Day 3- Montgomery
This morning began with a trip to the bus station- the old Greyhound bus station where Freedom Riders showed up in 1961 to protest the segregation on interstate buses. It was powerful to watch a group of college students read about a group of college students who risked death to protest injustice. Even though I know this is what happened, I still find it hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this hatred not only existed, but was tolerated and even encouraged by the political establishment. To see the faces of those beaten unconscious for simply asking to be treated as a full human just can't possibly make sense in my mind.
We kept on with the buses at the Rosa Parks Museum- an incredibly well put-together museum that portrayed Mrs. Park's dignity and resolve on the bus. She wasn't the first to refuse to stand for white passengers, but she was the perfect person at the right time to start a movement. Sometimes we are blessed to be those people for the sake of justice. And we got to see Pastor Graetz, many years younger, in photos in the museum and see the words of his young son, "Go away, bad policeman!" as his wife cleaned up their home after it was bombed. It is a privilege to be a Lutheran pastor and to know that sometimes my colleagues have gotten it right, deeply right, when it comes to following God's will. The museum also detailed the ways that the African-American community organized to get folks to work over the 381 days of the protest- pooling money sent to support them to buy a fleet of cars to serve as taxis. And putting the names of churches on these "rolling church wagons" to allow them to be insured (only by Lords of London, since the US insurers refused.) And setting up transfer points so that private citizens could drive others. It was so smart, so rooted in the community and so clever. And it reminded me that good, that right, that God's way is so much more beautiful and clever than evil. Evil may be easy, but it's never going to be beautiful and it's never going to engage the heart and the imagination the way God's will for the world does.
And then we went to the Alabama State House- a trip back in time through Alabama's history. There were murals on the wall depicting Alabama's history and except for one showing African-American's working in fileds and factories and white settlers throwing out Native Americans, it was the history of white people. The the part of the mural depicting 1840-1865 was a white couple riding horses on tree-lined streets while it talked about the joy of the era, neglecting the reality for half its citizens. And we struggled with the question of "what is the line between remembering our history and celebrating it?" as we looked at statues of Jefferson Davis, paintings of George Wallace and plaques celebrating when the confederacy was born.
Our day continued with a special tour with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Most folks just get a tour of the Civil Right Memorial- which was deeply meaningful itself- but we got a special conversation with the outreach director because we were bringing students from Towson University with us. And Towson has the distinction of having Matt on campus last year- a student who fought to have a White Student Union on campus and who made national news because of it.
For myself and the 3 students from "The Table: a Lutheran-Episcopal ministry at Towson," this whole discussion was even closer to home because Matt was a student who joined us one evening a year and a half ago at a ministry dinner. For months, we had spent our ministry nights journeying through the book of Luke and discussing how meals that Jesus had with those around him looked different than other meals. They were meals with strangers, friends and even enemies. And they were meals that were characterized by love- not niceness, but love which wanted those gathered to grow into who God wanted them to be. And we talked about what it meant to welcome our enemies. And we talked about who "enemy #1" at Towson was. And it was Matt. And two months later, he joined us, through the invitation of a student of ours. It was a tense time where he chose not to share his radical views out loud, but it was a reminder of how hard it is to do God's will might be were we called to act. And made us think about what we might say when we need to meet hate with loving and forceful resistance. For me, it also reminded me that our community in Christ is a such a deeply necessary place in our world- a place to discuss without hatred, a place to witness to justice, a place to look different and try to reflect the beloved community that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about. That community that Jesus called us to embody and to reach for.
At the Southern Poverty Law Center, we also talked about how to recognize hate, how we who are white bear responsibility for talking to those who espouse radical views, and how the struggle against hatred is by no means over. It still finds itself played out in issues of racism, sexism, classism and issues around sexuality. The journey continues, but we do have those who have gone before us on the journey to point the way ahead. And we talked about how to celebrate our culture- not our whiteness- by celebrating those from our culture that got it right. Those that saw the image of God in those that looked different fro them. Those that stood for justice, were corageous in showing mercy, who stood up to hatred. As Christians, that is the culture that we take strength from- the saints that are known and unknown who followed Christ as best they were able even when it seemed impossible. We don't base our culture on everything that people that look like us have done in the past just like we don't base our family culture on the stuff one crazy uncle does. Our culture is the best of who we are. And maybe that points toward how to remember who we are and who we have been without celebrating those parts of our history that simply need to be repented of and then left behind. For us as individuals and as a country.
Tonight we drove to Atlanta and gathered again in prayer around Philippians 3:12-16. "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on . . . forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus." Our students chose the passage to talk about the journey of justice that God calls us to and that we hope to have the courage to take our place in.
Tomorrow we begin our journey in Atlanta looking at issues of racism in our world now and how it manifests itself in academic and church communities as well as communities of poverty. We are ready, Lord, for all that you will teach us.