This talk invites participants to demythologize the lives and work of various 19th and 20th century freedom fighters and revolutionary thinkers such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B. Wells, and Martin Luther King Jr. (to name a few). The insurrection on the nation’s capital in January 2021 disrupted the national illusion of racial progress and innocence. We are not who we thought we were. The quest for equity and freedom is threatened by a recent surge in white supremacist and white nationalist ideology. The Christian mandate to love our neighbor and seek justice is failing under the weight of self-interest and indifference.

Using the tools of practical theology and psychohistory, this talk seeks to humanize these historical personalities. Our current situation in 2021 is not new. It represents cycle of hatred that must be disrupted. Instead of seeing these historical personalities as great and untouchable heroes, we are better served by demythologizing their lives in a way that allows us to see our common joys and concerns across generations. Our national propensity to romanticize the lives of these historical figures is misguided and only undermines our will to act and the moral agency to “do good, seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, [and] plead the widow’s cause.”1 Alternatively, humanizing them guides us to life-giving praxis and redemption.