Faith is the black person's federal reserve system.

Host: The streetlights flickered over a dim sidewalk, their glow trembling in the rising mist of an early autumn night. A jazz melody hummed softly from a nearby bar, notes curling through the cool air like a half-forgotten memory. Jack sat on a cracked bench, his coat collar pulled high, a cigarette’s faint ember painting a weak circle of red around his hands. Jeeny approached slowly, her scarf trailing in the wind, her eyes carrying that quiet gravity that always unsettled him.

The city behind them pulsed — sirens, laughter, and a low hum of human struggle. But here, beneath a dying lamp, the world seemed paused.

Jeeny: “Do you know what Hattie McDaniel once said, Jack? ‘Faith is the black person’s federal reserve system.’”

Jack: Half-smiling, blowing smoke. “I know the line. Clever metaphor. But faith doesn’t keep the lights on or the rent paid. The federal reserve prints money — faith prints nothing.”

Host: The smoke curled upward, caught in the lamplight like ghostly threads of thought. Jeeny stood silent for a moment, her breath visible in the chill, her eyes fixed on the street that disappeared into shadow.

Jeeny: “You’re right. Faith doesn’t print money. But it prints endurance. It prints dignity. It printed the songs that enslaved people sang when they had nothing else. Faith was the only currency that could still buy hope.”

Jack: “Hope doesn’t feed you either. People can’t live on what they imagine. They need structure, not spirit. Look at the system — economics, not emotion, builds nations.”

Jeeny: “And yet, when that system was built to crush them, what else did they have? Do you think enslaved men and women survived by strategy? By stock options? No, Jack — they survived by believing. By telling themselves there was still a God somewhere in the madness.”

Host: The rain began to fall, thin at first, tapping softly on the bench. A passing car hissed along the wet road, headlights slicing through the growing mist.

Jack: “Belief can’t change reality, Jeeny. It can dull it, maybe — but it doesn’t rebuild the world. People didn’t end slavery because of faith; they ended it through blood and law, through armies and amendments.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Those armies marched because people believed they could make it right. Harriet Tubman said she never lost a single passenger on the Underground Railroad because she believed God guided her. Frederick Douglass learned to read because he believed words could free him. Faith was their federal reserve — not in cash, but in courage.”

Host: Her voice trembled now, but it was not weakness. It was heat beneath the ice — a conviction so alive it made the air vibrate. Jack turned to her, his grey eyes unreadable, a flash of something like guilt buried under skepticism.

Jack: “But faith also blinds people, doesn’t it? It makes them trust promises that never come. It’s like giving a starving man a song instead of bread.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that song keeps him alive long enough to find the bread.”

Host: The silence that followed was heavy, full of rain and unspoken pain. A train horn moaned in the distance, its echo long and mournful, like an ancient cry carried through time.

Jack: “I grew up watching my father pray for work. Every Sunday, every damn Sunday, he’d bow his head and ask for a miracle. And every Monday, the factory gates stayed closed. You tell me, Jeeny — where’s the reserve in that?”

Jeeny: “Maybe the reserve wasn’t in the job, Jack. Maybe it was in him — in the fact that he kept getting up, kept walking back, even after the gates stayed shut.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. The rain picked up, rolling off the brim of his coat. He took another drag, the smoke now mingling with the mist, indistinguishable.

Jack: “That’s not faith. That’s stubbornness. It’s biology. Survival instinct.”

Jeeny: “And what do you think survival instinct is, if not faith dressed in flesh? The belief that tomorrow might be different, even when logic says it won’t.”

Host: A faint neon sign across the street buzzed and sputtered, throwing a pulse of red across their faces. The world around them felt suspended — only the rhythm of their words moved.

Jeeny: “Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar in 1940, the first black woman ever to. She sat at a segregated table that night, Jack. Imagine the humiliation — to be celebrated and still excluded. And yet she said those words. ‘Faith is the black person’s federal reserve system.’ She meant that when the world denies you credit, you build your own bank inside.”

Jack: “She also spent her life typecast as a maid. The system didn’t change just because she had faith.”

Jeeny: “But her presence cracked the system. Every time she stepped in front of that camera, she was planting a seed — one that people like Sidney Poitier and Viola Davis later watered. You think faith didn’t play a role in that? Without faith, no one steps onto a stage they’ve been told they don’t belong on.”

Host: Jeeny’s hands trembled slightly, her voice low but fierce. The rain eased into a steady rhythm, like the sound of breathing. Jack watched her — the defiance, the sorrow — and something in him shifted, almost imperceptibly.

Jack: “You make it sound poetic. But in the real world, belief doesn’t buy fairness. Black families today still have less wealth, less access, fewer chances. Where’s that divine reserve now?”

Jeeny: “Still there — in every protest march, in every grandmother who keeps praying, in every student who studies twice as hard because they’re told they can’t. Faith isn’t a transaction, Jack. It’s a legacy — one that can’t be taxed or foreclosed.”

Host: The wind swept through the street, carrying a faint smell of wet asphalt and coffee from the bar nearby. Jack looked down at his hands, the cigarette burned to the filter.

Jack: “So you’re saying faith is an economy of the heart.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. One that’s survived every crash, every recession of hope.”

Host: A pause. The kind that stretches and fills the space between two souls standing on opposite ends of truth. Jack exhaled slowly, watching the smoke fade into the dark.

Jack: “Maybe. But faith also asks people to wait. And waiting can kill.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes waiting isn’t weakness — it’s resistance. To wait without giving up, that’s a revolution of its own.”

Host: Her words fell like quiet thunder, echoing deeper than sound. Jack’s eyes softened — not agreement, not yet, but understanding.

Jack: “You really think faith can balance the books of injustice?”

Jeeny: “It already has. Look at the civil rights movement — born in churches, carried by songs. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t march because he had capital; he marched because he had conviction. Faith was their currency, Jack. And it paid for freedom, one scar at a time.”

Host: The rain had almost stopped now. Only the drizzle remained, whispering against the concrete. The bar’s music had changed — a slow, soulful blues, as if the city itself was remembering.

Jack: Quietly. “Maybe that’s what bothers me. That we still need faith because the world hasn’t paid its debt.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe faith isn’t about what’s owed — it’s about what we refuse to lose. The reserve isn’t there to replace justice. It’s there to keep people from collapsing before justice arrives.”

Host: Jack stared out into the empty street, his reflection shimmering faintly in the puddles. The neon sign flickered again — red, then white, then dark.

Jack: “You think I could believe in something like that again?”

Jeeny: “You already do. You wouldn’t argue so hard against it if you didn’t still want to believe.”

Host: The night seemed to breathe — the city’s heartbeat slowed, its light dimming to an intimate glow. Jack turned toward her, his eyes softer now, the storm inside them finally easing.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe faith isn’t about answers. Maybe it’s just… the refusal to surrender.”

Jeeny: “That’s all it ever was.”

Host: They sat in silence, side by side, the rain turning to a fine mist that caught the streetlight in a thousand tiny sparks. Somewhere, a church bell rang — distant, uncertain, but clear.

Host: And in that small sound, the world seemed momentarily balanced — like a ledger, half written in pain, half in hope.