It’s time — way overdue, in fact — for The United Methodist Church to make progress on racial issues that surpasses the bromides of the past, said Black leaders of the denomination.

Difficult, complicated racial justice issues were raised in 2020 by Black Lives Matters protests and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol building in Washington, as well as the police killings of African Americans including George Floyd in Minneapolis, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York.