Monitor Board of Contributors: America must address its race problem

By Rev. JARED RARDIN

For the Monitor

Last modified: 6/29/2015 11:34:11 PM

What happened in Charleston, S.C., a week ago Wednesday has shocked the nation twice over. Not only were nine peace-loving, faithful people murdered, they were murdered in their sacred place of worship by a white supremacist posing as a Bible study participant.



Many of us who experience white privilege had naively thought that we had become too civilized for this kind of vigilantism, this kind of repugnant disrespect for the constitutional right of assembly and worship. Most African-Americans, I suspect, have never lived under that delusion. This kind of thing is nothing new at all.



Earlier this month, the New York Times ran an article listing a small sampling of the black churches torched or bombed by white people seeking to put African-Americans back into places of fearful subservience:



In 1890, almost every black church in Tuskegee, Ala., was torched by the Ku Klux Klan.



Ninety-three years and many acts of violence later, the soul of the nation was wounded when a bomb placed by the KKK ripped through the basement of 16th Street Baptist Church and killed four little girls. I’ve stood outside the window of the classroom in which they were murdered.



In 1964, at the Mount Zion AME Church in Longdale, Miss., KKK members beat parishioners as they were leaving church and burned the church down.



In June 1995, Macedonia Baptist Church in Manning, S.C., burned to the ground.



On Feb 1, 1996, a group of churches within a six-mile radius in Louisiana were set on fire on the anniversary of the sit-in in Greensboro, N.C.



Another chapter in this never-ending book was written this month.



The theory behind this kind of racial violence, of course, has tended to follow a twisted and mistaken logic: If you want to disempower African-Americans, hit them in the sacred places where they gather to be empowered by God and by one another.



The Emancipation Proclamation carried with it a new development in America: the African-American Church. For the first time, there was a place where African-Americans could begin to organize their lives freely. Churches became places of learning, instruction, community organizing, charitable support, and, as we know from the Civil Rights movement, a place where protests were launched and participants were granted safe harbor. Racial hatred has tended to make a fundamental miscalculation: you can drive the people from the church, but you can’t drive the church from the people. The black church is accustomed to being occasionally homeless but never powerless. Its true address is not of this world.



Witness a truly stunning moment last week: Dylann Roof’s video arraignment. The man who had wounded the heart of an entire community, who represents the idolatrous notion that we can resolve our problems with violence, stood on camera before members of the victims’ families. The family members, in tearful acknowledgement of their loss, offered up the most powerful of Christian witnesses. They forgave him.



That act of mercy reminded me of that night in January 1956, when white citizens of Montgomery bombed the parsonage home of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King and an angry, armed mob gathered around some very fearful police officers threatening violence. King was called from a church meeting and when he arrived, addressed the crowd with these words: “If you have weapons, take them home. If you do not have them, please do not seek them. We cannot solve this problem through violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence. Love your enemies; bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you. Remember this movement will not stop, because God is with it.”



I recommend going and standing on the parsonage porch and walking into the kitchen where Dr. King received innumerable death threats. I recommend visiting the Birmingham Park where Bull Connor turned the firehoses on children, and crossing the street to the 16th Avenue Baptist Church where four little girls were killed by a bomb. It is profoundly moving to stand on the steps of the Dexter Avenue Memorial Church where the march from Selma ended, as it is to stand above the old underground holding cell for slaves going to market at the precise spot where Rosa Parks got on the bus. Indeed, just a block from there is the Greyhound bus station where freedom riders, white and black, were beaten to within inches of their lives.



To walk in those places is to walk on the hallowed ground of martyrs in the never-ending struggle of love against hatred. A week ago Wednesday, nine names were added to their number.



An African-American classmate of mine shared a recent blog post by a friend of hers: “I remember when the news out of Ferguson, Mo., first came to us. I heard white friends and colleagues encourage each other to sit in a posture of listening. I honor that listening. I honor the desire to be in solidarity through understanding. I honor that they wanted to avoid any semblance of saviorism. White allies, I thank you for your thoughtfulness in this regard. Now allow me to be your stopwatch: Time’s up.”



Indeed it is. The time is up for pretending we don’t have a race problem in America. The time is up for pretending we don’t have a violence problem in America any more than other developed countries. The time has come for some change, both in our hearts and in our institutions.







(The Rev. Jared Rardin is pastor of South Congregational Church. This opinion piece was adapted from his sermon delivered on June 21.)





