One of my favorite movies is Brown Sugar. Sanaa Lathan plays Sidney Shaw, editor-in-chief of a hip-hop magazine, who begins every interview the same, “When did you fall in love with hip hop?”

As the movie goes on, viewers discover that this question isn’t random, but instead is the central theme of the movie. The question frames a narrative about the role of hip-hop in culture and a metaphor for Sidney’s relationship with her childhood friend Dre. Sidney writes about the complexity of her relationship in her memoir. She’s had her ups and downs with it. It has caused her to feel seen, heard, and free, while also leading her to moments of frustration and confusion. Some days she knows exactly where the genre is headed and others, questions its future. She has been protective of hip hop, particularly when the gaze of outsiders has tried to misinterpret it, redefine it, appropriate it, and squeeze it into a mold that is ill fitting. She has fought for it when people have tried to diminish its worth, power, and impact or even tried to confine it by a common attribute or characteristics.

I have developed the same relationship with preaching in the Black church tradition.

I am not just a preacher. I am an expository, word-centered, justice-oriented preacher of justice and truth deeply anchored in the Black church tradition, who originally said yes to a call to any ministerial vocation but preaching. I have come to realize that it was not because I don’t like preaching, but because I love and respect it so much and always have. I was born into a faith tradition where church “provided a refuge: a place of racial and individual self-affirmation, of teaching and learning, of psychological and spiritual sustenance, of prophetic faith; a symbolic space where Black people, enslaved and free, could nurture the hope for a better today and a much better tomorrow.”^[1]

Preaching in the Black church is not a game; the lives of a people, generations, and communities have always been dependent on it. Since slavery, my people have looked to the preacher and the preaching moment for a word from God to help them make it over, out, and through. A word to provide context and inspiration. A word to articulate their testimony. A word to define and redefine our identity and circumstances and to remind us that “trouble don’t last always.” “No God, please don’t ask me to do that!” This reverence for preaching has been my companion since I was a little girl, looking from the rail of the balcony at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan listening to the Harvard Hooper “say it,” and it has met me in the sanctuary at Ray of Hope Christian Church as I watched a woman who looks like me embody it; it meets me still as an adult, every time I have the privilege to proclaim.

At the end of the movie, Dre turned Sidney’s question on her. “Syd, when did you fall in love with hip-hop?” Ultimately, she responded, “I have been in love with you since the first day I saw you.” My response is the same, although I didn’t want to do it. Although it leads me to wrestle with the text, God, my flesh, and context. Although it keeps me up at night and gives me butterflies that make my knees buckle. I must confess, I have been in love with preaching since the first day we met. I loved it then and I love it still.

[1] Henry Lewis Gates, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song (New York: Penguin Publishing Group), 25.

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Published in the November 2025 issue of For the Messengers.

Rev. Dr. Leah D. Jackson, Esq. is a preacher, pastor, educator, writer, and dancer. She serves as the Grant Program Director at McAfee School of Theology, Adjunct Professor at Spelman College and Lexington Theological Seminary, and Associate Minister at Ray of Hope Christian Church.