Although blacks like to think that Simon volunteered to carry Jesus’ cross, he did not; it was, as Niebuhr said, an involuntary cross. The Gospel of Mark says that “they compelled” Simon “to carry his cross” (15:21), just as some African Americans were compelled to suffer lynching when another could not be found. Niebuhr could have explored this story with theological imagination, seeing blacks as crucified like Jesus and forced like Simon to carry the crosses of slavery, segregation, and lynching. But he did not.
