Leaders... BE Leaders (Part 1)

This is what is happening. We can’t fight if we don’t know.

My name is William Andrews, and I’m the Senior Pastor of the Heart of Mercy Community Church on Mercy Drive in Orlando, FL. My calling is to preach the gospel of God, the whole gospel, not my opinion, thoughts, or any other issues we face today as a society. In an environment of injustice, corruption, and hate, it’s difficult to ignore the obvious.

Eyes open. The national rollback of DEI is not simply a change in federal employment preference. It is a coordinated dismantling of infrastructure built over decades to address documented, measurable, historic disadvantage. When the administration removed racial health disparity data from HHS websites, the collection of racial data ended in Medicare and Medicaid, and threatened universities with funding cuts for maintaining equity programs, it was not merely changing policy; it was erasing evidence, making it harder to prove discrimination exists, so that it became harder to fight.

Florida redistricting is not simply a partisan exercise. It is a targeted dilution of Black political power. When communities are “cracked”—split across multiple districts so that their voting bloc never constitutes a majority anywhere—they lose the ability to elect representatives who reflect their lives, their needs, and their futures. The new Florida map explicitly targets areas with high concentrations of Blacks and Democratic voters. The Florida Supreme Court, dominated by DeSantis appointees, has provided legal cover by ruling that even constitutionally protected majority—minority districts are suspect.

And nationally, the Supreme Court’s 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais weakened Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed communities of color the right to fair congressional districts, creating a cascade effect that emboldened state legislatures from Mississippi to Missouri to follow Florida’s lead.

So, we fight, but how?

That’s on leadership -- with full participation from the community, whose interests and concerns are the focus. Will we come together for this battle?

That is the question.