The Justice Briefing with Dr. Jemar Tisby

What does it mean when a Christian says, “Jesus is my candidate”? 

Can pastors avoid partisan endorsements while still addressing political injustice? 

And how should believers navigate imperfect electoral choices?

In this Election Day special of "The Justice Briefing", Dr. Jemar Tisby welcomes Dr. Christina Edmondson, Rev. Dr. Mika Edmondson, and public theologian Ekemini Uwan.

The conversation responds to remarks by Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell on Cam Newton's "Funky Friday" podcast.

What You'll Learn

- Why Christina calls for greater precision, courage, and community.

- How Mika connects political responsibility to the Good Samaritan.

- Why Ekemini emphasizes social location, informed voting, and accountability.

- How the Black freedom struggle informs Christian political ethics.

- Why pastors can reject partisan endorsements while providing moral guidance.

- How prayer, worship, organizing, and listening shape Christian engagement after Election Day.

• Truth's Table — The podcast cohosted by Christina Edmondson and Ekemini Uwan, exploring theology, race, culture, gender, and public life.
• Truthful Prayers for Resisting the Chaos — Christina Edmondson and Ekemini Uwan's forthcoming devotional book, mentioned as Truthful Prayers.
• What Makes Leaders Wise — Christina's book on wisdom, leadership, and organizational health
• Christianbook.com
• The Power of Unearned Suffering — Mika Edmondson's examination of Martin Luther King Jr.'s theology of suffering.
• Koinonia Church, Nashville — The congregation pastored by Mika Edmondson.
• Sistamatic Theology — Ekemini Uwan's website for her writing, speaking, preaching, and theological work
• Notes from an Evangelical Reject — Jemar Tisby's forthcoming book

Make sure more conversations like these happen. Become a paid subscriber to Footnotes at: jemartisby.substack.com

What could the midterms change in Congress? What do early-voting numbers reveal? And what happens after Election Day?

What happens if the election results are close? What if a candidate refuses to concede? And what happens between the time polls close and the moment elected officials actually take office?

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, historian Dr. Jemar Tisby examines the November 3 elections and the processes that follow.

• How a new House majority could block legislation, conduct investigations, and exercise oversight.
• Why early-voting turnout is drawing attention in North Carolina, Florida, and other states.
• Which Southern races involving Black candidates have historic significance.
• How vote counting, recounts, legal challenges, and certification work.
• What the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's 1964 challenge teaches us about political participation and long-term change.

This episode connects the immediate stakes of the 2026 midterms to the history and institutions that shape American democracy.

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My new book is for anyone who has wondered about or walked away from a community they once called home.

Pre-order your copy of Notes from an Evangelical Reject.

00:00 — Why the midterms don't end on November 3

01:39 — What's at stake in the 2026 elections?

04:57 — What a Democratic House majority could do

07:01 — Congressional investigations and oversight

09:34 — Impeachment powers and the limits of House control

11:54 — What political participation can accomplish

12:42 — Supporting independent journalism and the forthcoming book

14:54 — Early-voting turnout and Kentucky's limited voting window

17:01 — Party breakdowns: North Carolina, Florida, and other states

21:48 — Competitive races and Black candidates in the South

25:51 — Georgia, Stacey Abrams, and the importance of long-term organizing

29:38 — Florida, Byron Donalds, and the meaning of political representation

37:26 — What happens after Election Day?

41:18 — Counting, recounts, challenges, and certification

43:18 — How to evaluate claims about election integrity

53:26 — Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

56:58 — What history teaches about political change

Why did Ryan Coogler set "Sinners" in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1932? What do the film's music, Christianity, vampires, and racial dynamics reveal about the Jim Crow South? And how much history is contained in scenes that last only a few seconds?

In this special Sinners Movie Teach-In, historian Dr. Jemar Tisby joins award-winning creator Garrison Hayes to explore the overlooked history and cultural influences behind Ryan Coogler's acclaimed film.

Jemar spent years teaching and living in the Mississippi Delta, not far from Clarksdale, and has devoted his career to studying race, religion, and justice in American history. 

Together, Jemar and Garrison examine the film's historical setting, its religious symbolism, the music of the Delta, and the economic structures that shaped Black life long after emancipation.

**Spoiler warning:** This conversation discusses major plot developments and scenes throughout the film.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome and introduction to the Sinners Movie Teach-In  

05:18 First impressions of Sinners and its Clarksdale setting  

10:18 Chinese immigrants and racial boundaries in the Delta  

13:23 Introducing the Sinners Movie Syllabus  

16:10 The Mississippi Delta: slavery, cotton, and generational poverty  

22:38 Fannie Lou Hamer, education, and Black religious thought  

28:34 Christianity, Hoodoo, and African spiritual traditions  

33:40 The blues, Robert Johnson, and the juke joint  

36:43 The vampires and competing visions of unity  

41:08 Convict leasing and the prison labor system  

46:37 Sharecropping, plantation money, and debt  

51:47 Ryan Coogler's ownership deal and economic power  

57:41 Chinese–Black solidarity and survival under Jim Crow  

61:35 The Choctaw and Indigenous knowledge  

65:59 Irish identity, colonialism, and the construction of whiteness  

68:28 How to use the Sinners Movie Syllabus

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Dr. Jemar Tisby is a historian, author, filmmaker, and racial justice advocate whose work explores the intersection of faith, history, and justice.

Garrison Hayes is an award-winning communicator and creator whose work explores history, race, culture, and contemporary issues.

Free Educational Resource: The Sinners Movie Syllabus

Jemar Tisby and historian Keisha N. Blain created the #SinnersMovieSyllabus, a free guide to the history and culture that informed the film.

The syllabus includes books, films, music, and educational materials about the Jim Crow South, Black Christianity, the blues, migration, racial violence, and Black horror.

Read the syllabus HERE

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How do you tell a compelling story about racism, injustice, or social change without making your audience feel like they're listening to a sermon? What separates a story that moves people from one that overwhelms them with its message? And how do you build a creative career telling these stories when there isn't an obvious path forward?

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, historian, author, and filmmaker Dr. Jemar Tisby sits down with award-winning writer and director Nick Brooks, director of the new narrative short film What Will We Tell Them.

Brooks is the author of Promise Boys, Up in Smoke, and the Ethan Fairmont trilogy. His creative career has taken him from teaching and writing children's books to filmmaking, music, and video game writing.

Their conversation explores the craft of storytelling, the relationship between social justice and art, the importance of representation, and the persistence required to create opportunities.

• Why justice-centered stories can become preachy.
• How to build a story around characters.
• Brooks's three ingredients for a strong story.
• Why trusting your audience matters.
• How lived experience shapes creative work.
• How to pursue opportunities before you feel fully qualified.
• How to move from inspiration to a finished film.
• What went into making What Will We Tell Them.

Nick Brooks is an award-winning author, director, and musician whose work spans young adult and middle-grade fiction, film, and music. His writing explores the lives of young people navigating institutions, expectations, and systems of inequality.

Learn more about Nick: thenickbrooks.com

Learn more about the film "What Will We Tell Them" by subscribing for updates at: jemartisby.substack.com

00:00 — Welcome and *What Will We Tell Them* screening announcement  

01:45 — Meet Nick Brooks: author, filmmaker, and creative artist  

04:47 — Telling stories about justice without preaching  

08:30 — Hook, heart, and theme: how Brooks develops stories  

11:19 — The influence of hip-hop, books, and Black storytelling  

14:47 — How to nurture social awareness in young people  

18:20 — Howard University, mentorship, and discovering education  

24:09 — Writing children's books and finding a creative purpose  

29:15 — Creating opportunities and getting a literary agent  

33:56 — Taking risks, handling rejection, and writing for GTA VI  

38:15 — How children's books opened doors to a new career  

41:11 — *Fruitvale Station*, Ryan Coogler, and becoming a filmmaker  

45:30 — Learning filmmaking by getting onto film sets  

48:13 — Mistakes to avoid when telling stories about injustice  

50:44 — The story behind *What Will We Tell Them*  

54:21 — Filmmaking challenges, preparation, and adapting on set  

57:29 — Private screening details and ways to support the film

Subscribe to "Footnotes" for historically grounded analysis, commentary about faith and justice, and updates on new films and educational projects: jemartisby.substack.com

Instagram: @JemarTisby 

What do you do when the church, workplace, organization, or community you once called home no longer reflects your values?

How do you know when it's time to stop fighting for a seat at someone else's table?

And if you decide to leave, how do you figure out what comes next?

Maybe you've spent years trying to make an institution better, only to discover that there's a limit to how much change its leaders will tolerate.

Maybe your presence is welcomed, but your perspective isn't.

Or maybe you have a vision for something different, but you're not sure you have the resources, experience, or courage to build it.

This episode of The Justice Briefing will help you think through your next move.

Dr. Jemar Tisby shares lessons from his journey out of white evangelical institutions and into building Tisby Media, an independent organization dedicated to truth-telling at the intersection of faith, history, and justice.

Drawing on his personal experiences with racial exclusion, institutional resistance, and entrepreneurship, Jemar offers three practical principles for turning dissatisfaction into constructive action.

You'll discover how to move beyond simply knowing what you want to leave behind and start identifying what you want to create.

And you'll learn why building your own table might not be what you actually need.

• How to recognize when an institution has made space for you without giving you meaningful power
• Why righteous anger can be a powerful starting point for creating positive change
• How to identify the deeper motivation that will sustain you when building something new gets difficult
• The three factors that can help you discover a mission uniquely suited to your gifts and convictions
• The surprising difference between building your own table and building your own chair

You'll also hear about Jemar's forthcoming book, Notes from an Evangelical Reject, and get updates on projects from Tisby Media, including the upcoming short film What Will We Tell Them?

If you're tired of shrinking yourself to fit someone else's vision—or you have a dream of creating something better but don't know where to begin—this episode will help you see the possibilities in front of you and take your next step with greater clarity.

Notes from an Evangelical Reject — Jemar's forthcoming book, available for preorder. Publication date: January 19, 2027.

How to Resist White Christian Nationalism — A self-paced course featuring practical action steps.

Jesus Was a Migrant — Watch the trailer and learn about community screenings at https://jesuswasamigrant.com.

What Will We Tell Them? — A new narrative short film from Tisby Studios.

Book Launch Team — Join Jemar's launch team for exclusive resources, updates, and opportunities to help spread the word about Notes from an Evangelical Reject. Join HERE.

Footnotes — Subscribe for historical insights and analysis at the intersection of race, religion, and politics. JemarTisby.Substack.com

00:00 – How to Build Your Own Table

02:27 – Why So Many People Are Questioning Their Institutions

07:48 – Jemar's Journey Through White Evangelicalism

12:58 – When You're Given a Seat but Not a Voice

17:19 – Principle 1: Identify Your Internal Driver

19:59 – How Righteous Anger Can Fuel Constructive Change

21:24 – The Vision That Pulls You Forward

22:28 – Principle 2: Create a Clear Mission

24:09 – Discovering Your Gifts and Learning to Trust Yourself

27:33 – Finding Joy and Passion in Your Work

29:29 – Identifying the Need Only You Can Address

31:09 – Principle 3: Decide What You're Actually Building

31:43 – The Difference Between Building a Table and Building a Chair

36:21 – How Jemar Built Tisby Media

40:03 – The Justice Briefing, Teaching, and the Justice Institute

42:40 – Tisby Studios and the Power of Film

44:10 – What Will We Tell Them? and the Legacy We're Creating

46:16 – Notes from an Evangelical Reject and the Book Launch Team

54:02 – Upcoming Projects and New Developments

58:04 – Why We Need New and Truer Institutions

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JTisby

The Justice Briefing is your weekly guide to current events at the intersection of faith, history, and justice.

#TheJusticeBriefing #JemarTisby #EvangelicalReject

In a rare guest interview, Dr. Jemar Tisby sits down with Dr. Matthew D. Taylor, author of the new book Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists.

They discuss Christian supremacy, Christendom, and imperialism. Going deeper, they explore how Jesus displayed and taught about power, and why the tyrants who claim his name avoid those teachings with surgical precision.

They also talk about the cost of this work. Dr. Taylor lost his job for writing this book.

You'll come away with a theological case for defying tyrants and a picture of what that looks like in the church, in politics, and in everyday life.

Get Defying Tyrants wherever you get your books.

Topics Addressed

• Pete Hegseth's speech and the new Office of Religious Affairs
• Constantine's conversion and the merging of church and empire
• Christian supremacy as the ideology beneath Christian nationalism
• Why "antichrists" in 1 and 2 John refers to Christians who harm others in Jesus' name
• The parable of the wheat and the tares
• The cost of speaking out against authoritarianism

Support conversations like this one by becoming a paid subscriber at JemarTisby.Substack.com.

Resources Referenced

• Matthew D. Taylor, Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists (Broadleaf, 2026)
• Matthew D. Taylor, The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy (2024)
• Matthew D. Taylor's Reckonings (Substack)
• Scripture: Mark 10:42-45; 1 John 2:18-19; Matthew 13:24-30

Get the course. Gain the confidence: How to Resist White Christian Nationalism

White Christian nationalism is the greatest threat to democracy and the witness of the church in the United States today. 

Most people who follow this work already know that. So why don't we have more confidence to confront it? 

In this back-to-basics episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby names five obstacles to confidence: 

1. leaving out the "white," 

2. calling every conservative Christian a Christian nationalist, 

3. leading with facts alone, 

4. stopping at 'it isn't really Christian," 

5. mistaking understanding for resistance. 

Along the way, he brings the receipts, from PRRI's newest data showing that nearly two-thirds of Americans resist Christian nationalism to Gorski and Perry's "deep story" of a Christian America that was supposedly stolen and must be taken back.

The episode builds toward a revelation Dr. Tisby had live on the show: what people need most to resist white Christian nationalism is confidence. The truth is on our side. 

To move from understanding to action, Dr. Tisby introduces his new self-paced course, How to Resist White Christian Nationalism.

Topics Addressed

• How the plantation's paternalistic hierarchy mirrors the white Christian nationalist vision
• Tokenism: why people of color in the movement are useful but never central, and why tokens get spent
• New PRRI data: nearly two-thirds of Americans resist Christian nationalism, with Arkansas and Mississippi the least resistant states
• The "deep story" of white Christian nationalism and why we must meet a bad story with a truer story
• The third commandment, the no true Scotsman fallacy, and the responsibility of Christians to resist
• The ARC of Racial Justice and the gap between understanding and action

Resources Referenced

1. How to Resist White Christian Nationalism (self-paced course), Dr. Jemar Tisby

2. PRRI, New Report Analyzes the Two-Thirds of Americans Who Resist Christian Nationalism (September 24, 2026)

3. Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2022)

4. Dr. Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise (2019)

5. Dr. Jemar Tisby, How to Fight Racism (2021), source of the ARC of Racial Justice

6. Scripture: Exodus 20:7; Isaiah 6:8

Support the Show

Fewer than 5% of subscribers make this truth-telling at the intersection of faith, history, and justice possible. For $7 a month, or $5.83 a month on the annual plan (less than a gallon of gas in LA), you can help keep The Justice Briefing going. Become a paid subscriber at JemarTisby.Substack.com.

Stay informed. Stay faithful. Stay in the fight.

For decades, the religious right told Christians that abortion was the one issue that outweighed every other. 

Yet ICE recorded at least 18 miscarriages in its custody from January through September 2025, then lost count, and the movement's loudest voices have barely said a word.

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Tisby asks why an unborn child's life should matter less because their mother is an immigrant, and how race shaped the religious right from the start.

In 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention backed laws allowing abortion in cases including rape, incest, and likely harm to a mother's emotional health, then reaffirmed that stance after Roe v. Wade. 

Historian Randall Balmer argues in Bad Faith that what first mobilized conservative Christians politically was the IRS denying tax exemptions to racially discriminatory Christian schools like Bob Jones University.

So was it ever about life in the womb, or was it about power?

Support the podcast:

Is this kind of information worthwhile? That's the only question you need to answer. If yes, become a paid subscriber at JemarTisby.Substack.com 

For $5.83 a month on an annual subscription, you fund the research behind every episode, along with Tisby Media's new course and films.

This episode of The Justice Briefing is different. Instead of starting with a current event and working backward to the history, Dr. Jemar Tisby does what he loves most: he tells stories.

Diving back into primary source research for his new Substack series, History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Rights Edition, left him feeling like a grad student again, brimming with material he could not wait to share. So he devoted a full episode to three of those stories.

The first is about the Congress that refused to seat more than sixty former Confederates in December 1865, overrode a president more than a dozen times, and wrote insurrection into the official record.

The second is about the 1868 Charleston constitutional convention, the only one in American history with a Black majority, where recently emancipated men wrote the most democratic document South Carolina had ever seen and included the children of the people who had enslaved them.

The third is about Amos T. Akerman, a former Confederate and enslaver who became attorney general and prosecuted the first Ku Klux Klan out of existence for forty years.

Taken together, the three stories make one argument: Congress has the power, it lacks the will, and history has the receipts.

• Why the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan disbanded in the mid-1870s and did not reconstitute until 1915
• The 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention: 76 Black delegates out of 124, and the only Black-majority state legislature in U.S. history
• What Black delegates actually wrote into the state constitution, including free public schools, protected suffrage, women's property rights, and a permanent ban on secession
• The three Enforcement Acts, and why the Ku Klux Klan Act finally worked by naming the state itself as the defendant

• Here's What Congress Did When Members Had a Spine
• When Black People Wrote the Constitution
• When the Department of Justice Prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan Out of Existence
• The Spirit of Justice by Jemar Tisby: bit.ly/spiritofjustice
• A Way Forward: Hope in Uncertain Times, Nashville, August 28-30, with Rep. Justin Pearson, Shane Claiborne, and others. Free, but registration is required: Register here

History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Rights Edition runs weekly through the 2026 midterms, roughly twelve installments in all. The episodes are free. The articles are free. The research is not.

If this is the kind of work you want more of, become a paid subscriber at JemarTisby.Substack.com. It is $5.83 a month on the annual plan. Less than six dollars for history from a PhD historian who spent years learning the tools of the discipline to bring it to you.

Stay informed. Stay faithful. Stay in the fight.

On the 61st anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, Dr. Jemar Tisby closes a full history of the law by turning to the fight over it right now.

What took blood and marches to win in 1965 has been taken apart in the thirteen years since 2013, from Shelby County to Louisiana v. Callais, and almost nobody marched.

Dr. Tisby refuses to end there. He points to the faith leaders already mobilizing to protect the ballot before the November midterms, from William Barber's 100 days of action to the poll chaplains and peacekeepers being trained in local churches, and he names the moment for what it is: the civil rights movement of our generation.

The episode also launches History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Edition, Dr. Tisby's three-month series tracing the struggle over the vote from Reconstruction to today.

• Why 2026 is the civil rights movement of our generation, and how the April march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge echoed 1965
• How the Voting Rights Act was taken apart in thirteen years, from Shelby County to Louisiana v. Callais
• Faith leaders mobilizing before the midterms, including William Barber's 100 days of action
• Poll chaplains and peacekeepers: protecting voters, protecting ballots, and protecting the system itself
• The launch of History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Edition on Footnotes
• The closing charge: register, check your registration, and take somebody with you

• The Washington Informer, "Faith leaders start 100-day countdown to Nov. 3 election," featuring Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Tony Lee of Community of Hope AME Church: https://www.washingtoninformer.com/faith-leaders-midterm-vote/
• Black Church PAC and its Freedom Summer events: https://www.blackchurchpac.org/
• All Roads Lead South Coalition, organizers of the 2026 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge
• History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Edition, Dr. Tisby's new Footnotes series: https://JemarTisby.Substack.com

The Justice Briefing runs on readers and listeners, not advertisers. If it helps you make sense of this moment, the best way to support it is to subscribe to Footnotes at JemarTisby.Substack.com. The annual plan comes to $5.83 a month, it keeps this work independent, and it puts every installment of History Rhymes: Democracy and Voting Edition in your inbox from now through the midterms.