Over the course of Holy Week, we see that we cannot reflect on resurrection without first grappling with death. This involves not only our individual mortality, but also the death-dealing systems and cultures in which we find ourselves. In Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (2015), Kelly Brown Douglas reckons theologically with the state-sanctioned murders of black people – a sinful and tragic reality of our contemporary society. 

Brown Douglas provides historical context for the “stand-your-ground” mentality underpinning laws in 38 states, which captured national attention in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s murder and the acquittal of his killer. The Stand Your Ground Law allows individuals to use violence to protect themselves whenever they feel threatened (as opposed to fleeing from the threat); this law is informed by a broader culture pervasive through Western history, in which white people are inculturated to perceive Black people as threatening (68). Stand Your Ground culture instills a false fear that often inspires direct confrontation, tragically leading to the murder of unarmed Black people, often but not exclusively by the police who are supposed to serve and protect our communities. 

What can Easter possibly mean to us in the wake of the senseless deaths of Trayvon Martin, of Tamir Rice, of Breonna Taylor, of countless others? It seems too trite to jump to the hope of resurrection, as if God could erase the unfathomable pain of losing a life, and having the murder justified, rather than condemned, by our legal system. We may be tempted to turn to the cross as a symbol of suffering, to find hope in the fact that Jesus suffered, too. But womanist theologian Delores Williams cautions Christians against glorifying the cross itself as a symbol of hope. The cross, she points out, is a violent instrument of state-sanctioned murder; it represents all that Jesus stood against, not what he stood for. Kelly Brown Douglas lifts up Williams’ point and clarifies that for the Black church, the cross can never be separated from the resurrection of Jesus, which is the true source of hope and salvation. 

Brown Douglas insists that the resurrection is a validation and celebration of Jesus’s life, not his death. The resurrection does not make meaning out of a senseless death; rather, it confirms the meaning of life. For example, in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s murder, it was all too common to find ourselves surrounded by media reports problematically trying to justify his death, suggesting that the hoodie he wore made him look like a “thug” or “criminal.” His death, in media narratives, became the defining feature of his life. As a response, Trayvon’s parents spoke out, telling the world what kind of person Trayvon was: He saved his dad from a burning building at age nine; he loved sports, and hoped to become an aviation mechanic or pilot when he grew up. As Brown Douglas puts it, “Trayvon’s parents have not sought to derive meaning from his death, but rather to restore the meaning of his life” (192).

Christians believe that Jesus’ resurrection promises us the hope of salvation from sin and from death. What does this mean in our concrete circumstances? Brown Douglas argues: “Salvation in the context of stand your ground requires naming and calling out the very narratives, ideologies, and discourses of power that indeed promote the culture of stand-your ground sin” (196). Empowered by the hope of God’s work of resurrection, we are called to collaborate in that work in our lifetimes, to dismantle the crucifying systems of sin and death.

Fear is a central component of stand-your-ground culture. In today’s Gospel, we hear the newly resurrected Jesus encourage the women, “Don’t be afraid!” At the core of resurrection is a repudiation of death, and of the death-dealing structures that cause and feed off of fear. As we celebrate the resurrection, let us embody this hopeful new reality, in rejecting the racist culture of “stand-your-ground” culture.

Kelly Brown Douglas is the Dean of Episcopal Divinity School and the Bill and Judith Moyers Chair in Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She is an Episcopalian priest who serves as the Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral and the Theologian in Residence at Trinity Church Wall Street. Her extensive scholarship focuses on sexuality and racial justice, including the books Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (1999) and Black Bodies and the Black Church: A Blues Saint (2012).

Hear the angel address the women in the Gospel: “Do not be afraid.”

Hear Jesus repeat to them: “Don’t be afraid!”

Take a deep breath, and honestly ask yourself, where do you encounter fear in our stand-your-ground culture? Have you internalized its sinful logic, viewing those who are other as a threat? Are you a person of color who fears a violent encounter with law enforcement, or fears what will happen if you encounter someone who perceives you as a threat? Do you fear for your children, whom you cannot protect from the cruelty of the world? Do you hope for a more just world, but fear the changes this would require of you? Do you fear that our world is too broken to change?

Hear the angel and Jesus again say: “Do not be afraid.”

Ask God what you can do to create a world where others are no longer afraid. Allow the message of the resurrected Christ to banish your fear, and empower you to pursue the hope and freedom of the resurrection.

In 2013, following the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, which has gone on to become a decentralized, international movement for racial justice. Profiled in Olga M. Segura’s book Birth of a Movement: Black Lives Matter and the Catholic Church (2021), these young women took to social media to call for a world “that genuinely valued Black women, men, and children outside of their contributions to the entertainment industry,” as worthy of “human life and dignity.” The movement gained momentum during the protests in Ferguson, Missouri over the 2014 police murder of Michael Brown.

The work of these three women, and the activists they have inspired, epitomizes Kelly Brown Douglas’s description of salvation: “the naming and calling out the very narratives, ideologies, and discourses of power that indeed promote the culture of stand-your ground sin.” #BlackLivesMatter draws attention to the many ways that Black life is devalued, even crucified, in our contemporary culture, and advocates instead for a world in which the lives of Black people are accorded the safety, well-being, and dignity that all humans deserve. To phrase it theologically, they call us to move towards a resurrected reality, from a culture of death into life. 

Margo Humphrey is a printmaker and Professor of Art at the University of Maryland. This print, titled “Fear Not: I Got You” or “The Black Madonna,” depicting Mary, the Mother of God, and Trayvon Martin, appears on the cover of Kelly Brown Douglas’s book Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God.

Image description: On a purple and orange gradient background, Mary, who is Black, is dressed in a long, blue hooded robe with a red and orange halo around her head. Three tears flow down her cheek. In her hands she holds a brown boy, Jesus, wearing an orange and purple gradient tunic, who slumps to the side with his eyes closed, a halo around his head, and one fist raised in the air. In his other hand is an open package of Skittles, which pour down below him.