Speech delivered by Rev. Leah Eubanks at HandsOff! Western Kentucky Fights Back on April 12, 2025
at Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 184 1127 Broadway, Paducah, KY.
This is a moral moment.
Few times in a person’s lifetime do we meet these moments.
Moments that call on our hope, our courage, and our integrity.
Moments that call us to give up the safety and security of what we
have for a dream of righteousness and goodness that’s bigger
than ourselves.
This is a moral moment.
This isn’t a moment to be divided by democrat or republican,
documented or undocumented, black or white, Christian or non-
Christian.
This is a moral moment.
It’s a moment about right vs. wrong. This is a moment about
whether the American people will rise up to lead based on justice
and righteousness in the midst of corruption at the highest levels
of power. This is a moment that will define our lives and our
children’s lives and the kind of world they will grow up in. And yet,
it seems as a nation we have forgotten our moral center. We’ve
forgotten the foundation of justice and righteousness.
This is a moral moment.
I’m reminded in this moment of the prophets. The prophet Amos
accused the leaders of hatred and retaliation against those who
spoke out on behalf of the poor. See, the powerful were taking
bribes, afflicting the righteous, and in turn setting aside justice so
they could line their pockets. I know this sounds familiar, but this
was ancient Israel. Amos accuses the rich and wealthy of
trampling on the poor by taking their grain and in turn building
houses and vineyards on their land.
This is a moral moment.
It didn’t end there. With the growing power of the monarchy, land
and wealth was redistributed to the Crown and their loyal
supporters, while the poor and powerless were left
disadvantaged. The wealthy class were able to influence the law,
matters of taxes, property rights, and foreclosures, scooping up
for themselves more wealth and leaving the poor desperate.
Isaiah condemns them saying, “Woe to those who make
iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside
the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their
right, to make widows their spoil and to plunder orphans!” (Isaiah
10:1-2).
This is a moral moment.
The law of Moses was very clear. “You shall not wrong or oppress
a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus
22:21). Well, friends, unless you are Native American, most of us
were once immigrants in this land. And Malachi says, “I will be
swift to bear witness…against those who swear falsely (lie),
against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the
widows and the orphans, against those who thrust aside the alien
and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 3:5).
This is a moral moment.
When I taught Elementary school, every year a group of
Kindergarten children would get into an argument. And the
argument would always end the same. Both children would point
to the other and say, “They started it.” I’m tired of hearing the
worn out, childish argument over who’s fault it is. I would say to
my students, “I don’t care who started it. I want to know who’s
going to do the right thing now.” This is not a time for division.
This is a time for righteousness.
This is a moral moment.
Right now, our elected officials are not here. Right now James
Comer is making a concerted effort to eliminate funding for those
who speak truth and love like NPR and PBS. Right now, James
Comer has passed a budget resolution that will strip money from
Medicare and Medicaid to hold onto power and line the pockets of
billionaires. Right now, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are
dismantling our civil services, and James Comer would have you
believe that this moment is about illegals, DEI, woke ideology, or
the leftist lunatics. Trying to divide this country by shifting blame
to the most marginalized, like kindergarteners.
This is a moral moment.
I don’t care who started it. But what I want to know is whether
we’re going to do the right thing now because this moral moment
is about doing what’s right. And if our elected officials won’t do
what’s right then it’s up to us. It’s moral moments like this that we
must answer the call to courage, integrity, and hope.
Rebecca Solnit in her book Hope in the Dark says, “Your
opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you
have no power, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win.
Yet, hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t
have to throw away."
Hope is not easy, friends. Hope and faith and love are not ideas
that happen in the land of milk and honey. These ideals don’t
come into being when times are good. They happen in the
darkness and in the hardship. That’s why it’s called courage.
That’s why it’s called integrity. That’s why it’s called hope because
it stands in stark contrast to capitulation, corruption, and cynicism.
These values that are necessary in this moral moment are only
present when we act and we choose to dream of a world that we
believe is possible.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. In his iconic “I
have a dream” speech he said, “Let us not wallow in the valley of
despair, I say to you today, my friends. And even though we face
difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It’s a
dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”
Friends, we don’t have to just believe that hope is possible. We
know it’s possible because history has demonstrated it by people
who have dreamed and hoped before us have made that hope
possible. Those that championed the Declaration of
Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the
Civil Rights Movement.
This is our moral moment.
It’s a moral moment that requires our integrity, our hope, and our
courage. This moment requires the courage to live differently. To
speak up for the least of these. This moment calls us to give up
the safety and security of what we have for a dream of
righteousness and goodness that’s bigger than ourselves, but big
enough for all of us.
U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said on Tuesday:
“What is more needed now is less people sitting on the sidelines.
Less people being witness of American history and more people determined
to make it. To make history. To call to the conscious of this nation. To say
I will not stand for another American to lose their healthcare for a billionaire.
I won’t stand for another veteran that is dedicated to stopping the suicide of a
nother veterans to lose his job. I won’t stand for the collective assault on
the Constitution…When is it going to be enough?… But we the people are
powerful. We are strong. We have changed history. We have bent the arch
of the moral universe. And now is that moral moment again.
This is our moral moment.
And in this moment we will not surrender to cynicism. We will not
sacrifice integrity and righteousness. Yet, we will boldly walk with
the courage to dream as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
taught us to dream.
So today we call on our representatives to join us and put on the
robes of righteousness. Stop stealing our healthcare. Stop
stealing good paying jobs. Stop eroding international trust. Stop
the tariff wars and the pretentious, strong man posturing.
Instead we call on you to restore our civil services. Restore
righteousness, goodness and love of our neighbors. Restore due
process for immigrants and restore the diversity programs that
have made this nation great.
Because this is a moral moment and
we will courageously answer the moral call to hope.
Rev. Leah Eubanks is a pastor with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kentucky and is currently finishing her Masters of Divinity at Lexington Theological Seminary. In her previous career she served as a public school educator and musician. She also serves as the Moderator for the Region of Kentucky, serves on the Board of the Western Kentucky Region and teaches boundaries trainings to Kentucky pastors. Rev. Leah Eubanks lives in Paducah, KY with her family and serves in Western Kentucky.
