Minister Mike Keller is Anna Duggar's father and appeared on the infamous Duggar family's TV show 19 Kids and Counting. (Anna is married to pedophile and child molester Josh Duggar). In the video below, Minister Keller delivers an insanely false and racist sermon about the history of slavery in the United States. Here's the transcript:
The blacks were slaves. Did they ever go to Washington, DC and have a rally 200 years ago to protest against slavery? Did they? No. What did they do? Well, a lot of good people in the plantations would say, "Hey, it's wintertime. Let's let us help build a church for you, dear folks." And they loved them and taught them how to read so they can read the Bible. And here's what the blacks did about 150 years ago, they humbled themselves. They prayed. They saw God's face and they turn from their wicked ways and God made slavery illegal through several white presidents, right. It worked, didn't it? They didn't protest. Maybe there's a place for protests. I don't know. But there's sometimes… is… it.. that was a wise pastor that warned his flock.
Wow. Where to begin? Minister Keller's claim that enslaved African Americans never protested against their condition is not true. Resistance, both subtle and overt, was a consistent feature of American slavery. Enslaved people rebelled, ran away, broke tools, and plotted and staged uprisings. These acts of resistance occurred alongside constant protests from abolitionist societies, both Black and white, which actively campaigned for the end of slavery.
It is also important to note that the nature of protests during the slavery era did not look like what we perceive as protests today. The right to assemble, voice opinions, and demand change was not granted to enslaved individuals. Any form of protest often risked severe punishment or death. This, however, did not stop them from expressing their dissent in covert ways or using the Underground Railroad as a means to escape their bondage.
And Minister Keller's assertion that plantation owners built churches and taught enslaved people to read as benevolent acts is a distortion. While it's true that some enslaved individuals were taught to read, this was often a controversial issue among slaveholders and was illegal in many Southern states. Many enslaved people taught themselves or were taught by others in secret. The purpose of the church in the plantation context was often to pacify enslaved individuals with religious teachings that emphasized obedience.
In terms of the abolition of slavery, it was not a simple divine intervention spurred by prayers, as Minister Keller tells his flock. It was the result of many factors, including the tireless activism of abolitionists, the political and economic tensions between the North and South, and the military success of the Union in the American Civil War. While several white presidents were indeed in power when slavery was made illegal, this doesn't erase the fact that the push for abolition was a combined effort of countless individuals, both Black and white, who fought against the institution of slavery.
Minister Keller's sermon suggests that passive submission was a more effective means to ending slavery than protest, which greatly oversimplifies the complex and multi-faceted struggle for freedom. By reducing the fight against slavery to a matter of divine intervention and benevolent slaveholders, Keller's sermon misrepresents the atrocities of slavery and the difficult journey to abolition.
This racist jerk wants to erase the legacy of the people who lived and resisted under the brutal conditions of slavery and are an essential part of the American narrative. Their stories, their struggles, and their triumphs must not be forgotten or misrepresented by the likes of Minister Keller.
