Church women urged to resist authoritarianism

Key points:

• Those attending United Women in Faith Assembly 2026 heard from fellow United Methodists Stacey Abrams, author and voting rights activist, and her mother, the Rev. Carolyn Abrams.
• Elizabeth Eckford, who faced violence to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, also shared her story at an assembly dinner.
• All three women spoke of the need to stop rollbacks to voting rights and not shy away from the difficult truths of U.S. history.

Courage is not simply a matter of belief, said Stacey Abrams, a nationally known voting rights activist, author and political leader.

“Courage is action,” said the first Black woman to be a major-party gubernatorial nominee, “and I think that’s the most important thing.”

When she needs a model of courage, Abrams said she looks to the example of her mother, retired United Methodist pastor the Rev. Carolyn Abrams.

She did not have to look far on May 16. Her mother was sitting right beside her.

The United Methodist daughter and mother joined in speaking to some 3,000 people attending the United Women in Faith Assembly 2026 in Indianapolis. Moderating the conversation was Sally Vonner, the top executive of the United Methodist women’s organization that has long championed social justice causes.

Both Abrams women challenged those gathered to act with courage in addressing the current threats to voting rights in the U.S.

Those attending the Assembly Legacy Banquet also heard from Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine who as teens in 1957 desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Eckford’s courage made international news when as a 15-year-old she stoically braved the brutality of a mob as she tried to attend what should have been her first day of school.

“The decision not to act in the face of injustice is a decision in favor of maintaining the status quo,” Eckford said. She has written about her experience in the children’s book “The Worst First Day: Bullied While Desegregating Central High,” which sold out of its copies during Assembly.

“Change begins with recognizing and embracing our individual capacity to act,” she said. “Learn to see the world through different perspectives. Don’t shut yourself up inside your comfort zone.”

The three women spoke the same day as thousands of people joined in demonstrations in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, to protest redistricting in Republican state legislatures intended to break up majority-Black districts that tend to vote for Democrats.

The rush to redistrict comes after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way soon after its decision in Louisiana v. Callais to weaken a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act — making it harder for racial minorities to challenge maps as discriminatory. The decision already has led Louisiana’s governor to suspend a primary election and throw out already-cast votes to redraw congressional maps.

“People are beginning to panic at the present situation that we are seeing again unfold,” Carolyn Abrams said. “But the message we need to remember is that we can do something. We can begin to chip away at the rock.”

The elder Abrams, who had been Baptist for much of her life, said she first was drawn to The United Methodist Church because of the commitment to social justice work she witnessed among those involved in what was then United Methodist Women. At the time, Carolyn Abrams — the first person in her family to graduate high school, as well as her family’s first college graduate — was serving as director librarian of William Carey University in Mississippi.

Stacey Abrams, the second of her parents’ six children, became the typist for both her mother and father, when in their 40s, they both discerned a call to United Methodist ministry and decided to go to Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta.

Her father, the Rev. Robert Abrams, eventually became a district superintendent. Her mother had a different ministry path.

“When we became Methodist, I remember my mom struggling with the decision,” the younger Abrams said. “But what drew her to the church was exactly what she described, this commitment to service, this externalization of responsibility, and she imbued that in us.”

Stacey Abrams took inspiration from her mother’s willingness to go where women leaders weren’t always welcome.

“I watched men of God tell her she was not allowed in their pulpits, and the courage she had was that she never expressed the anger that the rest of us felt on her behalf,” the proud daughter said. “She understood that she was more than just herself. She was a representative of the flock that she led. She was grounded enough to not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Her parents also taught their children how to put faith into action. She recalled her mother starting a vacation Bible school in a housing project and merging three congregations and building a new one to form H.A. Brown Memorial United Methodist Church, which became a center of community that the elder Abrams led for 15 years.

Stacey Abrams said her parents also taught their children the importance of direct action to defend human rights, but also that there are certain ways to protest.

Once when they were protesting Shell Oil’s support for South Africa’s apartheid, a young Stacey and her sister tried to lock people out of a Shell gas station store. Their mother had to tell them they could show their sign at the gas station entrance, but they still needed to let people use the door.

Her mother also taught her that the church is often a space for civic engagement. “It’s not about partisanship, but people-ship,” the younger Abrams said. “And that people-ship means that you are in this to serve.”

That means ensuring people have access to healthcare, education and housing as well as defending people’s civil rights and human rights.

“While I may use a partisan label to get on the ballot,” she said, “I use my faith to decide how I deliver that responsibility.”

She also learned from her parents that the Christian faith should be used to help, not hurt people.

“My parents taught us our faith is a shield to protect,” Stacey Abrams said. “It is never a sword to strike people down.”

At this time, she is working to address what she described as the “competitive authoritarian nature” of what’s happening in the U.S.  

Competitive authoritarianism is a political science term for countries that have democratic rules and hold competitive elections, but the party in charge uses various tactics to tilt the playing field so heavily in favor of incumbents that the system cannot be considered genuinely democratic.

“There are 10 steps to authoritarianism and autocracy, but there are 10 steps to freedom and power,” Stacey Abrams said. “That first step is the step I watched my parents take every single day; that is to commit yourselves to that work. Then the next step is to share what you know. Then you organize, you mobilize, you litigate, you argue your point.

“You then disrupt,” she continued. “You deny them the complacency of saying ‘you have a seat, just sit there.’ People might tell me where to sit, but they can’t tell me how long I have to stay there. Then you have to engage and you have to elect, and ultimately you have to demand the change you need to see.

“I learned that from watching my parents. I learned that from watching my mother. And my responsibility and what I would say to all of us is that we know what we face, but we have to do what we must, and that is why God is calling us to this space.”

As Elizabeth Eckford reminded the United Women in Faith, the U.S. has seen elected leaders reject democratic norms before.

In 1957, the all-white Arkansas National Guard, under Gov. Orval Faubus, blocked her and the other Black students from attending in violation of court orders until President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to ensure the safety of the Little Rock Nine.

But even once they could go to class, the nine were often isolated and bullied by their fellow students. The school district also banned them from taking part in extracurricular activities, including attending any high school football or basketball games.

The bravery of the Little Rock Nine in the face of their ordeal helped inspire the late Congressman John Lewis, whose organizing work and commitment even as he faced violence in Selma in 1965 helped mobilize people to fight for the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

“Why do I still talk about my past? We need to remember that we cannot heal the nation’s wounds unless we understand the origins and history of those wounds,” Eckford said.

“Engaging in the hard, fearful business of bringing truth to life is a way of mapping the road this country must travel if we are to heal our oldest, deepest wounds.”

Ultimately, Stacey Abrams said the Christian values she has learned from her parents and especially the work of United Women in Faith might offer a path forward.

“What is so telling about United Women in Faith is that you value the consistency of learning — always growing in your faith and growing in your service,” she said. “And I watched that with my mom. There is this external responsibility that you could not see the world and not do your part.”

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.