ATLANTA — A former Atlanta fire chief, fired eight years ago over his self-published book that likened homosexuality to bestiality, spoke to a group of state government workers Monday for Black History Month. During the meandering speech, Kelvin Cochran said it was God’s plan to bring Africans to America as slaves, and that through slavery they could become Christians.
Cochran, who is Black, was fired in 2015 after city officials deemed that his book, titled “Who Told You That You Are Naked?” compromised his ability to oversee gay employees and put the city at risk of discrimination claims.
He quickly filed a federal lawsuit arguing he was wrongfully terminated because of his religious beliefs. No jury trial was held, but the city agreed to a $1.2 million settlement in 2018.
Cochran was invited to speak at the Georgia Department of Labor on Monday by newly seated Commissioner Bruce Thompson.
During the speech, which was videotaped and posted to YouTube, Cochran said he believes it was under God’s “sovereign watch” that African slaves were “planted in the religious Christian South.” And since most slaves were unable to read, listening to pastors practice their sermons “on the obedient house slaves” and eavesdropping on white church services eventually led many slaves to confess their faith in Christ, he said.
“All they had to do was find a puddle of water in their camp meetings, be baptized and enter a level of freedom multiple years before they were actually free,” Cochran said.
Their enslavement, he said, saved them from Africa’s impending “social, spiritual and economic catastrophe and famine” that continues to plague parts of the continent today.
The slave trade, however, has been blamed for many of Africa’s hardships. Experts say it was economic incentives to engage in the trade that kept the culture of lawlessness alive. And the exportation of human beings from the continent, along with the fear of captivity held by those who remained, made it nearly impossible for economic and agricultural development in much of western Africa. By 1800, Africa’s population was half of what it would have been had the slave trade not occurred, according to the Centre for Economic Policy Research.
In his roughly 30-minute speech, Cochran used his own story of being “raised in the Deep South on faith and patriotism” to prove that God got it right.
After growing up on welfare in Louisiana, he said, he went on to serve as the U.S. Fire Administrator under President Barack Obama before returning to Atlanta for a second stint as chief.
“He’s a good man. He comes from some humble beginnings to get to the top, only to have that stripped away,” Thompson said, referring to Cochran’s firing.
As a state senator in 2015, Thompson backed a bill that gained traction among religious freedom advocates who seized on Cochran’s firing, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. The legislative measure was refiled in 2021 and again this year and would limit the state government’s ability to pass or enforce laws that conflict with religious beliefs, though some gay rights advocates argue it could be used to justify discrimination.
While few lawmakers publicly supported Cochran in 2015, Thompson gave every member of his chamber an autographed copy of the book so they could make up their own minds about the message, an offer he extended to department of labor workers Monday.
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(Atlanta Journal-Consitution staff writer James Salzer contributed to this article.)
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