By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
Word In Black
Bishop Leah Daughtry was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., into a family where church was their life, which is the definition of a preacher’s kid. She began teaching Sunday school at 13 but carries none of the usual “PK” cynicism. “Usher, church administrator; being a preacher’s kid in a smaller church, you had to do all these things. We didn’t get to sit and wear pretty clothes,” she says.
But a PK component emerged when asked if she’s ever cleaned the church bathroom.
“Yes, Ma’am, the bathroom, the kitchen, sweep the floor, make the bulletins in the old days with the mimeograph machines,” she says when I interject, having to clear mistakes on the bulletin master with a razor blade. She continues, laughing, “Buy the chicken, fry the chicken, serve the chicken, raise the money, count the money, take the money to the bank.”
Daughtry had no expectation of formal ministry until the call came in 2000. And she answered in a wholehearted way.
She is now the presiding prelate of that church, a Pentecostal Assembly founded in 1929 by her grandfather, Bishop Alonzo Daughtry. It’s formally called The Church on the Mount, but the national fellowship of churches is called The House of the Lord.
That fellowship describes its mandate as prophetic, political, pastoral, priestly, pedagogical and programmatic.
A church full of registered voters
“We believe in the small church model, which is biblical,” she says. “It’s important that the shepherd be able to count the sheep. Know them by name. Know what their conditions are. There’s no need to go through lots of layers to get to the shepherd.”
The members of The House of the Lord are educated in the necessity of voting and required to register; they are enlightened about the issues.
“We give them tools to make assessments for themselves. We don’t tell them who to vote for. They don’t have to vote, but they do have to register. When candidates come to speak, they know they’re addressing a church full of registered voters.”
So they immediately see the dichotomy in a platform that declares itself pro-life but has no care about the quality of the child’s life once it’s here.
“Abundant life in all its phases. Food. Shelter. Water. Good schools. Safe streets,” the Bishop says.
“I want to be clear that I am not fighting for abortions. I’m pro-choice, but not pro-abortion. That’s between the women and their God. Everyone has a God-given right and a God-given ability to make personal decisions, including who you want involved in those decisions, but definitely not the government.”
She said we should have autonomy over our being and personhood. We are endowed with the right and freedom.
The bishop responds to the revisionist history being propagated. “The boldness of the lie is quite stunning,” she says. “That people learned skills, had housing. What housing? Our responsibility is to challenge the lie. It’s just a lie.”
And her tone softened as she recalled the family history that recorded her then fourth-grade-age grandmother having been raped, and chosen as the bed partner for the slave master. He legally claimed the son as his own, but who would deny the violence perpetrated upon a child?
Bishop Daughtry says the same force wants to make decisions for us — basic life decisions and choices: “It is the same force that made decisions over our grandparents. People outside myself make decisions. It’s the same demonic force.”
A Capitol Hill start
“My first vote was for Jesse Jackson for President in 1984. In my junior year of college, I interned for U.S. Rep., the Rev. Ed Townes of New York,” she says.
She says working on Capitol Hill for those four years gave her an on-ramp into the Washington political establishment through his values lens, which reflected her own values and showed that faith and politics could be intertwined without losing their parameters.
She also worked for Democratic National Committee Chair Ron Brown and had a hand in logistics for the 1992 convention. She was also an administrative assistant for Alexis Herman, the first African American to be Secretary of Labor
Trump surprise? Not.
Bishop Daughtry says she’s not surprised that Trump is once again the Republican front-runner.
“Because this country is what it is. We’ve never really repented for the sins of slavery, racism, sexism. When you dehumanize God’s creations, making them less than you…you commit a sin. Because our country refuses to deal with the sin of racism and sexism at its core, we’ll keep coming back to the consequences…Trump is one of the consequences,” she says.
“My deeply held faith drives me to believe that every single human being is a person of worth, in whom God has invested His own time and His own breath to bring into being. I am compelled therefore to love and care for God’s handiwork — my sisters and brothers on this earth — and to see them as reflections of God’s love, grace and joy.”
For Bishop Daughtry, voting means choosing the person who represents her and her values. “Trump in no way represents my values. I don’t want my young nephews spending four years looking at him as a leader, as president or thinking his views are OK.”
What about the young people who are threatening to withhold their vote from the Biden administration because of Gaza?
“I’m really disappointed in the administration and the way it’s managed Gaza. There are 30,000 innocent dead people, people who had absolutely nothing to do with Hamas. They just happened to be living where Hamas is the political party in power,” she says.
“And our country is funding the weapons Israel is using to kill Palestinians. They’re pushing them from Gaza to Rafa. Where are they going to end up?”
She prays every day and works every day to get the current administration to do the right thing,
“I’m devastated at what’s going on in Gaza. But I’m also concerned about what’s happening on the South Side of Chicago, what’s happening in Bed Stuy. In Oakland. In Atlanta,” she says.
“Trump ain’t going to help with none of them. If Trump was president now, Israel would have obliterated Palestine by now. That’s what he said.”
What have I done?
What have I done? That expression of regret is what Bishop Daughtry wants no voter to feel the morning after any election. Regret at having chosen the wrong candidate, or no candidate at all for the wrong reason. Everyone’s worst nightmare.
There has been much conjecture as to the number of votes that will be lost because of the way the Biden administration has acted during the war in Gaza.
“The Democrats are my party, and I support them. I don’t support everything that they do. And I definitely don’t support the way they’ve handled the situation in Gaza,” she says.
“I was happy to hear President Biden say he was going to build a port city so the U.S. and other countries could provide food, clothing, medicine, and other essentials of which they are currently deprived.”
But what if Trump had been president when this happened? “Israel would have obliterated Palestine by now. He said out of his own mouth that Israel should just get it over with.”
And, says Daughtry, “President Biden said something no recent president has said, that there needs to be two states. The Palestinians should be able to govern themselves, without oversight of Netanyahu.”
A missed opportunity
Some people, especially Christians, say they’ll vote for the House and Senate, but not the top of the ticket.
“They should read Project 2025. It’s the Trump manifesto. It states what they plan to do if they get another go at the White House,” the Bishop says. “They’re going after everything they want with executive orders, all that don’t require congressional approval.”
She says they’re planning to deport Muslims, and half her family members are Muslims.
“I’m concerned. They’re going to overturn laws — replace them with new laws. The top of the ticket matters,” she says.
Not voting is a missed opportunity.
“And you end up with, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’”
This article was originally published by Word In Black.