It's Really That Simple

Jeffrey Katzenberg had an idea. I big idea.

He’d pitched it while employed at Disney but it fell flat.  Even though Katzenberg was the creative mind behind mega hits like The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast (which, actually, went on to become the first animated film to be nominated for the Best Picture award at the Oscars), the consensus was in.  Who on earth would want to watch an animated version of the 10 Commandments?

As it turns out, a LOT of people wanna watch that.

When Katzenberg left Disney in 1994 to start his own company, a collaboration with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen called DreamWorks, his “big idea” kept rolling around. Kept growing. Kept gaining momentum. Until it finally hit the silver screen 4 years later.

In 1998, DreamWorks released The Prince of Egypt, an exquisitely animated rendition of the story of Moses leading his people out of slavery and into the promised land. The film was well received, lots of “oohs” and “ahhs”, and subsequently went on to gross nearly 220 million dollars worldwide. It was the most successful non-Disney animated film at the time, putting the animation giant on full notice that it was no longer the only game in town.

I remember seeing the movie, I was in high school at the time. I was floored by the incredible animation (the parting of the red sea anyone?) but more by the fact that this beloved story of freedom from oppression had been rendered in such an accessible fashion.  There is something about the song Deliver Us, isn’t there? Or the Academy Award winning hit, There Can Be Miracles that speaks to the deepest part of all of us that knows, knows, that the freedom to peruse life, liberty and happiness is an inherent right that only the most egregious of acts would ever take away.

I mean... I wouldn't

 There is another story though, a closer one even, that perhaps will one day have the same opportunity to make a global impact. And it happened right here in America in 1865. You see, despite the fact that at the stroke of midnight on January 1 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation had taken affect, there were those still in bondage who had not heard. Who had not been told. Who did not know they had been freed.

Can you imagine it?

Two years, the toil and labor of these souls had been extracted with no pay. For two years, babies who ought to have been free to love their mothers and learn from their fathers had been sold to strangers, their lives treated as nothing more than a commodity to be exchanged for profit. Backs whipped, hearts bruised, souls crushed. FREE souls, who did not know the doors of their prison had been thrown open wide.

On June 19th, 1865, the words of freedom finally reached Galveston Bay Texas, the last bastion and holdover of an institution that any good and wise human being knows to call a sin. On that day, 2,000 Union troops marched into town proclaiming the good news. These soldiers had been sent to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Texas made June 19th a state holiday in 1979, the rest of the United States followed suit in 2021. And while it’s not the story of Exodus, or even Isaiah (which I’ve just quoted) it is a story that shares the same universal knowing. That keeping a people in slavery is wrong.

I sat down with some friends from my beloved home church, Land of Sky, and recorded a Juneteenth round table discussing why it is that more God-fearing Christians are not as excited about this fabulous holiday as they are about their favorite bible stories that have the same vibes. It was a very enriching conversation, that I encourage you to listen too here, on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. But even if you don’t, let the takeaway be this:

In a time of great divide in our country, and in Christianity, can we NOT at the VERY LEAST agree that THE END OF CHATTEL SLAVERY in America is worth celebrating? That the freedom of our Black brothers and sisters is worth a street fair and a day off? That the story of the Exodus, mirrored in the lives of American heroes like Harriet Tubman, is a story that deserves a round of applause? This is the conclusion that I have come too, and in addition to attending some of the wonderful Juneteenth events planned here in Asheville, I will be going to church on Sunday. I will be gathering with storytellers from the Black community in an act of solidarity, celebrating the freedom that all man (and woman) kind deserves.

You are welcome to join