*Dr. Eric Wallace is a former pastor and outspoken visionary who has called out the increasing trend of politically motivated violence amid the midterm elections.
Wallace and his Black conservative colleagues — collectively known as the Black Conservative Summit — recently released a statement in which they condemned the senseless acts of killing, violence, and fearmongering, increasingly being perpetrated against political conservatives in the U.S. Most notably, there’s the case of 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson in McHenry, N.D., who was allegedly killed over his “extreme” Republican views, Fox News reported.
“We refuse to be silenced, shamed, intimidated or canceled simply because we don’t align with the liberal narrative,” the group said, in part.
Per his bio via a news release: In 2008, Dr. Wallace launched Freedom’s Journal Magazine, an online political magazine encouraging African Americans to cling to conservative principles. He has authored two books published by Integrity Books: Integrity of Faith, an autobiography, and Jesus on Trial: The unique presentation of Jesus in the Gospel of John.
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In 2011, Wallace and his wife, Jennifer, founded Freedom’s Journal Institute (FJI) for the Study of Faith and Public Policy, an Illinois-based nonprofit organization designed to “advance the Kingdom of God through socio-political, education and engagement.”
EUR’s Ny MaGee spoke exclusively with Dr. Eric Wallace about black social and political participation and the role of the church in today’s society. He also unpacked the goal of the Black Conservative Summit which has been rescheduled to March 2023. Check out our conversation below.
*This conversation has been edited and condensed.
Tell our readers more about the mission of the Freedom’s Journal Institute.
Dr. Wallace: Freedom’s Journal Institute is the organization that puts on the Black Conservative Summit. So the institute is a nonprofit institute. We are faith-based as well. I’m an ordained pastor, my PhD is in Biblical Studies. And so, one day I was trying to figure out, “Okay God, what do you want me to do in this area?” Because the whole political arena, I had pretty much ignored until I finished my dissertations. I started looking around and seeing what was going on and I said, “You know what? I need to do something because I got initials in front of my name, initials behind my name.” And I felt like some of the traditional values that many Blacks have held onto were under attack and we were voting against our values and principles, especially those who claim to be Christian and claim to want to live a Christian lifestyle. And I say claim, I’m not saying that they’re not sincere about that, it’s just that our words don’t always line up with our actions, and that would include me as well.
But the institute itself, the mission is to advance the kingdom of God through social-political education and engagement rooted in a biblical worldview. And so, we challenge the church in general and the African American church in particular to vote values. So for instance, if you say that you’re pro-traditional marriage, then vote for people who hold that point of view, if you say that you’re pro-life, then vote for people who hold that view. We find a lot of folks say one thing and they end up voting for somebody else who holds a completely different point of view. And even when it comes to economics, if you think that free market capitalism is the best way for folks to go from poverty to prosperity, then vote for people who are going to push that agenda and that policy.
We vote for people, we put them back in office without ever challenging what it is they’re doing is my view. And you look at Chicago, Chicago has had all kinds of problems with not only Black kids shooting one another and hijacking people’s cars, but our schools are terrible, we got very high taxes, yet Democrats control everything, they control everything. So you can’t blame Donald Trump, you can’t blame Republicans in Congress, you can’t blame any of these people. It’s a local issue here with the governor and the mayor and those who are legislators who are doing this kind of thing and we don’t hold them accountable. We continue to do the same.
I was talking to a guy yesterday at church, he was saying, “Yeah, we put the same people in office time after time and we don’t hold them accountable as to what it is they’re actually doing.”
So we try to get people to start thinking about, okay, what is it that is happening? What’s going on in our schools? What can we do different? School choice is one of those things that started out as kind of a Conservative idea, but there’s other folks who are not Conservatives who are now on the bandwagon saying, “Hey, we need to do something and have competition in our schools because our young people can’t read at grade level.” I mean, White kids can’t even read at grade level. So what can we do to change that? And one of the things we advocate for is school choice, that when there’s competition, people tend to end up doing better and wanting to put out a better product, I hate to have to say it that way, but a better product for our students and allowing parents to send their kids anywhere they want to send them.
Let’s unpack the Black Conservative Summit and why this annual event is vital for the Black Conservative community.
So the Black Conservative Summit is something that we started in 2013, ’13, ’14, ’15, we’ve missed ’16, we did ’17 and we haven’t done one since, and then COVID came up and that kind of changes stuff. One of the things that the summit does is attracts Black Conservatives to come together for comradery, for networking, understanding there’s a lot more of us out here than the mainstream media would like people to know, to give a different narrative. We see things differently and we want people to know we’re not traitors to the race. We have the same concerns that a lot of Black Liberals have that are sincere. And I’m not talking about those who are not, there are some that are not.
But those who sincerely care about what’s happening in the Black community, we can have a difference of opinion of our education, how we do education better, we can have a better idea of how we bring people out of poverty. If it’s not working one particular way, let’s take a look at something else that may work on our behalf, and let’s stop blaming everything on White people saying that racism is why we’re not able to move forward. No, it’s not, sometimes it’s our own culture that we need to change and how we look at certain things.
So the summit brings people together to talk about some of these issues. It not only helps us to articulate our point of view, but it also challenges us to get out into the community. So we bring speakers from across the country. Majority of the folks that will be there speaking will be Black Conservatives. We’re bringing in Ben Carson and Larry Elder Voddie Baucham, a number of other pastors from across the country who are Conservative and are willing to get up and talk about these things and say that there’s a different path.
There have been a few reports about random attacks on conservatives. It seems these attacks are happening to people who do not go along with the get-along. If you don’t support fringe liberal and progressive ideologies then you’re subjected to criticism or doxing, you’re accused of being a White supremacist no matter what race you are, or you’re labeled a Trump MAGA Republican. What’s up with that?
I would agree with that a hundred percent but as a 501(c)(3), I try not to talk about party, but about ideology. Liberal-Progressives don’t want to lose their voting block. If Black people started listening to Conservative values and principles that pretty much they share, they’d lose their constituents because they start voting for more Conservative people and policies that I think would actually help turn the Black community around. So you’ve got to vilify your opponent, you’ve got to call them the extremist.
So let’s take abortion, we’re the extremists because we want to save babies’ lives. Right. And the number one killer of Black people is abortion. So we step out and we say, “Look, we want to stop this because it shouldn’t happen.” And as an ordained minister myself, I believe the Bible says, “Thou shalt not murder.” And if you believe that abortion is murder of a baby, then of course you’re going to stand up and say something about it. But they want to say that we’re the extreme ones yet they’re the ones who run around talking about abortion up to birth. So what’s the extreme position? I think the extreme position is abortion for any cause, for any reason, at any time, that’s the extreme position. Now we can talk about life of the mother, we can talk about incest and rape, we can have those discussions, but to say that our point of view is extreme on the side of life, I think, is crazy.
And again, I say when it comes to stuff like education, we are doing horrible and the Progressives want to start teaching our kids in elementary school about sex, about the different types of transgender, and all this stuff. And then asking what their pronouns are. I wasn’t thinking about that in elementary school. And they want to do it without consulting the parents. So they’ve got to vilify those of us who come against them to make us seem like we’re the extreme ones when they’re actually the extreme.
And we’ve seen this before, this is not the first time this has happened in history. That’s what happened in Nazi Germany, that’s what’s happened in socialist Russia and communist Russia. These kind of tactics were used to vilify those who stood against them to make them seem as they’re the ones who are out of the norm, we’re the normal people and then cancel them to keep them from speaking a different point of view. And if you don’t agree with Joe Biden, you’re not Black, if you don’t vote for him.
So I mean, it’s this kind of vitriol that it takes people with a strong spine to stand up and say, “Enough is enough. You don’t get to tell me how to think. And I don’t care if you think I’m not Black enough.” Now Kanye has said a few things that may be… But Kanye has the right to his own opinion. Kanye has the right to say that he believes. So to put on a shirt that says White Lives Matter, he was married to a White woman, his kids are half White. What do you think? The same thing with Candace (Owens), Candace is married to a White man. I mean, what do expect them to say or put on the back of the shirt, “Let’s Kill Whitey”?
What’s it going to take for the Foundational Black American community to collectively stop accepting symbolic gestures and instead start voting for politicians that represent our morals and values?
That’s the million-dollar question, right, how do we create change? And I think, it takes time, it takes investment of time and effort and people like you and others, Freedom’s Journal Institute, and other organizations. I’m not the only one, you got the Woodson Center, you’ve got the Frederick Douglas Foundation, you’ve got other organizations, you got Star Parker’s organization, they’re out there trying to communicate to people, especially the Black community, that we’re not a monolith, we have other ideas and we shouldn’t subordinate our principles and our values to support a particular party, especially if that party or that philosophy, Liberalism/Progressivism isn’t benefiting our community. We just have to open up our eyes.
Because it didn’t happen overnight because if we’re just talking party, the Republican party was the party of Black folks for a long period of time. It wasn’t until the ’30s that people started to move away from that. And it was Roosevelt who started the Black cabinet, who had Black people actually reaching out to Blacks to actually vote for the Democrat party, and it didn’t come into full force until in the ’60s. So the tipping point, that’s what? 30 years? Almost. Somewhere around there for there to be a change. And so, we need to realize, this isn’t a sprint, this is a marathon, and not get discouraged. I’m encouraged by the amount of people that are actually running for office this election cycle.
I’ve run for office before I first ran, I think it was 2006, I call it a Year the Black Republican because you had a number of folks running. Lynn Swann, I think was running for senate in Pennsylvania. Kim Blackwell was running for governor in Ohio. You had a number of folks across the country, Black Republicans running for office. I was running for a state Senate seat during that time. So it was encouraging.
And every now and then, we have these spurts of folks running for office and you see Burgess Owens in there and Byron Donald and Tim Scott, and Winsome Sears in Virginia who are carrying the water, if you will, who are carrying the message out there. And these are people we’re inviting to the Black Summit. So continue that message and continue to write, continue to speak, and not be afraid. Darkness can’t overcome when people aren’t afraid. So we can’t be afraid. We can’t allow this far-extreme, far-left ideology to win. And it takes people to stand up who aren’t afraid.
Going back to the summit and your position as an ordained pastor, what responsibility, if any, does the church have in addressing some of the issues currently facing Black Americans?
The Black Conservative Summit, the title of it was How to Fix Black America with the word Black actually struck out because we were trying to say something about that. Because the issues in Black America are everybody’s issues and the issues in America are everybody’s issues. There aren’t separate issues. I mean, it’s education for everyone, it’s economics, prosperity for everyone. It’s how do we make this work for our country?
And one of the things we were going to emphasize, because we wear our Christianity on our sleeve, is that we believe there needs to be a great awakening take place because the darkness is everywhere. And sometimes I wake up and I wonder, how do we fight this? It’s so much bigger than my organization, right, it’s so much bigger than me. And then I realize who I’m working for.
And I don’t know if you’re a faith-based person, but as a Christian, I have to realize, God is not in heaven wringing his hands saying, “Oh, what am I going to do?” I may wring my hands, but God’s not wringing his. And he’s like, “Okay, I just need you to be faithful and to trust me that I knew this was coming, I have a plan. And just do what I call you to do.” And if we do that, we’ll eventually see, I think, the tide turn. Obviously, if you’re a Bible reader, we know what happens at the end, you know that it looks as like Satan is going to win, but then all of a sudden, Christ returns and everything is turned around.
So there’s a time that things are going to get worse, but I believe, and my hope is that there’s an opportunity for people, that God allows, that there’s this great awakening that takes place, that pushes all this crap back and that people come to know Christ.
So the mission is to advance the kingdom of God through social-political education and engagement rooted in a biblical worldview. We’re pushing the kingdom, it’s the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of men. We do a TV show called Kingdoms in Conflict, where we talk about how the kingdom of God fights against the kingdom of human beings, of men, which is actually under the control of the kingdom of Satan.
It’s like Satan has declared war on the church and he’s going to fight tooth and nail to destroy it and that’s the one thing standing in the way of all this stuff taking over. And unfortunately, a lot of churches have fallen in line with this transgender stuff and weakness and everything else. I don’t understand how people are buying into that stuff.
We’re doing our best to chase back the evil, we’ll raise a standard against it. What was it? Lord of the Rings, do you ever watch any-
EUR: Oh, yeah, I’m a huge fan
Okay. Do you remember when (that demon thing) was coming trying to cross the bridge and Gandolph said “ you shall not pass”? Well, that’s what the church needs to do, say, “You shall not pass,” and stand up and say, “No, this far, no further. We’re not going to let you cross.”
And so, that’s part of our objective is to wake up, especially church folk because like I said, I’m a Christian. My Ph.D. is in biblical studies, New Testament. I have two master’s degrees in Hebrew Bible. And my thing is, I believe God has called me to be, I guess, you might say a modern-day prophet, to speak out against what’s happening in our society, in our communities.
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