I called Emmett Wheatfall two weeks ago to talk about a poem, and straight away he began to preach. And every night, every march, every Black life, every wasted moment, I hear that voice.
“What we need now is aggregators, not agitators,” Wheatfall says, as the summer protests wander into city neighborhoods.
“The rebuke has registered. We get it. Now, what do you want?”
Wheatfall is Black and 63. He has a small church in Northeast Portland, Remember the Hope. He has five books of poetry, the last wrapped around a James Baldwin line, “As Clean as a Bone.” His message to the Black Lives Matter movement is exactly that.
“You’ve galvanized young whites. You have older whites checking their privilege. You have organizations and corporations looking at their value statements about diversity. You have the commissioner of the NFL saying, ’I wish I could go back and rethink the way we responded to (quarterback Colin) Kaepernick.
“Oh, my goodness. It’s a new spring.
“What do you want now?”
We’re sitting on the shaded deck of his home a block or two off Northeast Sandy. His voice rattles the trees. “I’m getting loud and animated because I’m passionate here,” Wheatfall says.
Animated by the moment. Passionate about the opportunity that will soon be lost to the broken windows, senseless fires, and misfits who haven’t done their homework.
When these protests began, ignited by the death of George Floyd, Wheatfall says, they had the look and feel and fearsome possibility of the civil rights movement in the early ’60s.
He was both shaken and inspired because he believes that what began in that Birmingham jail and on that Selma bridge eventually led to affirmative action, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Kamala Harris, a woman of color, on the Democratic ticket.
But the civil rights movement had leaders – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer – and those leaders knew what was needed.
Seats at the lunch counter and the front of the bus. Integrated schools. Registered voters. The end of racial discrimination in the workplace.
They also had the personal character and historical memory, Wheatfall says, to remain focused and non-violent. They didn’t waste their currency on fireworks. They let the terrified guardians of white supremacy burn the Freedom buses and loose the dogs.
In the absence of such leadership and discipline in Portland, Wheatfall fears the power of this movement may wane, even as more Black men are gunned down on the streets.
“This is the resurrection of a social justice movement that has the potential to impact society for years to come,” Wheatfall says. “And right now, many of the leaders in this defining moment haven’t done their homework. We have people with good intentions who haven’t taken the time to learn how to do this effectually.
“The City Council and the mayor are failed leadership. We’re 90 days into people almost bankrupting downtown, and now spreading into the community to set things on fire. That’s failed leadership, and you have to own it. This brilliant moment, this clarion call to save Black lives and to stop police brutality, is getting lost.”
Wheatfall moved to Oregon in 1974 when his father, who served in both Korea and Vietnam, arrived to advise the Oregon National Guard on behalf of the Army. He retired from Clackamas County last October but hasn’t slowed a lick in leading his fellowship or publishing his poems.
“Poetry has taken me more places than my clergy work,” Wheatfall says. “I can be a Black American and, through poetry, imagine myself as an Irish boy loving an Irish girl. I can go antebellum and write about slavery. I don’t do rap; I’m too old for that. I write about love and hope and faith. I write about justice.”
He doesn’t believe in “defunding” Portland police, but he’s impatient for that fraternity to weed out the officers who don’t want to serve as peacekeepers. He knows social justice takes time and heavy lifting, but he’s ready for the agitators to stand down and the aggregators to step up, rallying people of divergent opinions.
“That’s what great leaders do,” Wheatfall says.
“Everything is right for a beautiful change … but it’s not being effectively led. You have a lot of people who have never led a social-justice movement acting out of passion, rather than looking at how the elders did it. Even Dr. King went to India to learn about (Mahatma) Gandhi.
“In this moment, those who are throwing rocks and starting fires, not one of their names will be remembered. But when people’s attention is redirected to the violence and mayhem, they’re backing away.
“Don’t blow this opportunity.”