02/08/2026
Council of Bishops
African Methodist Episcopal Church
In Response to a Racist Depiction of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama During Black History Month
The Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church speaks with deep lament and holy anger regarding the recent racist depiction of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys. This is not a joke, a mistake, or a mere lapse in judgment; it is a willful act of dehumanization rooted in a centuries‑long pattern of depicting Black people as less than human in order to justify exploitation, exclusion, and violence. Racism is not a misunderstanding; it is sin. It defaces the image of God in Black people, corrupts institutions, and stands in direct opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
African Methodism was born in 1787 as an act of economic and spiritual resistance, when Bishop Richard Allen and our foremothers and forefathers refused to finance their own humiliation by remaining in segregated pews. Our history teaches that where you sit, where you spend, and what you are willing to tolerate are all theological statements. To traffic in images that demean the first Black President and First Lady of the United States is to assault the dignity of Black people everywhere and to spit upon the costly witness of generations who fought, bled, and died for freedom.
Black History Month is sacred time. It is not a cultural ornament; it is a season of remembrance, repentance, and renewed resolve to honor Black life. To circulate or excuse racist caricatures during this month is to desecrate that sacred ground and to harden the national conscience against the truth. The Church cannot be neutral in the face of sin. Silence in this moment is complicity; sentimental words without structural change are a form of deceit.
A Theological and Economic Call to Action
We therefore declare that racist speech and imagery must carry real economic consequences. In a world where banks, corporations, law firms, universities, and media companies move billions of dollars and shape public imagination, neutrality is impossible: either their money and influence help dismantle racism or they help sustain it.
Studies and recent boycotts have shown that corporations can lose hundreds of millions of dollars when consumers withdraw support over racist harm, and that Black consumers alone represent well over a trillion dollars in annual spending power that can be redirected away from institutions that refuse accountability. Accordingly, we call for the following:
Banks and financial institutions must audit and align their practices, lending, investments, and political donations with their public commitments to racial equity, ending relationships and products that profit from racist policies or imagery, not just issuing statements.
Corporations and major employers must adopt and enforce zero‑tolerance policies for racist depictions and retaliation, and back them with monetary consequences, contract terminations, and public reparative investments in Black communities when harm occurs.
Law firms and legal institutions must refuse to provide cover for racist practices and must use their legal expertise to challenge voter suppression, discriminatory policies, and corporate impunity, recognizing that the law either protects Black life or protects those who profit from its violation.
Schools, universities, and professional schools must treat the production and circulation of racist imagery as a direct threat to the safety and flourishing of Black students, tying institutional funding, partnerships, and reputational capital to serious, enforceable anti‑racist standards in curriculum, hiring, discipline, and campus culture.
In practical terms, we urge AME congregations, ecumenical partners, and all people of conscience to conduct immediate reviews of where they bank, where they shop, and with whom they do business. Where institutions refuse to renounce and repair racist harm, we call for coordinated boycotts, divestment of church and personal funds, cancellation of contracts, and the public redirection of our dollars toward banks, companies, schools, and firms that honor Black dignity in policy and practice. This is not punitive for its own sake; it is a necessary form of Christian discipline, aligning our economic life with our confession that racism is sin and that no institution has the right to profit from the degradation of God’s children.
We further call upon congregations, consumers, and communities—within and beyond the AME Church—to practice disciplined, strategic stewardship of God’s resources. We must be prepared to say with our ancestors, “We do not spend where we are not respected,” organizing boycotts, divestment, and shareholder action until institutions demonstrate concrete change in policy, practice, and personnel. Economic discipleship is part of our baptismal renunciation of evil.
A Global AME Witness
As a global denomination with members on every inhabited continent, the African Methodist Episcopal Church pledges to link our preaching with policy, our prayers with protest, and our liturgy with liberating economic practice. We will teach our people to see their accounts, contracts, endowments, and purchasing power as instruments of Christian witness, refusing to bankroll those who mock Black humanity and instead building up institutions that honor justice and equity.
America’s and the world’s strength will not be measured by how eloquently they condemn racism, but by how courageously they are willing to sacrifice profit, prestige, and convenience to uproot it. In the spirit of Richard and Sarah Allen, and in solidarity with oppressed people everywhere, we call all who bear the name of Christ—and all who claim to value democracy and human dignity—to reject racist imagery, to reorder their economic practices, and to labor with us for the beloved community, where justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever‑flowing stream.
The Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
Bishop Silvester Scott Beaman, Council Presiden
