There are about 45 of us together on the Pilgrimage. 45 people, 5 of them staff and our bus driver, all of us seeking understanding of events that happened 50 +/- years ago and more. All of us wanting the world to be different and knowing that in some way, it’s up to us to help make it different. Would the old strategies and actions work today? Can sit-ins and marches today make life better for the folk in Alabama and Mississippi, and the rest of the United States?
Traveling with my fellow pilgrims, is no hardship. I believe everyone of us would like an end to racism, with all our hearts. My ‘Touchstone’ group, (small discussion group), has engaged in good conversations. Tonight we discussed anger, forgiveness and accountability in the lives of the people we heard from today. We talked about the ethics of our actions, and how best to act. We talked about how white people, who because of their ‘privilege’ and habit of taking charge, might best be a resource and support for issues Blacks might want to address. And it’s a conundrum.
We heard and saw that time and time again, it was only when white people became involved, that what was happening in the South got the attention it needed from the rest of the country. JoAnn Bland told us that for any Movement to be effective, it needed to have money, motivation and media. It seems to me that for far too long, we were able to ignore what was happening in the South. For far too long, because it didn’t seem to be happening to us, it wasn’t seen by us (and by that I mean those who are white, those who are Black and not exposed to it day to day, those who are in our own little bubbles and for whom current affairs outside of the focus of our lives is simply not on our radars).
And yet I know, that the ordination of women in the ELCA (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) would not have happened when it did if not for the vocal and practical support of ordained men. I know that the ordination and right to full participation of Gays and Lesbians in the ELCA would not have happened as it did, without the vocal and practical support of those of us who are ordained straight people. And I truly believe that in the ELCA, back in the 1980’s, if not for clergy who stood up and proclaimed that it is because of our confession of Jesus Christ as Lord that we could not in good conscience, support our pensions being invested in corporations doing business in Apartheid South Africa, that we along with others globally who dis-invested in those companies, provided the needed assistance to the South Africans that helped to brake the hold of what was Apartheid.
I know that as a Black person, the support of white people during the Movement was viewed as encouragement, partnership, the right and just thing to do. There is a balance that must be found, between doing something for someone, and doing something with someone. I thoroughly enjoyed my touchstone group, and I think we could take on the problems of the world, if given the time and opportunity! Or, we could at least raise lots of questions.
The Black people in Mississippi and Alabama were being killed, for wanting to vote. The people are still being cut out of decision making by having voting registration offices closed and the vote suppressed. All the people who have shared with us their stories of years ago, who marched, served as Freedom Riders, were related to someone beat up by the Ku Klux Klan or related to someone killed for their efforts, or simply because they were black, they could have been so angry. They could still be angry. But all of them have chosen forgiveness. At times, I couldn’t help but think the speakers were being naive; that there is something very innocent about their thinking. That they have been brainwashed somehow, by being in the south, by being more closely connected to Blacks who had to be subservient in order to exist, who had to acquiesce to the white people who controlled their very lives.
I even asked one of the speakers, how she and others handled the stress of knowing the KKK were ever present in their community. Her reply was that, while she didn’t necessarily know who members of the KKK were, and they could have been her next door neighbors, she didn’t go where they were. I should have asked different questions. I was thinking that she, and others, might be naive. But then, maybe I am the one who is being naive. I tend to think of myself as being pretty trusting, so why am I suspicious that they are honestly, and apparently genuinely able to forgive (or at least set aside the hatred and hateful actions) and move on? Perhaps I just have not been tested, have not had the circumstance presented to me where I had to make a choice, and take a stand to be trusting. Yet I do believe in forgiveness. I do believe in using anger to galvanize me to make life different, and better. I’ll have to think about this quite a bit more.
We met a couple Freedom Riders today! One gentleman was 13 the first time he was arrested. He had heard about Freedom Riders; thought they were somehow supernatural (his word) because he had seen a bit on television, when the Civil Rights workers were hosed, and yet got up to keep marching! But when he found himself in a Bus Station, where they had gone so he could just get a look at them, he found himself under arrest, taken to jail and eventually to Parchman Prison, the worst prison in Mississippi (according to him and other things I read at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum). He was 13, on death row, in a cell with two older men, who took his food, and one who raped him. It was 5 days before he was released, through the intervention of Robert Kennedy. He was so young, he hadn’t known what it meant to be on death row. He hadn’t known what it meant to be somebody’s ‘bitch’. And to this day, he has never told his family what happened to him. He carries shame because of what happened to him. But, he is proud of the work he did, that he became a Freedom Rider. Today, he gives talks about his life 50 years ago. He laments that his mother never got to see him, and be proud of him. My heart breaks for him and the shame he carries. And when I and others tried to say he had nothing to be ashamed of, he disagreed with us.
How many more people have this unbearable sorrow, unthinkable shame and soul weary sadness, and yet show a face to the world of trust, and love, and long for reconciliation? How many?
Traveling with my fellow pilgrims, is no hardship. I believe everyone of us would like an end to racism, with all our hearts. My ‘Touchstone’ group, (small discussion group), has engaged in good conversations. Tonight we discussed anger, forgiveness and accountability in the lives of the people we heard from today. We talked about the ethics of our actions, and how best to act. We talked about how white people, who because of their ‘privilege’ and habit of taking charge, might best be a resource and support for issues Blacks might want to address. And it’s a conundrum.
We heard and saw that time and time again, it was only when white people became involved, that what was happening in the South got the attention it needed from the rest of the country. JoAnn Bland told us that for any Movement to be effective, it needed to have money, motivation and media. It seems to me that for far too long, we were able to ignore what was happening in the South. For far too long, because it didn’t seem to be happening to us, it wasn’t seen by us (and by that I mean those who are white, those who are Black and not exposed to it day to day, those who are in our own little bubbles and for whom current affairs outside of the focus of our lives is simply not on our radars).
And yet I know, that the ordination of women in the ELCA (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) would not have happened when it did if not for the vocal and practical support of ordained men. I know that the ordination and right to full participation of Gays and Lesbians in the ELCA would not have happened as it did, without the vocal and practical support of those of us who are ordained straight people. And I truly believe that in the ELCA, back in the 1980’s, if not for clergy who stood up and proclaimed that it is because of our confession of Jesus Christ as Lord that we could not in good conscience, support our pensions being invested in corporations doing business in Apartheid South Africa, that we along with others globally who dis-invested in those companies, provided the needed assistance to the South Africans that helped to brake the hold of what was Apartheid.
I know that as a Black person, the support of white people during the Movement was viewed as encouragement, partnership, the right and just thing to do. There is a balance that must be found, between doing something for someone, and doing something with someone. I thoroughly enjoyed my touchstone group, and I think we could take on the problems of the world, if given the time and opportunity! Or, we could at least raise lots of questions.
The Black people in Mississippi and Alabama were being killed, for wanting to vote. The people are still being cut out of decision making by having voting registration offices closed and the vote suppressed. All the people who have shared with us their stories of years ago, who marched, served as Freedom Riders, were related to someone beat up by the Ku Klux Klan or related to someone killed for their efforts, or simply because they were black, they could have been so angry. They could still be angry. But all of them have chosen forgiveness. At times, I couldn’t help but think the speakers were being naive; that there is something very innocent about their thinking. That they have been brainwashed somehow, by being in the south, by being more closely connected to Blacks who had to be subservient in order to exist, who had to acquiesce to the white people who controlled their very lives.
I even asked one of the speakers, how she and others handled the stress of knowing the KKK were ever present in their community. Her reply was that, while she didn’t necessarily know who members of the KKK were, and they could have been her next door neighbors, she didn’t go where they were. I should have asked different questions. I was thinking that she, and others, might be naive. But then, maybe I am the one who is being naive. I tend to think of myself as being pretty trusting, so why am I suspicious that they are honestly, and apparently genuinely able to forgive (or at least set aside the hatred and hateful actions) and move on? Perhaps I just have not been tested, have not had the circumstance presented to me where I had to make a choice, and take a stand to be trusting. Yet I do believe in forgiveness. I do believe in using anger to galvanize me to make life different, and better. I’ll have to think about this quite a bit more.
We met a couple Freedom Riders today! One gentleman was 13 the first time he was arrested. He had heard about Freedom Riders; thought they were somehow supernatural (his word) because he had seen a bit on television, when the Civil Rights workers were hosed, and yet got up to keep marching! But when he found himself in a Bus Station, where they had gone so he could just get a look at them, he found himself under arrest, taken to jail and eventually to Parchman Prison, the worst prison in Mississippi (according to him and other things I read at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum). He was 13, on death row, in a cell with two older men, who took his food, and one who raped him. It was 5 days before he was released, through the intervention of Robert Kennedy. He was so young, he hadn’t known what it meant to be on death row. He hadn’t known what it meant to be somebody’s ‘bitch’. And to this day, he has never told his family what happened to him. He carries shame because of what happened to him. But, he is proud of the work he did, that he became a Freedom Rider. Today, he gives talks about his life 50 years ago. He laments that his mother never got to see him, and be proud of him. My heart breaks for him and the shame he carries. And when I and others tried to say he had nothing to be ashamed of, he disagreed with us.
How many more people have this unbearable sorrow, unthinkable shame and soul weary sadness, and yet show a face to the world of trust, and love, and long for reconciliation? How many?
RSS Feed