Racism and Resistance. Violence and Nonviolence. Fear and Courage. Hate and Love. Faith. Discipline. Commitment. Persistence. Empowerment. Boycotts. Marches. Sit-ins. Desegregation of schools. Equal justice. Voting rights. Jobs. Ordinary people.
These are words that Jason, Jake and JulieAnn have carried in our minds and hearts since visiting sites of the Civil Rights Movement through the South in July. This tour was sponsored by Thriving Together, an educational program connected with Messiah University, in which our congregation partners with eleven other congregations. The goal of the trip was to provide us with the experience of learning about racism and resistance in the actual places where events occurred in order to have a deeper understanding of the dangers of racism and the courage of resisters, both Black and White.
We not only visited sites like the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King Memorial in Atlanta, GA, (“We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” – MLK, Jr.), and the beginning of the Selma to Montgomery March that began at the Edmond Pettus Bridge where marchers like John Lewis experienced horrific violence and after three tries and intervention by US Marshalls finally marched on to the State Capitol in Montgomery, AL; but we were also able to hear stories and talk with those who had participated in the Movement between 1955 and 1965.
It was not only the famous leaders of the Movement who we learned about, but the many “ordinary” people, whose footsteps in sidewalks that we saw in multiple places, who took risks to desegregate schools and businesses and marched for freedom. They were people who risked danger with courage and nonviolent discipline. We heard the stories of two women, one of whom was present in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL when a bomb there killed four of her young friends and a woman whose sister was one of those girls who was killed. (Their stories and others are in books in the Social Justice Library.) This followed weeks of a boycott of businesses in a white section of the city next to the church to protest segregation of those businesses.
In Albany, GA two women who formed and participated in the Freedom Singers, who traveled the country inspiring and raising money for the Movement, taught us their songs.
And near the end of our trip we visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery that remembers the more than 4,000 lives taken by racial terror lynching between 1877 and 1950 and the many who were arrested and incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. It was the racism based in fear of cultural and economic changes after the Civil War that motivated the violent White Supremacy and the nonviolent resistance of thousands of these “ordinary people” based in their deep faith and the love preached by MLK, Jr. and other leaders that empowered the resisters with courage, commitment, discipline and persistence.
While riding on the bus we watched many documentary videos of the actual violence perpetrated during this period of time. It was truly an immersion experience and we thank you for your prayer support that week and your questions as we returned.
While these events happened in the mid-twentieth century, racism and White Supremacy still exist in the twenty-first century. We arrived home with renewed faith and commitment to our work toward racial justice and hope that we can share some of what we experienced with you. Look for a Faith Formation hour in this fall, connections with the Kingian Nonviolence Weekend in our church October 4-6, and a day long experience of immersion in civil rights this winter. Will you join us that we may become “ordinary” people of faith and courage in our time, bringing the Kin-dom of God a little bit closer to earth?
“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” – MLK, Jr.
In Peace,
Jason Haldeman, Jake Weaver Spiedel, and JulieAnn Keith
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