"BABY STEPS ARE BIG STEPS"

“BABY STEPS ARE BIG STEPS”

            As I write this, I’m preparing to down in a while to “Listen Up” studios in East Atlanta to participate in my first audio book recording.  Our publisher wants our book to be on audio also, so a new adventure for me!

            In response to last week’s blog on 400 years of slavery, several people responded that they wanted to have more specific knowledge on how to engage white people on this issue.  Using the model of treatment of addiction, I have developed a list of seven steps for those of us classified as “white.”  Those steps are recognition, repentance, resistance, resilience, reparations, reconciliation, and recovery.  I discuss those extensively in the forthcoming book that Dr. Catherine Meeks and wrote, entitled “Passionate for Justice:  Ida B. Wells as Prophet For Our Time.”  It will be released on September 17, so be sure to get your copy from Church Publishing Group, from me, from your local bookstore, or from Amazon.  If you want  more information on these seven steps and their ramifications for us, get the book!

            For the short term, I want to list four ways that those of us classified as “white” can work to mitigate the power of race in our lives and in the life of the world.  These are baby steps, but they are big and important steps.  First, those of us classified as ”white” must admit to ourselves and to others that we are immersed in and addicted to the system of race.   I use the awkward phrase “classified as white” as a way of noting that race is a social and political construct – it is not based in biology or genetics or even in culture.  I also use the term “system of race” to indicate that racial classification is indeed a system, a system designed and evolved over the years, whose main purpose is not to classify the diversity of the human family but rather to assert that “white” people are qualitatively different from and superior to all other racial categories.  All of us who are white carry this system in us to one degree or another – there are no exceptions.  Some of us have recognized this captivity and are seeking liberation, but like any addiction, we always carry it with us. 

            Second, recognizing our addiction, we must always be placing ourselves in places and positions where our addiction is recognized and where we are encouraged to seek some liberation from it.   Our former church, Oakhurst Presbyterian, has a RED (Race, Ethnicity and Diversity) Group which regularly has forums and discussions related to issues of race and white supremacy.  Here people of different racial classifications come together to listen and to talk about the power of race in their lives.  Perhaps your church or synagogue or mosque has such a group – if not, get one started!

            Third, make it your business to encounter and engage other white people who have not yet discerned the power of race in their lives.  This is perhaps the hardest step of all of these four, because it requires us to go outside our comfort zone and offer life giving possibilities to others.  The problem, of course, is that often the other folk will see our intervention not as life-giving but rather as life-threatening.  We are in a dangerous time now, though, and our future may depend on our being willing to engage other white people about the power of race.  Since all of us are captured by its power to one degree or another, we will have many opportunities.  For those of us classified as “white,” it seems that it is more important to avoid being cast as racist than it is to actually participate in racism. 

            Fourth,  make it your business to find ten people of any racial category and ascertain if they are registered to vote.  If not, please help them to get registered and ready to vote in the next election, especially the one in 2020.  If Donald Trump is re-elected in 2020, we will be in dire straits as a country, and these steps may be moot.  So, don’t delay – get going on this registration.  If you don’t know how to register folk, check with your county election commission or contact the League of Women Voters.  And, keep your eyes and ears open for the work of folk to suppress the vote – this is a continuing and powerful issue!

"REMEMBERING 400 YEARS"

“REMEMBERING 400 YEARS”

            This is the anniversary of a HUGE week in American history, perhaps the biggest one with the exceptions of 1776 and 1865.  Four hundred years ago, about this time in August, a Portuguese ship under the flag of the British sailed up the River in the colony of Virginia.  Among its cargo was a group of Africans, people who would be sold as slaves – the first recorded presence of Africans as slaves in English territory.  It is difficult to underestimate the chilling importance of this event.  I’ve read many articles on this event, and no one put it better than Lerone Bennett did in his 1962 book “Before Mayflower”:

            “A year before the arrival of the celebrated Mayflower, 113 years before the birth of George Washington, 244 years before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, this ship sailed into the harbor at Jamestown, Virginia, and dropped anchor into the muddy waters of history.  It was clear to the men who received this ‘Dutch man of War’ that she was no ordinary vessel.  What seems unusual today is that no one sensed how extraordinary she really was.  For few ships, before or since, have unloaded a more momentous cargo……The history of Black America began.” 

            This event is remembered as a powerful beginning, and we must remember that it was not only the beginning of Black America but also white America.  “Race” was developing at this time, but it had not yet congealed into the white supremacy that we know now.  It would take 40 more years for race and slavery to be welded together to cement the American identity, when the colony of Virginia began to pass laws saying who was “white,” and who was “black” in the 1660’s.  The importance of this change was that “white” people could not be born into slavery, but “black” people could.  Thus, the development of the idea of “race” in North America is the fundamental building block for the caste system of slavery in our history.  The idea of “white supremacy” took hold in American life.  For more on this, see Nell Painter’s excellent book  “The History of White People.”

            The ancestral lineage was also changed in Virginia at this time to alter the English structures, where the identity of the child was determined by the paternal line.  Virginia changed it so that the identity of the child was determined by the maternal line.  Why this change?  Two primary reasons:  first,  because so many “white” men and masters were forcing “black” women to have sex with them, and second, the children born from these unions needed to be classified as “black” and thus as “other” and also as “slaves.”  It would become known as the “one drop of blood system,” and a few states still have these laws on their books.  This system would be written into the Constitution, and it is still there in the infamous “three-fifths clause.”  This system would continue legally until 1965 (not 1865), when the Voting Rights Act divorced “race” and other categories from the right to vote.  Despite the hard legal and protest work and sacrifice that led to the Voting Rights Act, the cultural power of white supremacy still is deep and resilient.  

            This blog cannot begin to touch the depths of this history, and if you are unfamiliar with it, please consult some of the books that I have mentioned, or contact me, and I’ll give you more references.  I want to dwell briefly on several implications of this 400^th anniversary of the arrival of African people to be sold as slaves in the English colonies in what is now known as North America.  First, to pick up Lerone Bennett’s theme, we must marvel at the remarkable resilience of those designated as “other” in American history, especially those of African descent, but also those natives who were here when the English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese arrived.  Land stolen, massacres, Middle passage, labor stolen, families torn apart, rape, lynching – all that and more.  As Maya Angelou once put it:  “But still, like dust, I'll rise.” Many articles and studies in white America have looked at the dysfunction of Native and African-American families, and I’ve always thought that we should look at it the other way.  How did they do it?  How did those classified as “other” survive the horrible treatment and the systematic attempts to strip their humanity? 

            Yet, I also realize why we in the “white” community don’t do such studies.  To do so would be to admit a fundamental reality that most of us who are classified as “white” spend most of our lives seeking to deny:  white supremacy and race are at the heart of our identity as individuals and as a nation.  We are in “deep denial,” as my friend David Billings put it in his fine book by the same title.  We refuse to admit how much the power of white supremacy has shaped our individual and collective identities.  The landing of that ship in Jamestown 400 years ago was part of the beginning of a huge river of white supremacy that continues to flow in our hearts and in nation.  I say this not to beat anybody up or to make anyone feel guilt or shame.  I say it because it is a fundamental reality that shapes all of our lives.  It is similar to dealing with addiction.  Until those of us classified as “white” recognize this and admit our captivity to white supremacy, we will not be able to take steps toward health.  As June Jordan once put it, it’s time to act:  we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

"THE MEMORY OF AUGUST"

“THE MEMORY OF AUGUST”

            August is a month of many anniversaries.   Some are great memories, like the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which ended neo-slavery in the United States.  Some are horrible, like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and like the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which basically authorized the Vietnam War.  There are many others, but two more are coming in these next two weeks, one a work of justice and the other a disaster.  This week marks the 99^th anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th Amendment, and next week marks the 400^th anniversary of Africans being brought as slaves to the English colonies in Virginia (one year before the Mayflower arrived).  This week, it’s on to the 19^th Amendment, which gave white women the right to vote.

            This work was a couple of centuries in the making, but its official beginning is marked as the Seneca Falls Convention in New York in 1848, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.  At this convention, attended by 300 delegates, a “Declaration of Sentiments” was adopted, urging that women be given the vote.  The three Amendments passed after the Civil War (13-15^th) basically re-wrote the U.S. Constitution, but they did not address the rights of women.  There was a bitter fight over the 15^th Amendment, which basically gave the right to vote to black men.  Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass argued against including women in this amendment, because he did not think that the votes would be there for both.  Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and others argued strongly that women should be included in the voting rights amendment.  Women were not included in the Amendment, and they began the work for passing a new amendment to the Constitution.

            A new Amendment to grant the vote to women was introduced into Congress in 1878, but it got nowhere.  Stanton and Anthony were joined by a new generation of leaders like Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Ida Wells, Mary Church Terrell, and Carrie Chapman Catt to work for this amendment.  The same struggles ensued – some like Burns wanted to approach the problem by going through the state constitutions.  Some, like Paul and Catt and Wells, wanted to get the federal constitution changed.  As always, the issue of race was central too – would they address voting rights for all women, or just women classified as “white?”  Like the struggle over the 15^th Amendment, this would be a hard struggle, and although there is no racial classification mentioned in the 19^th Amendment, there was no guarantee for votes for all women.

            After much hard work, especially by the National Women’s Party, President Woodrow Wilson agreed to call a special session of Congress in 1919 to press for the passage of the 19^th Amendment.  It passed the House on May 21, passed the Senate on June 4, and thus this is the 100^th anniversary of congressional passage of the 19^th Amendment.  But, it could not become law until three quarters of the states passed it.  It was sent to the states for ratification, needing 36 to pass.  Many states passed it quickly, although states such as Vermont, Delaware, and Connecticut declined to ratify it.  That process moved it into 1920, and states began to pass it.  The state of Washington passed it, becoming the 35^th state to do so.  That pushed the struggle to the state of Tennessee, which became the symbol of the last hope, because the remaining states were all in the former Confederacy, and those prospects did not look good, although Arkansas and Texas had already passed it.

            There was a harsh and difficult battle in Tennessee over the 19^th Amendment (for a good history on this, see “The Women’s Hour” by Elaine Weiss).  The votes needed to pass it were hard to come by, though initial procedural votes to move it were tied at 45-45.  Still, with a tie vote, it could not be moved.  A final vote would be held the next day, and in the meantime, one of the legislators who had opposed it had a change of heart.  Harry Burns found a note from his mother, which indicated that he should vote for ratification.  The next day he shocked everyone by changing his position and voting for ratification, and the 19^th Amendment moved to ratification by that one vote.  After his vote, Harry Burns had to flee the building to save his life, but on August 18, 1920, the 19^th Amendment was ratified.  On August 26, the U.S. Congress certified the vote, and the 19^th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution.  

            That margin of one vote indicates the tenuousness of human rights in the “land of the free.”  One of my early conversations with Caroline’s paternal grandmother, Sophie Leach, was about the 19^th Amendment.  She indicated that she did not think that women should have gotten the vote as a young mother, but when they got the right to vote, she was always going to vote.  And she did vote in every election until her death in 1978: 58 years of voting.  In our day when many hard-won rights are once again in contention, let us remember this story.  Let us celebrate the hard work of those who helped us attain some human rights in this country, but let us also remember how tenuous they are.  Hate, like kudzu, has deep roots, and it is always resprouting and seeking to spread.  Let us be those tenders of the garden who seek to uproot the weeds of hate and oppression and who seek to grow the flowers of equity and justice.  We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. 

"AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM"

“AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM”

            This week Caroline and I visited the Robert Moton Museum in Farmville, Virginia, in Prince Edward County, on the way to the PCUSA Big Tent in Baltimore.   It has been called “one of the most stubborn counties in the United States.”  Prince Edward County is at the northern end of the great Black Belt that forms an enormous curve to the south and west for more than 1000 miles to the Mississippi River and beyond, where dramas over race and slavery and civil rights have been fought for centuries and continue to be fought.  Farmville is a small, farming city with two universities, and in the 1950’s it would become the focal point of one of the central themes of American history:  race v. equality. 

            Early in 1951, a 16 year old black student named Barbara Johns began talking with a few of her classmates at their segregated Robert Moton High School.  She proposed a boycott of the school until the white school board agreed to spend money to build a black high school equal to the white school.  There had been many demands for this, but the white, Presbyterian school superintendent T.J. McIlwane continued to deny their request.  Johns chafed under this oppression.  She felt that her generation must act, that her parents’ generation, while being loving people, had lost their boldness by living too long under the system.  She felt that they had come to accept the white view that nothing could or would ever change.  As she talked with one of her teachers about the oppression, she told Barbara Johns:  “Girl, you’re always talking about this – why don’t you do something about it.”  The teacher’s comments stung her, but it also inspired her.

            A few days later, she asked a couple of student leaders to discuss a boycott with her.   One of the students remembered that she spoke with a great effectiveness: “She opened our eyes to a lot of things.  She emphasized that while we must follow our parents, in some instances, a little child shall lead them.”  They agreed to join in and recruit a small group of students to lead it.  But, no parents or other adults, because they were afraid that they would squelch it.  Over the weekend of April 21-22, they passed the word:  strike on Monday.  On that Monday, a fake call was made to the principal to come rescue two black students who were being harassed by the police at the bus station.  In his absence, a forged note was passed out to all teachers, under Principal Boyd Jones’ name, calling for a student assembly at 11 AM.  All classes and teachers came in for the assembly.

            The curtain was pulled back on the stage, and there stood Barbara Johns and her two allies, brother and sister John and Carrie Stokes.  Johns began talking about the need to take action. Some of the teachers moved to take over the assembly in the absence of the principal, but student marshals stood in their way, blocking them.  She then invited the teachers to leave so that the students could hear the plea for action and decide what to do.  When they did not leave, she pulled off her shoe, rapped in on the podium and demanded:  “We want all of you teachers out of here.”  Most left, but a few stayed.   Johns spoke eloquently from her heart:  it was time that they were treated equally with white students, time to have a decent high school building, time for the students to take leadership.  Her proposal:  they were going to vote to march out of school then and there and stay out until the white leadership agreed to build a new and equal black high school.  The strike was on, and the students marched out.  It held despite great stress – when Johns got home, she told her maternal grandmother: “Grandma,  I walked out of school today and carried 450 students with me.”

            NAACP lawyers heard about the case through the Rev. Francis Griffin, in whose church the students went for the strike.  Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill came to meet with the students, and they decided to take the case if the students could bring their parents to the next meeting, and if they would all agree not to sue for a separate school but for an integrated school.  These events happened, and the NAACP filed suit in federal district court, where they quickly lost.  They appealed to the US Supreme Court, and in the next year the case, Davis v. Prince Edward County, was combined by SCOTUS with 4 other cases to become Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.  SCOTUS decided unanimously in 1954 that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional, a landmark decision in American history.

            As we all know, the ramifications of that decision are still being fought.  In 1959 Virginia closed all of its public schools rather than integrate them.  Prince Edward County was the last county to re-open their schools, waiting until 1963 to do it, and only then under a direct SCOTUS order, hence its name as the “most stubborn county.” 

            If you are wondering if this is only ancient history, this week not only marks the anniversary of the beginning of the horrendous atomic bombings in Japan but also the 54^th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which ended neo-slavery in this country.  In 2013 SCOTUS went the other way and eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v. Holder, coming out of the Black Belt in Alabama.  So, we will need many more Barbara Johns emerging – we’ve seen them in the Parkland students and others, but let us find our place also, no matter whether we are 16 or 96.