in the Transformational category.

Too many stop with personal piety and holiness. Which is not bad but it’s incomplete.

Not enough films show how faith turns worldly logic upside down.

Not enough Christian films show how the heavenly Kingdom confronts earthly kingdoms.

Not enough Christian films interrogate laws, policies, and institutions.

This is the work of Tisby Studios and our first production--Jesus Was a Migrant.

Watch the trailer: HERE

Host a screening: HERE

Support more Christians films in the transformational category. Become a paid subscriber today: JemarTisby.Substack.com

Watch: How to Watch a Movie (As a Christian)

Watch: Homestead Movie Review