The Rev. Michael R. Jordan, pastor of New Era Baptist Church in Birmingham for 32 years, loves to provoke people using the church sign that faces onto Cotton Avenue west of downtown.
“This is my ministry,” Jordan said this morning, less than a week before the election. “This is my calling.
His latest sign attacks former President Donald Trump, who has been one of his favorite targets over the years.
The current sign at New Era Baptist says:
“Warning African Americans: A vote for Trump will put Blacks back to picking cotton.”
On the other side, it reads:
“Attention to all Blacks who plan to vote for Trump: You are an ignorant stupid Negro.”
That garnered a response from Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth:
“Churches are supposed to spread the Gospel, offer messages of God’s love, and share the life of Christ, not threaten, intimidate, and insult those who exercise their right to vote and support the candidate that is best for them,” Ainsworth posted on the X social media site. “Those responsible for this sign should be ashamed.”
New Era’s current election year message is not the first time Jordan has trolled Trump.
In 2017, he put up a sign that said, “Trump deceived poor white folks.”
Jordan, pastor of New Era since 1992, has been posting provocative messages since 2004, when he got people’s attention with this sign: “AIDS is God’s curse on homosexuals.”
In 2008, he warned on the church sign that there were drug dealers selling crack cocaine on the same street.
In 2013, Jordan posted messages supporting Trayvon Martin and calling the George Zimmerman jury racist.
In 2018, he criticized Church of the Highlands planning to start a church in a predominantly Black neighborhood, calling it a “slavemaster” church.
The signs have gotten so much attention that the church bought an updated sign in 2021.
Jordan, who has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Miles College and a master’s degree in religion from the Morehouse School of Religion at the Interdenominational Theological Center, was a bi-vocational pastor while he taught special education for 21 years at Birmingham and Jefferson County schools before retiring in 2022.
“The pastor, white or Black, is a watchman,” Jordan said. “I’m going to take a stand.”
![‘I Had Never Met a Woman Like [Her], She Made Me the Happiest Man on Earth’](https://nnpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/hmah-3-150x150-1.jpg)
