Many know the famous names of the Civil Rights Movement—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and others. But behind those towering figures were countless men and women whose courage fueled the movement from the ground up. Among them was a woman born into poverty in Mississippi who would one day speak words that shook the conscience of a nation. Her name was Fannie Lou Hamer, and she embodied the kind of courage that Soldiers of Light Against Darkness™ must carr

Some seasons feel like they happen in darkness — seasons where we are hidden, confined, waiting for the right moment to move. There was a woman in American history who knew that kind of waiting intimately. Her name was Harriet Jacobs. For seven long years, she lived hidden in darkness — confined to a crawlspace barely large enough to sit upright — while the world moved on outside. But her story reminds us of something powerful: Hidden does not mean forgotten.

Truth is a seed. Obedience is a seed. Identity is a seed. And even suffering, when surrendered to God, becomes fertile ground. Sojourner Truth’s life was not accidental. It was agricultural.

Born into slavery in Maryland around 1822 as Araminta Ross, she endured brutality, forced labor, family separation, and a severe head injury inflicted by an overseer. That injury caused lifelong seizures and vivid spiritual visions. But what some might have labeled disability became, in her testimony, divine sensitivity. She believed God spoke to her. And when she believed God spoke — she moved.

If you want a case study in what happens when America sowed voter suppression and attempted to harvest democracy, look no further than Fannie Lou Hamer and the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

On February 15, 1968, tension was building in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Black students at South Carolina State College were protesting segregation at a local bowling alley. They were unarmed. They were organized. They were disciplined. They were not rioting. They were not looting. They were asking for dignity. Three days later, on February 8, state troopers opened fire on those students, killing three young Black men and wounding many others.

This Favor Fridays with Tony™ — on the 13th day of Black History Month — we honor the favor that turns survival into proclamation, and endurance into testimony. Today, we spotlight Frederick Douglass, a man who understood that sometimes favor doesn’t just free you — it commissions you.

Monday, February 1, 1960, four young Black men sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. They did not raise their voices. They did not raise their fists. They raised their resolve. They sat—and refused to move.