Por Aaron Weaver
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, urged Cooperative Baptists to pair faith with sustained action during the CBF Advocacy Breakfast on June 18 at the 2026 General Assembly in Jacksonville.
Bacardi Jackson
Speaking on “The State of Our Union,” Jackson said constitutional freedoms require action, not concern alone. “Every day we deliver the message that the rights and liberties of we the people are not negotiable,” she said.
The breakfast, held at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront, invited participants to become “bold advocates” for their neighbors and learn how to engage with CBF Advocacy. Jackson framed her address around the General Assembly’s call to bold Christian witness.
She began with her family’s civil rights history. Jackson is the daughter of the Rev. James Bevel, a strategist in the movement who helped initiate the Selma-to-Montgomery marches that contributed to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Jackson said that legacy is both a source of pride and a summons to action.
“While I am proud to be here to stand on their legacies, I am devastated that instead of expanding their work, I must fight the exact same battles,” Jackson said.
Jackson, who became the ACLU of Florida’s executive director in 2024, has more than 25 years of litigation experience. Before joining the organization, she served as deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Democracy: Education and Youth team. She earned degrees from Stanford University and Yale Law School.
Turning to threats, Jackson described Florida as an early testing ground for national disputes over voting access, representation, government accountability and constitutional rights. “Florida is where many of the defining fights of our time are unfolding first,” she said. “What happens here does not stay here.”
She argued that advocates must build long-term capacity rather than move from crisis to crisis.
“We can’t simply react, though, to each threat,” Jackson said. “We must create durable infrastructure and partnerships that will defend this country over the coming decades.” Despite the urgency of her warning, Jackson rejected despair.
Advocacy fellows Brooke Holloway Blake and Gabby Price
“I’m not living here in grim despair,” she said. “I actually have a lot, a lot of hope.” Jackson pointed to churches, civil rights organizations, students, universities, corporations and other community partners as essential to resisting efforts to divide or isolate them.
“The operative question is not how can we survive this, but how will each one of us … choose to show up?” she asked. “Democracy never defends itself.”
Jackson emphasized that participation can take different forms. “All of us don’t need to show up doing the same thing to secure the freedom of our state and nation,” she said, “but we all must show up and do something.”
She closed by connecting advocacy to discipleship: “Our prayers can’t just quietly ask for God to be on our side. The work we must do every day must demonstrate that we are on God’s side. … We are on the side of justice. We are on the side of freedom for everyone in this nation.”
CBF Advocacy seeks to help congregations, pastors and lay members enhance their missions and ministries through advocacy. As Christians dedicated to serving our communities, we strive to exercise responsible Christian citizenship by modeling an inclusive public witness for the Church that amplifies the voices of marginalized, neglected and forgotten groups. Learn more about the work of CBF Advocacy here.
The 2026 CBF General Assembly continues through Friday, June 19. Watch livestreams of plenary and worship sessions, along with ongoing news coverage at www.cbf.net/general-assembly-26
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Led by the love of Christ, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship invites churches and individuals to partner in transforming God’s world, working together as a global community to spread good news, justice and hope through impactful ministries, missions and resources.