From ICE’s Shadow to Mary’s Song: Aretha Franklin’s Cry for Freedom and Hope

As 2025 draws to a close, we remember those 24 who died this year in ICE custody and the unnamed immigrants disappeared into dark places into which the light of the Christ Child shines hope.

“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” - Matthew 2:18.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" - Gospel of John 1:5.

Coded Message of Freedom

Aretha Franklin’s 1972 Amazing Grace recording at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church became her biggest selling album. “Mary, Don’t you Weep” predates the Civil War as a “freedom song” that was sung by enslaved African Americans and contained coded messages of hope and emancipation. This Mary referenced the story of Mary and Martha of Bethany in the Gospel of John 11, when the sisters wept for their brother Lazarus, who has died, and said to Jesus that if he had been there, Lazarus would not have died. Jesus then miraculously raised Lazarus from the dead, demonstrating his divine authority over death. 

“Mary, Don’t You Weep” is a song that was initially sung by the enslaved—sung with coded messages of hope and resistance by our enslaved ancestors:

oh, Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you mourn…Pharaoh’s army got drown-ded…

However, when Ms. Franklin gets hold of it, she tells her own testimony while framing the grief and anguish of the sisters, Mary and Martha, over the death of their brother Lazarus (John 11:1-44):

One day while Jesus was away, that dear, that dear, that dear ole brother died, yeah yeah
But now Mary, went running to Jesus
She said Master, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my SWEET Lord
Whoa, Lord if you hadda, if you hadda been here, my brother would not have died
Oh yes she did
Jesus said, come on and show me, show me where you buried him. Show me where you laid him down

I think a case can be made that Ms. Franklin, through her call and response, is also calling forth the experiences of unseen Black women who’ve also experienced loss. Black women who’ve had children sold away…husbands, sons, and daughters lynched…loved ones killed by the police…and, like Mary and Martha, wondered when, oh when, was Jesus going to show up for them.
Through her runs and moans, Ms. Franklin gave voice to the particular pain experienced by Black mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters—wailing for the theft of life of their children, husbands, aunts, uncles, lovers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. And this is a communal feature of womanism. As coined by Alice Walker, a womanist is one who:

Loves music. Loves Dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.

Minister Kimberly Peeler-Ringer

God sent us the Martin Luther King, Jr.’s not only to deliver people of color from the chains of bigotry but to ready us for the day we meet our own oppressors.

JPB

Freedom Code,

JPB

Up next abuelo’s final sacrifice