We Shall Overcome

January 20, 2007 

Hello, my name is Christine Haskins and I am proud to be one of your Worship Associates this year.   

I remember the first time I heard “We Shall Overcome.”  

I was struck with the power and the emotion of the song.  I was a young, idealistic teen.  I believed strongly in the causes of the Civil Rights movement, which to me was mostly a historical and distant cause that I knew about from news footage from before I was born or when I was very young.  It wasn’t until I was much older that I understood how relevant it still was and IS.   

When I heard “We Shall Overcome”, I know this is crazy, but I was envious.  Not envious of the persecution, exclusion or prejudice.  But I was envious of the passion, anger, and hope that I saw represented by the song and the movement.  I wanted a cause that applied to me that I could feel that strongly about.  As a privileged white young woman, I wanted “something to overcome.” 

Fast Forward 15 years.  I am a young professional woman working in corporate America (yes, that indeed was a cause to overcome in many ways) living in Cincinnati, Ohio, a very German catholic, conservative city.  I was attending St. John’s Unitarian church there—the same church that Ben and Dolly McKay attended.  And I was privileged to be in MUSE—the Cincinnati Women’s Choir.  We were a choir of 60 women.  And what a unique and amazing group of women it was (and still is—celebrating its 25th anniversary this year).  It was a social experiment gone right. 

The choir was half white, half African-American and Latino.  It was half lesbian and half straight.  The youngest member was 22 and the oldest was 70.  We were so interesting to look at!  You could say that we didn’t have much in common—except for a devotion to singing for causes of social justice and an undying love for our director—the incredibly talented and inspirational Cathy Roma. 

We performed concerts, rallies and marches—for racial equality, against abuse against women, for the workers’ movements and against the ravages of war.  At marches, the standard songs came out—We Shall Overcome being one of them.  The first time we sang it, the familiar feeling returned.  The feeling of “Oh, I love everything about this song.”  But also the “I’m not entitled to sing this song.”  But an amazing thing happened as I continued to sing it.  It is very much related to Marni’s sermon last week discussing separatism versus integration.  The song wasn’t about “THEM” anymore.  It was about “US.”  The us that included me.  During one march, I was carrying Eric, who was 1, in my sling as we walked and sang.  And I was singing for him and for every single one of us.  The US of women, the US of those who believe in justice, the US of mothers who want more for our children, the US of the human race.  The choir was about making a statement about inclusion, harmony and unity. 

During the last election, I had one of those enlightening experiences.  You know how you go along, everything is fine and you see the world a certain way.  Then, BAM, something happens where you see that it is actually not that way at all.  And from that point on, you can’t really go back to looking at it the same way.  This happened during the election four years ago.  Many Republicans were running –and winning—on a platform of values.  If you believed in their “Family” platforms you were right and if you went against their platforms you were wrong.  It was in that moment that I realized that I –Christine Haskins—an unassuming, loving, gentle person—was one of the people who they hated and that they were uniting a whole half of the population AGAINST.  I represented and believed in things that they did not support.  I believe that love is love, no matter the genders involved.  I believe that what you do with religion is a choice, not a mandate.  I believe that they would disagree with my family’s “values”.  And I realized that people were motivated to get out and vote because of a unified distaste and disapproval of people like me and people who I love.  It finally had hit me and it felt like a brick. 

It was at that time I was glad that I was up there singing We Shall Overcome, even though it didn’t apply to me.  Because I want to be one who is supporting everyone else, in the hope that if it ever does apply to me, the same willingness to overcome will be there.  While much has improved, there continues to be much that still needs to be overcome.  I hope we never lose our idealism that we can overcome all of it.    And I hope we never stop working to make it happen.