Last Updated on August 5, 2025 by BVN
Overview: Rev. Alvin Smith’s sermon emphasized the importance of sharing faith and heritage with the younger generation, tying it to the current predicament faced in the US. The author, Hardy Brown Sr. shares his experience of living in America for 83 years, including the murder of his uncle in 1942, which was covered up due to the Jim Crow laws. The author sees similarities between the Ku Klux Klan’s actions in the past and the current ICE raids, and warns against allowing the US to become a Ku Klux Klan Country again.
Hardy Brown, Sr.
Last month, Rev. Alvin Smith, former Pastor of St. Paul AME Church, preached a sermon that “God is calling us out” for such a time as this and used these scriptures as the foundation for his message:
Exodus 13:14 is about the importance of sharing our faith and heritage with the younger generation—of how God brought the Israelites out from under the bondage of Pharaoh—and tied it to Blacks being freed from slavery in America and the current predicament we face in this country.
Isaiah 60:1 is a “Calling from God,” reminding us of the immense power He placed in all of us for such a time as this that we are currently facing with a lawless administration.
John 6:41–51 is a reminder for us today that Jesus Christ is the “Bread of Life,” and belief in Him will give us the assurance to fight through this with the confidence of victory, like our ancestors.
Acts 3:6 is about giving or doing what YOU can do for the cause in our struggle for freedom. Peter told the disabled man, “Silver and gold I do not have, but in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.”
In closing, Rev. Al told us God is calling you out today, telling us to wake up because the Pharaoh of yesterday is active today. He is taking our history and civil rights away, so stand up for yourself.
As he preached, it started me thinking. I can’t walk or speak too clearly, but I thank God every day He wakes me clothed in my right mind, with the use of my hands to feed myself and type on the computer. So this is what I can contribute in the struggle for freedom.
I am going to tell you my experience of 83 years living in America, and why I say that the United States of America is now a Ku Klux Klan Country. I did not know of this part of my family trauma history until October 2021, when my first cousin, Dr. Sam Barber, emailed me an article about our Uncle Issac Strayhorn’s murder.
So, my experience regarding terror by white Americans began sixteen days after I was born in the Jim Crow South city of Trenton, North Carolina. On December 24, 1942, they pulled my uncle Issac Strayhorn’s chained, bound, shriveled body—weighted down by cinder blocks—out of Brock Mill Pond.
It was reported that when Aunt Betty, his wife, asked then-Sheriff John Creel of Jones County to investigate her husband’s murder, he said to her, “Betty, your husband is dead. Bury him.” There would be no investigation—and there never was one. Dr. Thomas Vassey wrote on my uncle’s death certificate that his death was an “accidental drowning, no boat involved.” The death was recorded on December 24, 1942.
So that you know, I grew up with all of these people—Blacks and whites—until I left home in 1960 at 17 years old. As a sharecropping family, I helped Aunt Betty, my father’s sister, put in tobacco and dig sweet potatoes on their farm.
Dr. Vassey, and his wife Alma, a registered nurse, took care of the community’s health care needs. It was Mrs. Vassey who gave me all of my vaccination shots.
I know by now you are asking yourself, ‘Why didn’t I know before October, 2021, about his death?’
It was because of the Jim Crow laws and the fact that 99.9% of Blacks living in Jones County, North Carolina, during that time were living on white people’s land as sharecroppers, so they kept quiet and did not talk about my uncle’s death—even to family members.
Some white people in Trenton openly flew the Confederate flag on top of the USA flag every day. As a matter of fact, the white family who did that lived one block from our house.
What we have going on with these ICE raids, with their faces covered, reminds me of the KKK who wore white hoods covering their faces, wearing white sheets as robes. Now they wear black outfits and black masks and ride in unmarked vehicles. The KKK wore this outfit because they were local citizens who were on the law enforcement staff, store owners who sold us things in their stores, schoolteachers, and landowners where some Blacks farmed their crops.
In my opinion, this is what we have going on with these ICE raids and our government suing everybody who dares to use their constitutional First Amendment right to lift their voice and say anything about it. Just like the Black and white families who knew my uncle kept quiet about his murder because they knew the law was against them.
Well, that was then, and now is now. It may be separated by decades, but the actions are the same. Will you allow the United States of America to return to Ku Klux Klan Country?
God is Calling You Out.