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As much as we need to dream, we must also never forget what has happened in the past. We know how much farther we can go partly by seeing and marveling at how far God has already brought us. I have never stopped being amazed by God’s redemptive love and His willingness to allow us to participate in spreading that love.
My big brother, a heroic survivor of World War II, was defeated by the unspoken war at home. I was devastated.
When I was a boy, I was paid fifteen cents for a hard day’s work hauling hay. Decades later, a just-elected United States president asked me for advice on how justice is an economic issue. As a civil rights worker in the ’60s and early ’70s, I was arrested and beaten for fighting for freedom in rural Mississippi. Twenty years later, I found myself on a stage just to the left of President Ronald Reagan when he gave his “Evil Empire” speech.
While I appreciate the attention I’ve gotten for my work and the kind words people have said about me, the look you see on my face most often is not so much one of accomplishment but, rather, one of astonishment. How in the world did I get here?
I’ve come to understand that true justice is wrapped up in love.
As I look back over my personal journey—the highs, the lows, and everything in between—it’s all about love. Love is the first, middle, and final fight.
neither clenched fists nor helping hands alone will bring about the complete transformation God wants. Only love can touch us at the point of our pain and begin to heal us and make us whole—individually and collectively.
We cannot have true justice unless it is motivated by love, just as God’s greatest act of justice, sending Jesus to die for us, was motivated by love.
Frederick Douglass described the contradiction and failure of the church in America, saying: Fellow-citizens, I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad: it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your
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When I visit Mendenhall, I love to watch people going into that integrated clinic. I smile because it’s in the shadow of the courthouse. Tearing down the wall in that health center was for me what refusing to give up her seat on that bus must have been for Rosa Parks. That is something I look back on and think, Because of what we did, things are different. Life is better now.
All four of my children, along with fourteen others, tried to integrate the theater. That event was a pivotal moment in my life. I had to make a choice, and that choice revealed a lot about who I am. If my kids are ready to give their lives for the cause, I’m willing to let them do it.
Six of my children—Spencer, Joanie, Phillip, Derek, Deborah, and Wayne—were among the first black children to attend the all-white school in Mendenhall. But while they were there, their white teachers did not treat them the same way they treated the white children.
Phillip was probably hurt the most by his school experience. Because he was sickly, I had always given him a lot of love. He grew to expect that other people would love him too. When he went to the white school and the people treated him with hatred, the rejection almost destroyed him.
When the federal government ordered desegregation, many white parents decided to keep their kids from going to school with black kids. During the first year of integration, they formed all-white private academies. After the government said that was illegal and wouldn’t give them tax-exempt status, they turned the schools over to the churches.
an undermining of the purpose of integration, resulting from decisions to move children out of the public schools. The most obvious sign is a weakened resolve by the community to see that all children receive a top-notch education.
Many Christians who send their kids to private schools don’t understand how this decision affects the quality of education for black children. It’s a major blind spot.
When the schools stay separate, people in the community don’t learn how to talk to one another. We don’t learn to overcome our differences and get along. We don’t learn to love. We may think we are keeping the peace by creating separate schools. In reality, we are taking away from a deeper peace that can come with developing close relationships with those of a different skin color.
The reality of life is that joy often comes out of pain and suffering—and that is the only way progress happens. While the pain was hard back then, I am thankful to have experienced some of the joy that has come out of it today.
In His high priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus prayed that all the church might be one as He and the Father are one, as a witness to the world. Yet on Sunday morning, we seldom model this reality of the gospel.
I don’t think many Christians believe reconciliation and integrated worship are central to the gospel and to our lives as Christians. But it is. We need God’s Word to help purge us of these sins that keep us apart.
We have accommodated bigotry within the church. We have become captive to the same divisions and hostilities that have plagued our nation for generations. In fact, instead of leading our culture toward unity, love, and reconciliation, the church often lags behind secular efforts to promote equality and healing.
This is the intention of the gospel—being reconciled to God and to one another. Second Corinthians 5:19 says this so clearly: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” The church has been given the message of reconciliation.
Wrapped up in that little cloud, Elijah saw the promise of God’s steadfast love and His commitment to His people. He saw the Lord’s new mercies about to be poured out on Israel. In that cloud, Elijah found the hope he needed to keep going.
I am starting to believe that I have seen my own cloud. It is still small, maybe no bigger than the size of a man’s hand, but I think it is there. I see a movement of people excited and energized by multiethnic church planting, and that gives me so much hope.
I was part of the team that started the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA). At its start, CCDA was intended to be a network where people from across the country could come together, exchange ideas, and mutually support one another in the work of Christian community development.
On February 7, 1970, while I lay on the floor of the Simpson County Jail in Brandon, I made the decision to preach a gospel stronger than my racial identity and bigger than the segregation around me.
To be honest, I had never given a second thought to poor whites. I still regarded them negatively—as redneck, trailer-park white trash. The wealthy white people could help me, but what good were the poor whites to me? But then that couple showed up on my doorstep. My automatic response was to treat them the way whites had treated poor blacks—to patronize them.
We all must have the compassion, wisdom, and mutual respect to rise above slander, slurs, and snubs to a place of love. What we ought to be striving for today is a new language of love and affirmation that will replace these hurtful slights. What if we started calling one another “friend,” no matter our race, politics, or economic class?
there’s one thing I know I would change if I had the chance to do it all over again: I would do more to help poor whites.
The poor whites didn’t really have anything going for them except their whiteness and the fact that blacks had to say “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” to them. Since that was about all they had, they held on to it real tight. That’s why I developed a strong dislike of poor white folks for a while—they were the ones who did most of the damage to blacks in rural Mississippi. For example, the deputies who beat me in jail were poor whites. They had a little bit of authority and a black man to hate.
The truth is no one really liked the poor whites in Mississippi. They had almost no supporters, except the sheriffs, deputies, and Ku Klux Klan. The poor whites were even forced to have their own churches separate from the wealthy whites. While the wealthy whites went to First Baptist, First Methodist, or First Presbyterian in town, the poor whites were kept out, much like us black folks, and had their own country Pentecostal churches. This separation fed their resentment, and often the pastors of these churches were leaders in the Ku Klux Klan.
You might remember in 2008 when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said that poor white folks “cling to guns or religion.” He was criticized for his politically incorrect comment and should not have made it, but he wasn’t all wrong.
I never intentionally set out to be a peacemaker, but through the years I have come face-to-face with quite a number of fights, and each time, something would rise inside me that was stronger than the present danger or fear.
In the face of power, some resort to violence as a way to create chaos. That’s terrorism. That’s what people use when they don’t have the power to win. Nonviolence is a better way. It’s radical. And the hope is that it’s so different that the enemy, seeing your nonviolent actions, will not be violent toward you. This idea dominated the civil rights movement.
I had some serious conversations with my kids and others in the community to let them know, like Dr. King said, they shouldn’t be like the enemy, fighting fire with fire.
nonviolence takes more strength than violence—and it takes more than just human strength. It takes God’s strength working in human beings to produce self-control, gentleness, and the other fruit of the Holy Spirit. God’s power comes in our weakness and brokenness.
The sad truth is that when black anger against racism boils over, the black community usually suffers the most damage. I think most blacks who riot would say they’re rioting in reaction to some white act of violence or injustice—like after the Rodney King verdict. People were angry and disappointed. They felt that whites who still wanted to keep blacks oppressed had taken care of these white officers and gotten them out of jail. Now, in the riots that followed the verdict, some black rioters did pull one white man from his truck and beat him. But most of the hostile energy turned toward
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The nonviolent Black Lives Matter activist movement has been a successful and much-needed way to bring attention to the problem of violence against black people.
the church needs to be a witness to the world of what nonviolent change can look like. We should be leading the way in offering alternatives to the broken systems of this world, so that cycles of poverty and hatred don’t lead to violent reactions.
when we recognize that incidents like the Michael Brown case are the result of many different broken systems, we realize that violence won’t solve anything. Instead, we need to talk to one another, listen to one another, be willing to confess our sins to one another and, in turn, forgive one another. When we have these types of conversations, we begin to understand where the roots of some of the problems lie.
American society has lost its capacity for pluralism in many ways. We have begun to believe that if others don’t agree with us, then we don’t have to listen to them. We dehumanize people who don’t think like we do and, consequently, justify our violence against them. But we all are created in God’s image. We all are His children. We live in a country that proclaims freedom of speech and freedom of expression, and we must be willing to listen to and try to understand the thoughts and ideas of others. This is the way to make change happen without violence.
Good neighbors go beyond caring for others—they strengthen them as well.
Put simply, relocation means living in the community where God has called you. But relocation consists of much more than changing your zip code. Living out the first R means becoming involved in the community, knowing your neighbors, and being aware of the issues that confront them on a daily basis. It goes even further. Once you know their hurts and feel their pain, your neighbors’ issues become yours too.
People often say they need to be a voice for the voiceless, which sounds good but often ends up becoming imperialistic and patronizing. The oppressed already have a voice; the problem is that no one is listening. I am talking about allowing their voice to be heard. The more privileged people in society need to hear the voice of the oppressed and marginalized. We are here not to talk for them but, rather, to listen to them and provide avenues for people outside of the community to hear them as well.
With low-income communities especially, it’s much easier to see the positive things from the inside. When you’re outside looking in—or if you just drive through from time to time—you’re more likely to see only the problems and needs. Relocation is an equalizer. It helps people overcome alienation and fosters vibrant, close relationships. Family.
the only way we could make change happen was if we instilled in these children a love for their community that was stronger than the desire to get out. As more and more people with resources move out, the neighborhoods become poorer and poorer, and the community becomes drained of its most valuable asset. One of my best friends, Wayne Gordon, always said that the Remainers, those who stay behind, are the glue that holds a community together and helps make it a better place to live.
The second R—reconciliation—is the heart of the gospel. It is the process by which God brings us to Him and keeps us. It is the main activating force within the redemptive idea.
God is all about reconciliation, but we run the risk of missing Him when we allow racial reconciliation, or any kind of reconciliation, to rise as the dominating force—if we allow it rather than God Himself to become the ultimate goal.
reconciliation is most successful when churches treat it not as a project or an event but as a way of life.
Often we have it backward, trying to fix things for God rather than letting God fix things through us.
