Since I liked the tour so much, the idea of taking a late-night ghost tour later in the week made me giddy. … I think part of the reason I like ghosts is that I don’t think they exist. Not in the “ephemeral consciousness listlessly drifting out of proper time and space;” or historic-looking holograms depicting tragic events; or “wayward spirits mourning the lives the lived” ways, anyway. I do think they exist in the way that stories and history haunts our imaginations. Those ghosts pick at the edge of your mind and force you to imagine the great tragedies, horrors, triumphs, and mythologies of our history. 

I think of the ghost of the Rev. Gowan Pamphlet — I first encountered him in the Rev. Dr. Nathan Taylor and the Rev. Dr. Corey D.B. Walker’s stories of the first Black church in America being excavated in Williamsburg, and I encountered him again when we listened to the historical interpreter who has portrayed the Rev. Pamphlet for 30 years. The tragedy of his story haunts me because I’d never it heard before. Like so many other non-white, non-male figures in history, he wasn’t present in my grade-school history textbooks. However, I think I encountered his spirit in Colonial Williamsburg.

Similarly, the ghosts of the Baptist preachers at the jail haunt me. Their sermons on separation of church and state resounded as much because they were delivered from behind bars as they did because of the volume at which they were preached; showing us glimpses of what it meant to preach religious freedom when that was tantamount to treason against the king. 

We heard so many ghost stories that week, and I think they are as haunting as any ghost in any movie. Like ghosts in movies, they leave unfinished business. They bedevil and trouble us, refusing to leave us alone until we can finish the work that they started: guaranteeing religious freedom for everyone. 

One of the most meaningful and impactful illustrations of entertainment in my social genesis was the African American sitcom “A Different World”. For seven seasons, audiences witnessed the personal growth, development, and evolution of Dwayne, Whitley, Ron, Kimberly, Jaleesa, and Freddie as they meandered through the fictional Hillman College. They learned that it truly was “a different world from where they came from.” As I reflect on A Different World, I cannot help but think this is also how our world should approach conversations around religious liberty and freedom.

The show had a long history of addressing complex and nuanced subjects. These fictional characters had to confront issues they had never before encountered, issues they may have personally disagreed with, or issues they did not yet fully understand. Their evolution teaches us a valuable lesson about how we might engage in critical conversations concerning religious freedom. Religious freedom is far broader than many perceive. Too often misunderstood or feared, it is not something to resist but rather something to embrace.

What always anchored the show, in my opinion, was its connectivity to history. It was no accident that these fictional students attended a historically Black college, a cultural institution rooted in the struggle, survival, and preservation of the African Diaspora. This grounding in heritage gave depth and context to the growth of Whitley, Dwayne, Ron, Kim, Freddie, and Jaleesa. As we engage in dialogue about the importance and impact of religious liberty and freedom in our society, something must ground us. We must not be just grounded to our religious convictions, but there must be another apolitical anchoring force. Just as the students of Hillman College cleaved to their unpleasant and complex history, that history would inspire them to be and do better than the previous generations. We too must cling to the past as a motivator, not only in what to continue in but also in what to discontinue. 

As we anchor ourselves in the aegis of history for the fight for humanity we must acknowledge this single reality, that the world as we know it is different. Just as “A Different World” challenged its characters to expand their perspectives, true religious liberty challenges us to respect and protect the diverse convictions of others—even when they are not our own. The heart of religious freedom is not uniformity, but it is a sort of unity, a unity with  dignity: the right of every person to believe, question, and worship without coercion or fear. When we safeguard religious liberty, we are not simply protecting a set of abstract principles, we are preserving the very possibility of a “different”  world where dialogue, growth, and mutual respect can grow and eventually blossom into what Dr. King called the “Beloved Community” because it’s a different world from where we come from. 

The concept of a shared meal expanded in a meaningful way when, during a panel session, Arthur “Ro” Fibby told my cohort about a yearly gathering he hosts in which he invites people to “get yourself a plate and sit down.” Thanks to the musical taste of my seventeen-year-old son, Kendrick Lamar’s words “be humble/sit down” swelled into the soundtrack of my mind. I began to re-envision what is called “the table” in my tradition as an open and fluid  meal in which everyone takes a plate and sits down with humility among others in a spacious lawn. My vision of Ro’s gathering involved an assortment of lawnchairs mingling with no discernable shape creating a colorful mosaic across the grass. The plates in this vision are not identical. People select what they need and want. The colors, smells, and tastes are as varied as the guests who contributed to the offerings. Movement is free and easy. 

Ro’s words and the gathering he described provides a way for me to envision and explain religious liberty more expansively than I could before being part of the BJC Fellows program. Moving toward true religious liberty means valuing my freedom to choose how I worship and valuing and welcoming the ability of others to make their own selections. Religious liberty is not a formal table with a rigid seating chart and a limited menu. It is the vibrancy of an open lawn with space for dynamic possibility. Here, one is free to move one’s chair, select one’s meal, and sit beside people with different chairs and different plates, all while being nourished by a shared sense of freedom. This is not a table of forced conformity; it is a space of free expression. Such a gathering of organic connections and the sharing of ideas only works if all involved are willing to, in the combined words of Ro and Lamar, “grab a plate, be humble, and sit down.”

I spoke of the ghosts of enslaved Africans who hid their Qur’ans and traditional spiritual altars from their enslavers for fear of forced conversion. And of the ghosts of the displaced and murdered Indigenous people whose sacred land was stolen to create towering monuments to the Church of England. These ghosts walked with me as a 20-year-old college student, and they were walking with me again as a 30-year-old BJC Fellow, reminding me that none of this was for me. 

It was all for the empire that for hundreds of years has used and abused my people and so many others. 

The ghosts reminded me that British colonial violence lives on in this place: through the erasure of non-Christian spiritual traditions and practices in all the narratives we consume about Williamsburg and its free and enslaved former residents; through the theme-park-like atmosphere welcoming visitors to cosplay colonial privilege without reflecting on the human cost of that privilege; through the first racist encounter I experienced just a day or two after arriving to Williamsburg in 2012 for my freshman orientation, from the tongue of a shop clerk in Merchant Square; and through the ongoing racist economy of this town that asks an elderly Black bellhop at the Williamsburg Lodge to hold the door open all day for white patrons paying $300 a night to sleep there.

During our group tour that morning and on my lunchtime walks down Duke of Gloucester Street throughout the week, I communed with the ghosts. Unseen, unheard, but deeply felt. We communed over our shared pain at the hands of a shared oppressor and the ways that white empire has and continues to rob our peoples of our agency, our dignity, our voices, and our traditions. 

My experience at the 2025 BJC Fellows Seminar felt unique compared to the rest of my cohort in a couple different ways. First, as an alum of the College of William & Mary, returning to Williamsburg felt like a homecoming in some important ways. I was “coming home” to a town in which I resided for three years and a neighborhood (Colonial Williamsburg) I walked through, observed, and reflected upon several times a week during that time. Second, I was one of just a couple fellows who did not identify previously or presently as Christian. I’m a follower of the Sikh faith, a community that makes up less than two percent of the U.S. population but stands as the third most-impacted religious group by hate violence, according to new FBI statistics. It was through these lenses – as well as my lens as a first-generation immigrant born in the U.K. – that I walked through our five days at the BJC Fellows Seminar this July.

By the end of the BJC Fellows Seminar that week, I found myself reflecting on the BJC’s call for Faith Freedom For All and how de-centering and de-privileging colonial legacies is an absolutely critical piece of that work. Christianity is not indigenous to this land; it is neither the beginning nor the end of the story of religious freedom in this country. White Christianity has stripped many peoples of their faith freedom – so what is the responsibility of white Christians today to restore faith freedom for all? They must de-center themselves, their histories, and their needs to make room for those who have been de-centered – or entirely erased – because of the actions of white Christians throughout this country’s history. The faith freedom of my ancestors, my living family, and myself has been stripped from us by Christian empire and by white Christian privilege. Can Christian leaders today learn to repair this damage by communing with themselves, by hearing from themselves, and by seeing themselves reflected most in history? I don’t think so. 

I gained a great deal from my time at the BJC Fellows Seminar in Williamsburg, but we all also missed a great deal: what was unseen, unheard, but deeply felt. The ghosts and presences of those most impacted by the colonial legacy being celebrated around us. The traditional African cosmologies, Islamic observances, Indigenous practices, the voices and views of the colonized divorced from the Christianity brought to them by a violent oppressor. From the reflections we all shared at the end of the week together, I could tell these ghosts were deeply felt by all. Now, how do we make them seen and heard in the ways they deserve?

I came to learn that this was not a space that I was only privileged to be a part of for a few days but a kind of space that I needed and that was missing in my life. I found myself sharing my own stories of discovery and pain that was met with care, thoughtful curiosity, outrage, and solidarity.

One instance that continues to stick out to me is from the last full day of the program when one of the BJC Fellows reacted to a disheartening life update related to the current presidential administration—for the next few minutes, he spoke nonstop with a deep sense of anger and understanding. I did not have to explain my experience for this brother to know how it was because of his own experiences, and I did not have to convince him to be angry with me. This was a distinct moment that made me realize how concretely we were all in this together and how much we actually need one another. At the age of 31, I learned again that I need to, more than ever, step out of my comfort and place myself in the company of those who don’t look like me, sounds like me, think like me, and most of all those who are committed to sticking their necks out for and building community around those who don’t look like them, sound like them, or think like them.

I learned during this week that a part of me comes to life when I don’t have to explain myself to be understood. And I learned that I am more and more drawn to advocate for and build up those who are different from me the more time I spend with them. To love my neighbor as myself never looked so different from how I understood love when I was in a theological tradition that likely would have been on the historical side of the slave-master or the willfully negligent rather than the abolitionist or the civil rights leaders, and it never felt so urgent.

This time together with the BJC Fellows led me from relating to solidarity as a concept to solidarity as an irresistible urge from the wells of my soul.

Almost five years ago, I sat and watched the news coverage of the insurrection — a mob of anger carrying crosses and praying stirred in me what one of my pastors calls “Holy discontentment.” This was not love. This did not represent the God that I had come to know and serve. Though it was not at all surprising, it was still heartbreaking. I wanted to do something. I wanted to say something. I wrote a blog post. I spoke with my friends and church family. All the while, time did what it is meant to do and kept moving forward. As did I.

Though ease, comfort, and complacency are not adjectives that I would use to describe my experiences being Black or a woman in this world, they do in many ways apply to my experience as a Christian. I’ve worn this silver cross around my neck since I was fourteen and attended church before I had the mental capacity to define it. As I regularly live and work within spaces where I am one of one, the sensed discomfort or offense that is provoked by my skin or my femininity can cast a long shadow. A shadow that if I let it, is long enough to eclipse the ways in which my entire lived experience intersects. 

As a social worker, environment is something I think about regularly however I didn’t google Colonial Williamsburg. I nodded and smiled anytime I told someone where I was going, and they responded with how beautiful it is. Upon arriving it was clear that Colonial Williamsburg was beautiful, but it was also unsettling. While my spirit and brain buzzed with inspiration and connection, every moment I spent in sessions with the presenters and BJC Fellows, there was something I couldn’t yet put my finger on. Something that crept up and hung over me as I walked through the actual town. The peace, the overall cheeriness and performance was like looking into a mirror that provided no reflection. I was here in the present, but why was it so hard to see myself in this recreation of the past? With each session came a flood of history and passion with a more than generous dose of personal storytelling that my brain was desperate to pump to every crevice of my being. Slowly but surely, I realized, or more accurately, remembered that the mirror wasn’t the issue. Mirrors are made to reflect. But when they are dirty, broken and hidden away instead of mounted on a wall – it’s difficult to see. 

One of the reasons I applied to the BJC Fellows Program was to learn more about religious freedom and how to communicate its purpose and importance to communities.  However, I didn’t know how much I needed help gathering and connecting the pieces of my own story and my why. I became increasingly grateful that I wouldn’t be leaving Williamsburg with another experience of being unsurprisingly heartbroken had I perhaps visited on my own.

When I slow down amid my heartbreak and disappointment, I can choose to look again. To be curious and question the narrative. To be lovingly reminded that I will never be able to fully uncover my story alone.

When I seek to intentionally bring the different parts of my identity together, the better I can not only see my reflection but humanity’s. The great, ugly, and everything in-between. Storied lives meant to be uncovered, witnessed, and told, and I want to help tell them.

I want to keep learning where and how to look at the past so when someone asks, I can share and encourage them to do the same. I can tell them about the week I stepped back in time with fragments and emerged on the other side with communal understanding.  A clearer picture of human connectedness, spirit and love. A reminder that the truth is not something to fear -it’s meant to be found. It’s the finding that propels us into futures with freedom. 

Growth, as it turns out, is rarely comfortable.

During our time in Colonial Williamsburg, amidst deep conversations about the Constitution, conscience, and coalition, I found myself in a quiet wrestle—an internal dialogue about who I am willing to show up for, and why. The tension wasn’t in the classroom debates or the historical reflections; it was in the realization that I sometimes require certainty and reciprocity before offering solidarity. Somewhere in my lived experience, I adopted a posture of caution: Will they show up for me the way I show up for them? Will they speak up for Black lives, for justice, for equity—before I extend my voice for their pain?

That mindset was cracked open by a moment I didn’t see coming.

Hurunnessa Fariad, one of our guest speakers, spoke with clarity and conviction about her work, her faith, and her unwavering commitment to building bridges in the face of misunderstanding, hate, and indifference. As a Muslim woman, her story reminded me of the painful aftermath of 9/11. In those days, America—still reeling from tragedy—misplaced its grief and weaponized its ignorance. Sikh communities, Muslim families, and those simply perceived to be of Middle Eastern descent became scapegoats for a nation hungry for blame.

And in that moment of national crisis, I was relieved—relieved that, for once, Black men weren’t the face of fear in white America. But what I didn’t do, and what Hurunnessa’s words illuminated with sharp honesty, was show up. I didn’t lend my voice to speak against the rising tide of Islamophobia. I didn’t advocate. I didn’t protest. I didn’t pray publicly.

That realization pierced me.

Her courage and consistency in the face of silence—silence from people like me—revealed a truth I needed to confront: justice cannot be contingent on comfort. Solidarity is not transactional. It cannot wait until our names are on the headline or our pain is at the center. If I only show up for causes that promise me the favor of return, I’m not practicing justice—I’m managing alliances.

Being in this BJC Fellows space required more than my intellect or theological training. It required my honesty. It required me to reckon with the ways I had subconsciously rationed my empathy, calculating whether others had “earned” my support. And it called me to repent—not in shame, but in conviction.

I now understand that part of my growth—as a Black man, as a Christian, as a leader—is choosing to show up anyway. Even when I’m unsure. Even when I feel unseen. Even when others may never return the favor. I must be willing to speak up for the dignity of others, not as a favor, but as a reflection of my own integrity.

Growth, real growth, asks us to do the inconvenient thing. It invites us to stand in places that stretch us, to sit with questions that discomfort us, and to listen to voices that convict us. The BJC Fellows Program didn’t just expand my knowledge of religious liberty—it expanded my understanding of what it means to be in beloved community.

So yes, I’ve learned about myself. I’ve learned that growth sometimes begins with a question—why did I put myself here? —but ends with a declaration: because I needed to be. I needed to be reminded that advocacy is not a one-way street. That justice requires all of us. That showing up—consistently, compassionately, and without conditions—is one of the most radical acts of love we can offer in this world.

And so, I leave this experience not just informed, but transformed—committed to showing up, even when it’s hard, even when it’s lonely, even when it costs me.

Because liberation isn’t liberation until it includes us all.