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For Rev. Michelle Higgins, Faith Requires Work — And Activism | St. Louis

Published

9 months ago

January 15, 2024

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click to enlarge RAQUITA HENDERSON, PINXIT PHOTOGRAPHY Rev. Michelle Higgins has some thoughts on Martin Luther King, Jr.

Like the late Martin Luther King Jr., Michelle Higgins is both a pastor and an activist. Senior pastor at St. John’s Church the Beloved Community in north St. Louis, she sees her job not just to feed her flock Biblical truths but to push for change. We caught up with her recently to get her thoughts on King’s legacy, the book of James and just how long her sermons tend to be.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

There was a TikTok discussion a few weeks back about how often men think about the Roman empire. As a preacher passionate about social justice, how often do you think about Martin Luther King Jr.?

I think of Dr. King a lot as a reverend — we always say Dr. King, but he was a pastor. And that means so much to me as both a preacher and a protester. But when I think of him “often,” it is in the context of a great cloud of witnesses, as our faith tradition says. I think of Dr. King, I think of Diane Nash, I think of Bayard Rustin. I think of him as a pastor to the people and an organizer for the change that he preached about.

Within the Black church, there’s a long history of pastors being great civil rights leaders. What’s that pairing of faith and action about?

Well, for some of us in the Christian tradition, it simply comes from reading the book of James — a whole book in the New Testament that surely Thomas Jefferson ripped out of the Bible that he made. In James, there is so much to be said about faith and how faith requires work in order to be active and living. And so you’ve got a lot of pastors who saw their church buildings as not only a gathering space for spiritual health, but realized that a shift in material conditions was crucial to the success of any spiritual health campaign that they put on.

St. John’s Church is proud to be the birthplace of Action St. Louis, and we were proud to have hosted one of the first freedom rides in 2014 after the murder of Michael Brown Jr. We’re also proud to be a supporter and a partner to the international movement for Black lives. And we are only continuing the traditions that were begun at the very birth of the Black church, which itself was a resistance and a protest. The history of the AME, the Church of God in Christ and even multiple Baptist traditions, they broke away from the all-white led, grounded and founded church movements because there was no place for, and no humanizing of, Black people in them. The Black church itself is a marker of resistance.

Do you think about that every time you take the pulpit?

Absolutely. And one of the things that we advocate for at St. John’s is harm reduction, via understanding trauma in our addiction advocacy programs. We talk often about loving the soul and the person that carries the soul and not judging them. We find ourselves ministering not only to the people in the pews, but longing to be a home for everyone under the shadow of the steeple. So that’s every week. My sermons take about 20 hours to prepare.

Twenty hours? How long do you preach?

You know, my hope is about 20 minutes. But don’t ask any of our congregation. They’ll say, “She finds a way to preach the whole service!”

Some conservatives try to claim Dr. King’s legacy when they would probably agree with very few things that he did. If he was in St. Louis today, what do you think he would be focused on?

Well, one of the things that I can imagine Dr. King focusing on is the Bill of Rights for working people. We also have rights advocacy going on for sex workers. Spiritual practitioners and people of all faiths might shun away from thinking of sex work as work, they may shun the idea that addicted people each have life and a pattern and that unhoused people have in their hearts a purpose and real needs. That people who are furthest from the seat of power are experts in the fields that will bring abundance to their own lives. And I believe Dr. King would be focusing on those things.

I also believe that he would be advocating and debating with legislators concerning the expansion of the Child Tax Credit. We are at great risk of losing something that I think drew down poverty by over 50 percent over the course of 2020 and 2021. And I can see Dr. King translating those things as a pastor to the people who are most in need of these protections.

It sometimes feels like everything is so broken in St. Louis and in America right now. Do you personally agree that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”?

I do think that. I believe that the power of the people proves the arc of the universe bends toward justice. Because no matter what empire across the world, no matter how little I know about beloved ones in Palestine, beloved ones in Congo, friends in Haiti, no matter how disconnected we seem, each of us longs for something so similar, it could almost be uniform. Our alignment is for material and emotional abundance. It’s really people power that proves to me in the end that the future is still very bright.

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

4 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

4 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

5 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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