Day 2- Holy nonsense and Columbia’s Civil Rights’ history
The day started at 5:45am (minus an hour for daylight saving time) as we got up to serve a free breakfast at a church for anyone who was hungry. The church has been feeding up to 200 people every Sunday morning for about 20 years, with some teams of volunteers working together to serve for nearly that long. We were happy to pour milk and wipe off trays and then we were happy to get ourselves some eggs and grits and sit down with our brothers and sisters to share stories- some joyful, some painful, some confusing and mumbled. So it was rather painful to be told later by those in charge that our students didn't do a great job because they ate with the guests and talked with them, even though they were "probably conversations they [the guests] had been waiting 10 years to have." We were told it was a "no nonsense" breakfast and we should have gotten to cleaning tables faster rather than talking to folks. I understand that there sometimes need to be high boundaries when working with a population facing addictions and mental illness for good reasons, but these barriers seemed to deny the fact that we were all brothers and sisters.
For our students who serve at Towson's Community Table once a month, these instructions were even antithetical to how we function. At our table, sitting and eating with our brothers and sisters is the whole point of our gathering. It was a a Jesus thing- eating with all sorts of folks that showed up- and it's our thing, too. So I am deeply proud that our students were full of "nonsense"-ready to meet their brothers and sisters and acknowledge their humanity. Ready to hear their stories so that we could understand who they were and what the world looked like through their eyes.
After serving breakfast, we worshiped at Pleasant Springs Church at Christ Mission- a church that blends both AME and ELCA traditions. Our students were lifted up by the powerful praise music and the many "Amens" in response to the sermon and the prayers- a style many were not used to. And the pastor reminded us that "where God is, ordinary people become holy." Even people like us. Even imperfect people that we meet this week. God has a way of using us for God's work even when we don't think it's possible or know it's happening.
And if one church service weren't enough, we then joined the Lutheran Campus Ministry with Frank Anderson for worship in the afternoon before Professor Bobby Donaldson took us on a tour of Columbia, teaching us about its Civil Rights' history. (Learn more about it at www.columbiasc63.com) We learned about the University of South Carolina's re-integration in 1963 (it was integrated in the Reconstruction Era, but then USC closed at the end of Reconstruction for a year and then reopened as an all-white institution.) Unlike schools in other states, USC had a "dignified de-segregation"- which was carefully orchestrated with police officers stationed just out of sight. This seemed to be a theme in South Carolina- they avoided much of the public display of struggle that was seen in Alabama and Mississippi. And I wonder if this is always a good thing. Certainly avoiding violence is good, but sometimes the ugliness of a situation has to be seen for what it is for deep, lasting change to come. But maybe I simply don't understand South Carolina well enough to make a judgement as to how change best comes.
Josh continued our tour, telling us about the confederate flag that used to sit atop the State House (flown there starting in 1961 in protest of Civil Rights, or some say as a celebration of the centennial of succession, and was only supposed to fly for one year. . .), the many statues to legislators who were staunch segregationists, governors who approved of lynchings and even one to a statesman who shut down Reconstruction, people who are spoken well of and celebrated by many in SC. And he told us about the often unreported resistance to oppression undertaken by brave men and women who didn't even know that the marches, sit-ins and lawsuits they filed would lay the groundwork to help change our country. Students of nearby Allen and Benedict Colleges (two historically black colleges) staged sit-ins in the local drugstores. And after a peaceful march in front of the State House, students and other supporters were arrested for singing the Star Spangled Banner with "too much bravado." The court case that overturned those convictions was the basis on which later convictions of Civil Rights' protestors were overturned.
And we heard about Sarah Mae Flemming, a young woman who sat in the section reserved for whites on the bus years before Rosa Parks and was hit while trying to exit the bus. Her court case eventually set the precedent for Rosa Parks' case, but Ms. Flemming never knew that. Her contribution to overturning unjust laws is largely untold in our history. As the stories went on and on, our students began to wonder about what other history we haven't been told. If the history we have been taught is not completely true, then perhaps the assumptions that we have based on that history needs to be rethought.
It's only been 2 days, but it feels like more. Looking at the pain of the world and the pain our brothers and sisters face is hard. Seeing the world through different eyes is jarring. We've been having deep conversations about grace and baptism, about discrimination and what we do with pain that we cannot heal. I am grateful that we go on this journey, as well as all our journeys in life, with Jesus beside us. Jesus, who was known for finding creative ways to defy the way things were, engaging in "nonsense" for the sake of relationships, and fighting back the powers of death. (And I am deeply grateful that Pastor David Bauser hooked us up with some couch cushions to sleep on tonight! Rest is such a blessed and needed thing!)