Sixty years ago this August, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and declared, “I have a dream that one day… the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” Praise God that dream has become reality!
In a phenomenally true story related in their book, The Dream King, descendent of former slaves, Will Ford, and descendent of Ford’s ancestors’ slave owners, Matt Lockett, tell a riveting story of how God miraculously brought them together for ministry and reconciliation.
The two men “providentially” met on a bitterly cold day in January of 2005 at a prayer meeting. The meeting was part of a larger conference but this particular session was “coincidentally” held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Through incredible answers to previous prayers of both men, God united their hearts even though they had no idea at the time of their ancestors’ connections.
In the months to come, Will, who was from Louisiana, traced his ancestry back to a Virginia farm in Amelia County just east of Farmville. Independently, Lockett discovered that this same farm had been owned by his ancestors before they later sold it and moved away.
Lockett also learned that when his ancestors owned that land, General Robert E. Lee fought his last battle in the front yard of the family home. Now known as the Battle of Lockett’s Farm, this last engagement in the Battles of Sailor’s Creek took place just three days before Lee surrendered at Appomattox 40 miles to the west.
In another crazy coincidence, another of Matt’s relatives, Napoleon Lockett, had moved to Alabama prior to the Civil War and became a planter who owned hundreds of slaves. His wife, Mary, is known as the Betsy Ross of the Confederacy for she hand sewed the first Confederate flag and personally presented it to Jefferson Davis.
With such oppression, conflict, and negative family history, it is truly miraculous that God brought these two Christians together. It is even more remarkable that they are now close friends and brothers in the Lord. Lockett has confessed the sins of his forbearers and sought Ford’s forgiveness who has graciously extended it.
Together these men now travel the country and speak about God’s redemptive power and how all Americans can find true healing if we are willing. Although education about and exposure of past atrocities are crucial in understanding pain and bias that endures to this day, without confession and forgiveness these efforts only produce more hatred and conflict.
Ford’s family owns a huge cast iron kettle that has been passed down from previous generations along with the stories of how they prayed under it for themselves and their owners. The practice was fairly common among slaves as a way to secretly pray.
Many owners forbade their slaves to pray perhaps realizing the power available through God’s gracious provision of prayer. Their slaves prayed anyway, sneaking away at night and imploring God around the edges of their upturned kettles to squelch the sound. Although their owners couldn’t hear their earnest pleas, God certainly did and eventually set them free.
Indeed it was Ford’s and Lockett’s separate prayers that God used to bring them together for such a time as this. When our country is rocked by continued racial struggles, God has revealed that healing is possible.
As America recognizes Black History Month in February, let us each praise God for prayers already answered like the brotherhood of these sons of former slaves and owners, and let us continue to pray for the fulfillment of King’s dream of a nation where all are judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. And, as King also dreamt, where, “…the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
Dreaming and praying, George