"O, Pioneers!"

 “O, PIONEERS!”

I want to conclude this Women’s Herstory Month with a glimpse into the pioneering work of the great Caroline Leach.  Many universities and other groups studied Oakhurst Presbyterian Church when Caroline and I were pastors there.  They came to learn from Oakhurst how to do interracial and community ministry from a church that had almost died in the early 1980’s, after losing 90% of its membership over 15 years.  One of the groups who studied us was Dr. Charles Foster, faculty at Candler School of Theology at Emory University.  He and his graduate student Ted Brelsford, studied us for two years, and they published a book on their findings called “We Are Church Together: Cultural Diversity in Congregational Life.”  In that book, they described Caroline this way as they studied the church:

“Caroline, Nibs’s spouse and Oakhurst’s associate pastor, greets us also.  Caroline is striking and friendly in this setting.  For the most part, I have seen and heard of Caroline before primarily in her capacity as minister of outreach: challenging the status quo at school board meetings; taking commissioners to task for feeble and discriminating housing policies; advocating for the community health center, drug addicted children, illiterate adults, low income parents.  This morning she is not carrying those burdens.  She seems excited and buoyant.  She is delighted to meet my family and eager to make us feel comfortable.” 

Caroline did bring that “can do” spirit to our ministry together, which started in Norfolk, Virginia in 1975.  Sometimes, I would be Eyeore to her Christopher Robin, to borrow from the Winnie the Pooh stories.  Perhaps she got that from her encounter with all the male systems which sought to tell her “no.”  When she came to Columba Seminary in 1971, she was one of five women students there.  Some of the male students would accost her on campus to read to her from the Bible, especially using the Pauline gospels which seemed to denigrate women.  When she went to seminary, she was not intending to be ordained as a pastor – she was there to become a Christian educator.  Yet, the strong male resistance to her presence convinced her that only by becoming an ordained pastor would she have the power and the strength to resist such pressure and to find ways to thrive as a daughter of God.

That same resistance continued as she neared graduation from seminary – the office of student support told her that they would not refer her or the two other women students to interview with churches who were seeking a pastor.  Was this because they were unfit as a pastors?  No, they were highly qualified pastors.  Their resistance came from their gender – women were not supposed to be pastors in churches.  Leave that to the men, please.  Through her connections, Caroline found a campus ministry position at Georgia Tech, through the gracious invitation of Woody McKay, the senior campus minister there.  The number of women students at Tech was growing, and he had the wisdom to discern that he needed a woman pastor on the staff to take the lead in offering ministry to the women students.

Atlanta Presbytery was not thrilled that Caroline and other women were beginning to hear God’s call to them to become ministers.  Caroline was the second woman to seek ordination in Atlanta Presbytery, and she had a hard time getting to that opportunity.  Though she had grown up in Central Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and had been all over the church in terms of participation and leadership and service, the elders there decided that they could not sponsor her to be a candidate for ministry because they did not believe that God could possibly call women to be pastors.  Although she was deeply hurt by this rejection by her home church, she was not to be denied.  During her seminary years, she worshipped at Central Presbyterian in Atlanta.  She sought help from Reverend Randy Taylor, who was the senior pastor there, and he welcomed her into candidacy for the ministry.

After jumping through many hoops and leaping (sometimes crawling) over many obstacles, she was finally approved for ordination to the ministry by Atlanta Presbytery.  In June, 1973, she was ordained as a pastor, holding the ceremony at Georgia Tech.  She was the 21st woman ordained as a pastor in the former Southern Presbyterian Church. If you haven’t noted already, she is the senior pastor in our family by two years.

In many ways, Caroline and a few other women helped to blow open the locked and shut doors, which sought to bar women from entering ministry.  She had to come through many dangers, toils and snares in order to make it into ordained ministry as a pastor, and to help pave the way for future women who heard God calling their names.  I give thanks for Caroline’s gifts to me and to so many others in this pioneering spirit and in her determined (and yet buoyant and excited) ministry.

"AN ORDINARY PERSON FROM SHILOH METHODIST CHURCH"

 “AN ORDINARY PERSON FROM SHILOH METHODIST CHURCH” 

(This is an excerpt from Nibs’ article in the Mar/Apr, 2024 issue of Hospitality)

In 2021 Joan Browning gave a speech in West Virginia which gave a capsule of her history and her times:

“Sixty years ago, we Freedom Riders challenged a reluctant United States federal government to enforce sacrificially obtained Supreme Court rulings and Interstate Commerce Commission orders.  White supremacist state governments, that were elected by refusing the right to vote to African American citizens, said of those federal rulings: “You and what army will make us obey?”  Four hundred and thirty-six of us in 62 small groups enlisted in that army.  As historian Raymond Arsenault wrote, Freedom Riders “appeared to court martyrdom with a reckless regard for personal safety or civic order.  None of the obstacles placed in their path – not widespread censure, not political and financial pressure, not arrest and imprisonment, not even the threat of death – seemed to weaken their commitment to nonviolent struggle.”

Joan Browning was one of the foot soldiers in that army, beginning when she was 18.  How did she come to do this?   Was she a fire-breathing Northerner, come down to rescue the Black folk of the South?   No, she was a child of the South, born in 1942 to a farming family in Wheeler County, Georgia.  Her mother sewed the clothes that her seven siblings and Joan wore from flour and chicken-feed sacks.  When she was 8, her family became the first in the neighborhood to get electricity, first to get a telephone.  She grew up in the die-hard white supremacy of her time – neo-slavery governor Eugene Talmadge’s farm was only 4 miles away.  

  She was raised as a Christian, and she and her family were guided by the Micah 6 prophecy:  “do justice, to love kindness, and  walk humbly with your God.”  She was raised in her daddy’s Shiloh Methodist Church.  The launching of Sputnik in 1957 had stirred her to want to become a scientist/engineer to help the USA catch up in the space race.  She longed to go to Georgia Tech, but in 1958 it did not accept women (or Black people).  She ended up going to Georgia State College for Women (GSCW) in Milledgeville in the summer of 1958 – it is now Georgia State College and University.  

She liked the academics of college, but she felt out of place in Milledgeville, missing her family, her church, and the community in which she grew up.  Browning was a dedicated churchperson, and she attended the whites-only Milledgeville Methodist Church.  She found that it was too large and cold, and she missed her rural, family church.  She also resented that as a young white Southern lady in training, she had to wear the girdle, garter belt and stockings and hats and gloves mandated for church attendance.  She began seeking retreats for herself and found a spot near campus where she could read and meditate.  It was in close proximity to Wesley Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and she shared the retreat space with eleven year old Cassandra Mency, who introduced Joan to her father, Reverend T. Leander Mency.  They began having conversations, and soon Reverend Mency invited her to worship at his church.  In the autumn of 1960, she began attending his church with another white friend Faye Powell.  Here she found what she had desperately been seeking:  vibrant worship, a sense of community, and a genuine welcoming place. 

Unknowingly, however, she had crossed the white dividing line that had a taboo against white people and Black people worshipping together.  The president of GSCW called her into his office – his name was Dr. Robert E. Lee – and he warned her strongly against going to the AME church, indicating that 1960 was not yet the time to cross such a racial barrier.  He told her that her continued attendance there would likely result in her being expelled from the college and harm to the Mency family, possibly even the burning of Wesley Chapel A.M.E. Church.  Browning was flabbergasted – what was her offense?  Dr. Lee indicated that such racial boundaries could not be crossed, and he ordered her and Faye to cease attending the Black church.

Rather than submitting, she upped her game.  She began attending reconciliation conferences at Paine College, and while she was there, she participated in sit-ins in Augusta.  Word got back to GSCW, and she was forced to withdraw from the college or be expelled.  She enrolled part-time at Georgia State College of Business Administration (now Georgia State University), and she began working at Emory University.  While in Atlanta, she discovered the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and joined with them. Later that year, Jim Forman asked her to sign up for the Freedom Rides – this one from Atlanta to Albany.  She agreed to do it. 

In December 1961, she boarded the train in Atlanta with the integrated Freedom Riders group, and when they arrived in Albany, there were police officers waiting for them, and for the first time in her life, Joan Browning would spend time in jail, the only white woman arrested in the Albany Freedom Ride.   She was released after 24 hours, then jailed two days later for five long days.  She went to a rally at Mr. Zion Baptist Church, and she looked around in awe – the Black sanctuary was filled to overflowing.  She was asked to speak, and she noted how lonely she had been in jail but how good it was: “It’s a funny, mixed up feeling to hate being in a dirty place---but to be glad you’re there for a good reason.  We hope that you’ll keep it going.”

The sit-ins and the Freedom Rides were part of the body of civil rights work that Joan Browning developed.  She lived in Atlanta for a while, then the north Georgia mountains, then to the mountains of West Virginia, where she now lives in a doublewide mobile home on a hillside.  Ever the warrior and witness, she had these words to say in early 2023 on an op-ed piece for the Charleston Mail-Gazette:

“Now, I speak as an ordinary citizen and challenge students and others who consider themselves ordinary to see themselves as living lives of purpose, of grabbing what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described as the “moral arc of the universe” and help bend it more toward justice.  I try to convey to citizens and students alike that even those who consider themselves as “ordinary” citizens can make a difference. My work has been recognized and honored with a long list of awards and appointments.

But now, all that many others and I are doing — and have done — is in danger of being erased as legislatures around the country, including in West Virginia, try to stifle discussion of those parts of America’s past.  For the first time in those 3 1/2 decades of speaking about the Freedom Rides, I have had two presentations cancelled because leaders in those states had issued an edict forbidding the discussion of race, diversity, equality or inclusion.

It seems that the West Virginia Legislature, through the proposed Anti-Racism Act of 2023 and other legislation, also intends to forbid me to speak about being an ordinary person who, by going on a Freedom Ride, helped take down those illegal, discriminatory signs and also inspire other ordinary citizens to help make this a better place for all of us.”

West Virginia did not pass the Anti-Racism Act (though it has returned in 2025), and witnesses like Joan Browning helped to derail it.  Browning’s life and witness remind us that we are all called out of our “ordinariness” to be extraordinary witnesses.  Let us find our places in this great cloud of witnesses.  

"DADDY'S HOUSE"

“DADDY’S HOUSE”

Several weeks ago when I preached at Antioch AME Church in Stone Mountain (via Reverend Vandy Simmons), I was privileged to meet many great people.  One of them was a Black woman named Mildred J. Mills, who bought a copy of my book “She Made a Way.”  She also gave me a copy of her book “Daddy’s House: A Daughter’s Memoir of Setbacks, Triumphs and Rising Above Her Roots.”  She indicated that our backgrounds were very similar. 

I read “Daddy’s House,” and it is a remarkable story.  Ms. Mills was one of seventeen children born to her parents in rural Alabama, in the early 1950’s. She describes it this way in the beginning of her book: “I was the third of Abraham and Mildred Billups’s seventeen children, born in Wetumpka, Alabama – a small, dusty community in the sticks of Elmore County.  Our white cinderblock house sat at the dead end of a red dirt road that ran straight through the woods at the butt end of the earth.”

Her book is the story of her wrestling with the demons in her life – racism, sexism, poverty, and a domineering and violent father.  She made the decision early on to find a way to get out of the oppression of rural Alabama during neo-slavery days, and the beginning of her book is her wavering at the front of her house as an 18 year old, right before she is to make the trip north to a college in Ohio.  She knows that she stands at the precipice of a monumental decision, and she decides to go.  Like the journey of Odysseus, she encounters many twists and turns, and she encounters her own share of monsters, as did the mythical traveler.  

Born in 1951, she grew up in a rural and racist and neo-slavery South.  One unusual aspect of her life is that though her family was poor, her parents owned the land on which they lived.  That rootedness gave her a sense of place and stability that many Black families did not have in the South.  The menacing white presence was always there, but her daily life was lived in the necessity of producing crops that her family could use to make money to live on. 

She and her siblings did the many chores on the farm that made it a viable place, especially picking cotton.  As one of the older sisters, she helped to raise her younger siblings, and they all lived in fear of her volatile father, who dominated her mother and who used the rod whenever he thought that it was necessary – and he seemed to think that it was necessary a lot.  That same dominating spirit, however, made him a formidable force who white people left alone.  In an earlier era, he might have been targeted for lynching, but like Ida B. Wells, his persona was so fierce that he exuded the mantra: “if you come for me, I’m taking as many of you with me as I can.”

     Ms. Mills encountered many obstacles on her journey, as she struggled to free herself from some of the cement blocks that sought to weigh both her body and her spirit down.  She was used and abused, but through it all, she found a way to make a way out of no way.  Throughout her fine book, she weaves the complexities of her life and her journey into an epic tale.  As I told her when we talked about her book, “I can’t believe that you made it out.  What an iron resolve you had.”

Ms. Mills recently interviewed me on her podcast “My Cotton Patch Moment,” and it will air on March 18.  Here is the link to it:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-cotton-patch-moment/id1676455331

During the interview, she noted that I was the first white person who she had ever encountered who would admit that they had racism in them.  We talked about how important it was to people classified as “white” to be able to deny the existence of racism, especially racism in each of us as individuals.  As my long-time friend David Billings put it in his fine book, we are in “deep denial.”

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Ms. Mills, in reading her book, and in our conversation in the podcast.  I look forward to getting to know her better and to learning from her.  In the meantime, find her fine book “Daddy’s House, and get ready for an intriguing (and harrowing) story.

 

"WHO IN THE HELL IS DIANE NASH?"

 WHO IN THE HELL IS DIANE NASH?

            No, it is not Donald Trump attacking another woman.  It was the question that Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked John Siegenthaler, his federal liaison in the South, in 1961.  Kennedy had heard that his carefully negotiated ending of the Freedom Rides was coming apart because this woman was sending volunteers from Nashville to “get on the bus.”  John Lewis and James Farmer and others had originated the Freedom Rides in DC, but their bus had been firebombed in Anniston, Alabama, and the other bus riders beaten severely in Birmingham.  Their offense?  They rode together as black and white folk on busses across the South.  Kennedy had negotiated with the governors of Alabama and Mississippi to prevent violence in exchange for delaying the Freedom Rides.  Diane Nash and others had different ideas – they did not look to the government for their moral centers.  They looked to themselves and to the community.  Students poured in to continue the rides, and many others did too, and it worked!  

            Who is Diane Nash?  It is a good question, because not many people have heard of her, but for almost a decade, she was one of the powerful and creative leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.  She was an African-American born in Chicago in 1938,  who came South to Fisk University in Nashville for college.  There she met Rev. James Lawson, John Lewis, Bernard Lafayette, Jim Bevel and others.  Although she was not necessarily non-violent, she attended Rev. Lawson’s sessions in Nashville and was surprisingly elected to head the group.  From there, she was one of the leaders of the student sit-ins in Nashville, the Freedom Rides, the Birmingham campaign in 1963, Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964, the Selma campaign in 1965.  There are many stories about her – she’s still living, so “google” her if you want more info on her (and I hope that you do!)  An excellent sourcebook for her and other women civil rights leaders is “Freedom’s Daughters” by Lynne Olson, and as always “Eyes on the Prize” by Juan Williams and Henry Hampton.

            Of the many stories about her, one stands out for me.  In 1962 she had been arrested in Mississippi for recruiting high school and college students to work in the model of non-violent mass protest against legal segregation.  She was convicted of encouraging the youth to violate the state’s segregation laws, and she was sentenced to two years in prison.  She appealed the sentence, but in the spring when she was 5 months pregnant, she announced to the judge that she would abandon her appeals and go to prison to affirm her previous “jail, no bail” policy.  She told the judge: “I can no longer cooperate with the evil and corrupt system of this state.  Since my child will be a Black child, born in Mississippi, whether I am in jail or not, he will be born in prison.”  Prescient words for the kindergarten-to-prison pipeline that continues to exist today.  The judge begged her to continue her appeal, but the reply came: “Judge, you don’t understand Christianity – all the early Christians went to jail.”  The judge replied: “Maybe so.  But they weren’t all pregnant and twenty-one.”  In the end, Diane Nash served only ten days.  The judge refused to implement the earlier sentence – he didn’t want any more martyrs.

            Who is Diane Nash?  Why was such a giant almost forgotten?  Well, it is complicated, but the bottom line is that most of the women leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were almost forgotten, even as Ida Wells was almost forgotten, because of the patriarchy that is in all of us.  But, thank goodness, the stories of her leadership and that of others are being revived.   Of the many lessons of her witness, here are three that are helpful in this time of growing injustice.  First, she did her homework.  She had not intended to become a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, but when she was confronted with injustice, she waded in to the fight.  She went to workshops; she learned non-violence; she found her voice.  Second, she believed in the power of community – no lone rangers allowed – the people must organize and work together.  Third, she did not wait on the patriarchy or the government or the powers that be – she listened to the cries of injustice and found allies and acted.  May we find our voices and get into action too.

If you want more info on the Nashville movement, a good place to start is “The Children” by David Halberstam.  More info on the Freedom Rides?  Start with “Freedom Riders” by Richard Arsenault.

"LENT AND TRUMPISM"

 “LENT AND TRUMPISM”

The Season of Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday, March 5.  It is a season of reflection, action and purpose as Christians prepare for the climactic events of Holy Week when Jesus of Nazareth is executed by the Roman empire because he was seen as a threat to their order.  It is a season when we are reminded of our captivity to the powers of racism, sexism, materialism, militarism,  homophobia, and others. 

This season can come none too soon for those of us in American society, where Trumpism culture seems to be in its triumphant mode.  The first six weeks of the second Trump administration have demonstrated that he means to be emperor this time, and that his minions will carry out his orders, which seek to drag us back to a time when everybody acknowledged what white men should be in charge of everything,  He has shown us his scorched earth policy, both literally in regard to the environment and figuratively in regard to human rights.  Though he is not yet the Roman emperor type, he aspires to be, and his policies seem hell-bent on destroying any small gains in terms of equity and inclusivity.

It is a very old story in American history, where we must always confront our original sin:  the development of the system of race in order to justify slavery, in order to justify the idea espoused by those classified as “white” – those classified as “colored”or “non-white” were not quite the human beings that “white” people are.  This split in the categories of humanity allowed the slavers to hold other human beings as slaves, all the while heralding the idea of equality and all the while calling ourselves “Christians.”  It allowed my generation in neo-slavey times to maintain an iron, oppressive hold on those classified as “Black.”  Many dedicated freedom fighters made it possible to destroy neo-slavery with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  But, whenever some progress is made in American history to move us towards the ideal of equality, there is a reaction among white people that calls out leaders and demagogues, who seek to take us back to the days of white supremacy.

We are in one of those reactive times now, though the Trumpster seems to bring an especially virulent strain of this deadly power.  In this season of Lent, we are asked – indeed, it is demanded – to find ways to resist this captivity, to resist this magnetic pull back towards white supremacy.  Most of the Lenten practices over history have emphasized giving up something in a fast for Lent.  I want to suggest that in this Lenten season in 2025, that we dedicate ourselves to at least five practices that will steel us and fire us for the hard days to come.

First, the season of Lent is a time of despair, a time when we are reminded of our deep captivity to sin, to powers like racism and sexism and materialism.  We are asked to face the Cross of Jesus straight on, with no filters.  The Trumpster takeover of American politics is one of the current incarnations of that captivity, and our despair is great.  I was reminded recently by one of my African-American friends that their history is what many white people are experiencing now – a deep sense of despair and oppression and loss.  They also reminded me that those of us classified as “white” need to learn from them and their experience:  in the midst of despair, find ways to express the deep pain, and then seek sources of hope and even joy.  So, our first step in this Lenten season is to express our pain, then seek to find sources of hope and joy in a depressing and oppressing time.

The second Lenten practice is more practical:  boycotting those businesses and industries that seem to be yielding or even trumpeting the Trumpster:  Walmart, Amazon, Target, Hobby Lobby, and many others.  The total boycott on February 28 was just a beginning step in this.  And, don’t forget to support businesses like Costco who are resisting the Trumpster.

The third Lenten practice is to participate in demonstrations and marches against the Trumpian capture of American culture.  Fortunately, there are many of those around, and the more prevalent they are, of course the more likely that the Trumpians will respond with threats and other actions.  These do make a difference, so find your place in them.

The fourth practice is to contact your political reps by email, letter and phone, especially by phone.  In the state of Georgia, we’ve heard that for state legislators, ten phone calls on any issue means that the house is on fire, and they must respond.  This is not a time to be silent and wait for the crisis to pass.

The fifth Lenten practice is to be in dialogue with others, and this works on two levels.  First, be in discussion with friends and allies about these issues, so that you can build a community of support that will sustain us all in these times.  Second, be in touch with Trump supporters, so that you can learn their discontents and learn their longings, which led them to support Trump in the first place.  There wiil be openings for movement, as Trump begins to alienate those supporters also.

In this particular season of American history, it is much easier to understand the season of Lent.  Lent is a time when we are asked to remember our captivity to sin, and in our current political situation, that captivity is front and center.  It is what nailed Jesus to the Cross.  Let us keep that before us in the days of this Lenten season.

"A FIRE IN MY BONES"

 “A FIRE IN MY BONES”

Fred Shuttlesworth was born in Alabama in 1922, and though he was raised Methodist, he became a Baptist preacher.  He was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, especially in Alabama, and he was driven to establish justice.  These words from the prophet Jeremiah describe his burning for justice:  “But if I say I'll never mention the LORD or speak in God’s name, the Word burns in my heart like a fire. It's like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in!” (Jer. 20:9)

He became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953, and he was a member of the NAACP until the state of Alabama outlawed it i 1956.  He then helped to found the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights as a response to Alabama’s actions.  He became a leader in Birmingham in pushing for racial justice.  On December 25, 1956, an attempt was made on Shuttlesworth's life by placing sixteen sticks of dynamite under his bedroom window. He escaped unhurt although his house was heavily damaged. A police officer, who also belonged to the KKK, told Shuttlesworth as he came out of his home, "If I were you I'd get out of town as quick as I could". Shuttlesworth told him to tell the Klan that he was not leaving, and "I wasn't raised to run." 

    In 1957, after he and his wife Ruby attempted to enroll their daughters at a recently integrated public school, Reverend Shuttlesworth was assaulted by an angry mob that set upon him with chains and baseball bats. But when he was taken to the hospital – beaten and bloodied – his doctors were astonished to find that not a single bone was broken. In fact, he didn’t even have a concussion.  At the time, he explained, “The Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so He gave me a hard head.”

He worked with Martin Luther King and others in seeking to move Alabama and other Southern states toward racial justice.  He joined the central cadre of Alabama preachers (King, Abernethy, Lowery) to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957.  He became a leader in the Freedom Rides in 1961, although he did not agree with their approach.  The Riders were badly beaten in Anniston and Birmingham, and. Shuttlesworth mobilized some of his fellow clergy to assist the rides. After the Riders were badly beaten and nearly killed in Birmingham and Anniston during the Rides, he sent deacons to pick up the Riders from a hospital in Anniston. He told his deacons to take their shotguns with them and to use them if necessary.  The legendary Diane Nash had these words to say about Shuttlesworth’s leadership:

“ Fred was practically a legend. I think it was important – for me, definitely, and for a city of people who were carrying on a movement – for there to be somebody that really represented strength, and that's certainly what Fred did. He would not back down, and you could count on it. He would not sell out, you could count on that.”

Shuttlesworth worked hard to get MLK and SCLC to come to Birmingham to work for racial justice, and finally in 1963, SCLC came to Birmingham to get into the fray that Shuttlesworth had started.  The Birmingham campaign became an important cog in the Movement, from MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to the infamous but powerful “Children’s Campaign,” a campaign that Shuttlesworth had helped to carry out with Jim Bevel.  He was also a leader in the Selma campaign, which eventually led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, a law that ended neo-slavery in the South.

    Shuttlesworth embraced the philosophy of non-violence, even though his own personality was combative, headstrong and sometimes blunt-spoken.  He was not shy in asking King to take a more active role in leading the fight against segregation and warning that history would not look kindly on those who gave "flowery speeches" but did not act on them.  He was a visionary leader with a fire in his bones, even up until his death in 2011.

    Under the presidency of Donald Trump, we are heading back to the kind of oppressive days in which Shuttlesworth lived.  The spirits of George Wallace, Ross Barnett, Orval Faubus, Gene Talmadge, Joe McCarthy and other demonic powers are all rising now to seek to find their places in our lives.  In these days, we are called to find that fire in our own bones, so that we too can be witnesses for justice in our time.  Let us find our place and our voices in these days.

"THE STREAMS OF BLACK HISTORY"

 “The Streams of Black History”

As we enter a very difficult period in American history, we would do well to remember and learn from those who have found life and fought for freedom in more difficult times.  It is one of the gifts of Black History Month which calls us to remember the ancestors and learn from their witness.  

    Charlotte Forten was born in Philadelphia in 1837 as a free Black person, one of the granddaughters of one of the Black wealthiest men in America, James Forten.  She was educated by private tutors, and she became a well-educated woman and a poet.  In the 1850’s, she became involved in the abolitionist movement, penning poems about freedom that William Lloyd Garrison published in “The Liberator,” and that Frederick Douglass published in “North Star.”

After the Civil War broke out in 1861, the Union forces moved to cut off sea lanes from the South.  Early on, they took possession of the Sea Islands near Beaufort, South Carolina, and all the white plantation owners fled the Islands.  In order to prepare for the aftermath of the Civil War, the War Department decided to start schools for Black people  on the Sea Islands, seeking to ascertain what kind of education would be needed by those who were formerly enslaved.  

    This project was called “The Port Royal Experiment,” and many white teachers came down to teach the formerly enslaved people to read and write.  Charlotte Forten had been teaching in the North already, and though she encountered some resistance among the white leadership, she decided to come down to St. Helena Island to teach in the Penn School, as part of the Port Royal Experiment.  She was the first Black teacher there.  She taught there until the end of the Civil War.

After the Civil War, she taught in Massachusetts and back in Charleston, SC, until she moved to DC in 1872 to teach.  There she met the Rev. Francis Grimke, and they were married in 1878. In that marriage, she stepped into another stream of Black history.  Francis Grimke was the nephew of Angelina and Sarah Grimke, two white South Carolina sisters who were anti-slavery and who left the South before the Civil War.  They became famous abolitionists and feminists. 

     Also before the Civil War, the Grimke sisters discovered that their brother Henry Grimke had a relationship with one of his enslaved women, Nancy Weston.  Out of this union came three sons, one of whom was Francis Grimke.  Francis and his brother Archibald escaped from slavery, and they made contact with their aunts. The Grimke sisters helped to finance Francis’s seminary education at Princeton, and they generally supported Francis and his brother Archibald.  Francis later became pastor at Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in DC, where he served for almost 50 years.   He helped to found the Niagara Movement with WEB Dubois and later the NAACP.  

    He and Charlotte Forten made a formidable team fo justice, service, and equity.  She wrote a famous journal about her experiences in the Port Royal Experiment and in the white world. Charlotte Forten and Francis Grimke were one of several streams of Black history that came together and improved life for all of us.  May we find our place in those same streams now, because the water will be getting rougher for the next few years.