"FROM ONE STORY TO MANY STORIES"

 “FROM ONE STORY TO MANY STORIES”

In 2009, Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a TED Talk entitled “The Danger of One Story.”  I was still doing a lot of anti-racism workshops at the time, and we sometimes used her TED Talk as an entry point into the danger of one story coming to dominate all others.  Her point was that the white, Western sense of racial superiority was born of one story:  the story of the system of race, which tells all that those classified as “white” are superior to all other racial classifications, and “white” people should be in control of all things.  Her TED Talk is quite remarkable – if you are not familiar with it, check it out at https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?subtitle=en.

Today is Indigenous Peoples Day, and it comes at the end of Hispanic Heritage Month, with Native American History Month beginning soon in November.  Why all these different months?  Why recognize Hispanic Heritage, Black History (February), Women’s History Month (March), Asian American Heritage (May), along with many others?  They serve as reminders that there are many stories about the many branches of humanity – a truth that white, American culture has long sought to deny.  Today is also known as “Columbus Day,” celebrating Italian-American heritage, but also celebrating the European who “discovered” America.  It took me a long time in my journey to recognize that the lands that came to be known as “America” were already populated with many different tribes of people, clumped together as “Indians,” as “Native Americans,” as “Indigenous People” – in Canada known as “First Nations.”  So, Columbus did not discover America – rather he was the vessel for the transfer of many Europeans, who would come to the Americas.  In so doing, those of us of “white” heritage would annihilate the native peoples living here, import enslaved people from Africa to work the land, then grow immense wealth from these activities.

Growing up, I was proud of my Scotch-Irish ancestors who were the tip of the spear for the movement of white people westward across the South.  Killing or removing Cherokee people, Muscogee people, Creek people, Choctaw people, Seminole people and others – we marched relentlessly across the South to establish a “white haven.” And, yes, there is a suburb in Memphis known as “Whitehaven,” populated ironically now by mostly Black people.  As I have learned more about my heritage and my history, I am not so proud now.  Yet, that story must be told.  We “whites” must know about the Trail of Tears and the “Indian Removal Act,” not to make us feel guilty but to help us to understand our history and to understand  that there are many stories.  Many Native American peoples have struggled long and hard to recover their cultures, to celebrate themselves, and to thank their gods that they have survived.

In these days, we are invited to consider that there are many stories, and that we can all learn from one another’s stories.  The hegemony of white culture and expansionism has made this a difficult task, but we may be at the inflection point of needing to hear the power and truth of other cultures’ stories.  For many years now, I have been impressed with the Native American idea that the ancestors can be found in the living beings on the earth.  Our “white” approach has been to see beings like trees in a utilitarian way:  we see trees, and we think of the houses that can be built from them.  When Native Americans see trees, they see the locale of their ancestors.  This does not mean that we don’t cut down trees to make houses and firewood, but it does mean that we should shift from our utilitarian view of nature to a more wholistic view of us and nature.  The recent monster hurricanes remind us that the time for making this shift is over, that nature is now seeing us as we have seen nature:  something in the way, something to be torn down.  Yet, we always have an opportunity to shift our perspective from one of exploitation to one of partnership.  

Lest we think that this is only an outdated, tortuous exercise, let us recall that it is at the heart of the division in America in these days.  Donald Trump helped bring the “one story” idea back to the surface of American life, but it has long been there.  I have it in my own consciousness, breathed in through the air of white, male supremacy.  “Make America Great Again” is a call to return to the days of one story: the white, male story.  If Donald Trump wins the election, we will see a much more concerted effort to re-establish firmly the power of white patriarchy.  Yet, even if Kamala Harris wins the election, the power of “one story” will continue to resonate and have political power.  Harris represents a small but significant step to expand the American narrative from one story to many stories.  Her election would be an opportunity to begin to have a different narrative about ourselves and to begin to celebrate the multicultural nature of American history.  Many of us who are classified as “white” feel anxious and afraid, because we know that the demographics are not in our favor.  Trump has brought this brooding sense of grievance to the surface, and this election has now taken on much more importance than it might have.  So, make it your point to vote and to make sure that at least ten of your friends, neighbors and colleagues vote.  

"THE MIDDLE EAST"

 “THE MIDDLE EAST”

Today marks the first anniversary of the horrific slaughter of Israeli civilians by fighters from Hamas.  The Israeli response has been the killing of 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and now they have added Hezbollah in Lebanon, with likely attacks on Iran to come.  It is a dangerous, dangerous time, with these events baked into hundreds of years of history.  The leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems intent on pursuing the violence until all the enemies are not only defeated but also destroyed.  He also faces legal difficulties of his own, and I would hate to think that he is stretching out the war to preserve his own skin legally, but there is a strong hint of that.  He seems similar to Trump on that score.

Because of the Jewish connections that my Mother and I had in my hometown, I have always leaned towards Israel in any Mid East conflicts.  But, over the last few years, Israel has gradually turned into an apartheid nation, and that has given me great pause.  Having grown up in a land where the original residents were either killed or dispossessed of their land by my ancestors, and then that same land was worked by people who were enslaved, I have trouble keeping the same level of support for Israel, which dispossessed the original Palestine peoples without compensation.  The “Palestinian problem” continues to plague the nation of Israel, and it led directly to the horrible and brutal attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7.  

     Israel became a modern  nation in 1948 in some of its original territories as a result of lobbying by Jewish leaders, but most of all because of the horrors of the Holocaust, horrors which were a culmination of centuries of mostly Christian oppression and brutal policies toward Jewish people.  The problem is that there were people already living in those lands, and for the most part they were removed.  They have become known as the Palestinians.  Since Israel took their lands 75 years ago, no adequate provision has been made for the Palestinians.  They have been squeezed into the West Bank and into Gaza, much like the Native Americans were squeezed into “reservations” in our country.  There does not seem to be a viable solution to this issue, though the “two state” solution has come back in to diplomatic and public conversations. In the meantime, Israel continues its repressive policies towards the Palestinians – Jewish settlers continue to move into Palestinian areas.  

    Even those who support the Palestinians were shocked by the brutal, terroristic nature of the attacks by Hamas on October 7.  It is hard to justify the killing of so many civilians at a music concert, and nothing justifies the killing of babies.  Yet we must also recognize the level of desperation and rage that was at the heart of those attacks.  That level does not come because the attackers are savages, as the mainstream Western media has called them.  That level is reached because of a deep and continued wounding of the human heart, a wounding so deep that it makes the attacker willing and able to do inhuman acts.

    I am not justifying the Hamas attacks, but I put their rage on the same level that Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, and John Brown had in their attacks on the institution of slavery.   Until there is adequate compensation and justice for the Palestinians, these attacks will continue to rise.  At least two things must happen in the Middle East for any semblance of peace with justice to arise.  First, the nation of Israel must be recognized as a legitimate state – many Palestinians still see Israel as an occupying force over these 75 years.  Those who attacked Israel on October 7 did it as a liberating act against the occupying oppressor.  That can no longer be the rubric of the Middle East.

     Justice must be found and established for the Palestinian people.  I don’t know what that would look like at this point, but Israel and the West must make a strong commitment to it.  I have not seen such commitment from the leadership of Israel since Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in November, 1995.  Yet, that commitment must be renewed, or the war that is now playing out in Israel and Gaza will be deepened to a level that may lead to WW III.  Both Israel and the Palestinians are now saying “Never Again,” and without a bold diplomatic solution, the future for the Middle East and for all of us looks grim.

"RAMBLIN' IN THE WEST"

 “RAMBLING IN THE WEST”

Caroline and I are out in Salt Lake City (SLC), visiting our son David and spouse Erin – Susan has joined us, too, so it is a mini family reunion.  SLC is obviously in Utah, the Mormon state, and sometime in this visit, we will go the spot that the Mormons call “This Is It.” It is the place that the Latter Day Saints remember as the place where Brigham Young and others decided in 1847 that they had found the location out West that Joseph Smith had asked them to find in order to build the Kingdom of the Latter Day Saints.   It is stunning geography – mountains all around, the Great Salt Lake, and so far during our visit here, clear blue skies – along with high altitude.  We’ve also learned that the LDS leadership now prefers to drop the word “Mormon” to describe themselves.  Now they are “the Church of Jesus Christ.”  That is problematic because there are many denominations who have those words in their names.  But, that’s their problem, not mine.

Speaking of geography, we arrived here on Thursday evening, just as hurricane Helene was striking Florida and Georgia with its vastly destructive powers.  We were anxious on Thursday night and Friday morning until we heard from a friend that our home in Decatur had suffered no damage.  Since we live on a hill, we were not worried about waters flooding into the house – as David put it, if we suffered flood damage at our house, it meant that the apocalypse had arrived.  Our worries were the tall old pine and oak trees around the house, but they seem to have survived.  Our other worry was flooding in the basement, but thanks to the great work of our friend, Dave Hess, we have a pumping system that seems to have worked.  We are so grateful to have been spared the brunt of the storm, but we are saddened and astonished at Helene’s destructive power in much of Georgia (including the north side of Atlanta), in western North Carolina (including Montreat), and in east Tennessee.  In our area, we have not a destructive storm like this since Opal in 1995.  It is a reminder of the raw power of nature, as well as signs of building destructive powers, related to our way of living.  One colleague noted a connection between all the death penalty executions in the country this week and the destructive power of Helene, saying that God didn’t like this kind of ugly.  A second connection is the rapidly rising earth temperatures, caused by climate change.  Helene intensified quickly in the hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and its destructive power is a harbinger of things to come.

On that level, it was pleasant to arrive in Utah with sunny skies and warm weather.  I haven’t been out west much.  In the summer of 1967, my college suitemate, Sidney Cassell, and I traveled around the West for a couple of months, including a stay in SLC.  I remember floating in the Great Salt Lake and the gigantic Mormon Temple.  Caroline and I also traveled a lot to New Mexico, when Susan was working in Americorps in Albuquerque.  The desert air of both new Mexico and Utah seem similar. 

    Utah’s earliest known residents were indigenous people known as the Anasazi group, native Americans who came here around the time of the birth of Jesus in the Middle East.  Indeed, the state is named for the clan of tribes who were here when the Mormons came – the Ute people.  Like every other territory in the USA, the native people were driven from the area to make room for the “whites” who were coming.  One other “unfun” fact about Utah – the Mormons brought African-American enslaved people with them, thus making Utah the only western state to have slavery established in it for a time.  The conservative nature of Mormonism and the heritage of slavery make Utah a politically conservative state.  

We are staying in an Airbnb right at the bottom of part of the Wasatch Mountain Range.  On my morning walks, I have been surprised to find a lot of Harris/Walz yard signs.  I’ve included one of them in the accompanying photo. Though the state of Utah won’t go for Harris, I am encouraged that even here, there are folks looking to break us out of the “old white man” phase of American politics.  There seems to be a struggle here in Utah over the next steps for the future.  One of the senators, Mitt Romney, represents the “decent” Republican party, while the other, Mike Lee, represents the mean, right wing impulse of the “restore white men” movement.  Our election in November will tell us a lot about what direction the country will be taking.  And, speaking of elections, make it your goal this week to find at least 5 people who aren’t registered to vote, and get them registered to vote.  The deadline in Georgia (and in most states is October 6), so the time for waiting is over.  

"HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT"

 “HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT”

Caroline and I were blessed to have lunch recently with Catherine Meeks in downtown Decatur.  We talked about many things, including my new book “She Made A Way: Mother and Me in a Deep South World.”  She also asked us if we knew any videographers, because one of her continuing projects was to get a documentary made about the lives of William and Ellen Craft, who were natives of Macon, Georgia (where Catherine had taught for many years).  They were enslaved people, who escaped slavery by hiding in plain sight.

I noted that I had preached on them in the 1990’s in our Black History Series at Oakhurst.  I first encountered them in Dorothy Sterling’s so-fine book called “Black Foremothers,” in which she gave short biographies of Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, and Ellen Craft.  It was in that book that I first discovered Ida B in 1985, but the story of Ellen and William Craft stuck with me.  They escaped slavery in 1848 by posing as a white master and “his” Black slave.  Ellen Craft was very light skinned, and she could easily pass as a white person.  

In late December of 1848, they came up with the plan to escape slavery by self-emancipation, by using their wits and steely courage to use the Southern system of slavery against itself to escape that very slavery.  They dressed Ellen as a wealthy white male planter, sickly and injured, traveling north with her slave to seek a medical cure for her illness that no Southern doctor had yet provided.  Ellen’s husband William would be her “slave” on this trip, and she had to switch from the protective turtle shell of being an enslaved woman to being an assertive white man who commanded the world.  They walked out of slavery in the pre-dawn hours, going to the train station in Macon, taking it to Savannah.  Ellen bought a ticket in the white man’s section, while William was confined to the designated “Negro slave” car.  They left Macon on the 7 AM train to Savannah.  From somewhere, they had obtained a pistol – they did not intend to return to slavery if they were caught.  They would fight for their freedom or die trying.  They left on December 20, 1848.  Ellen, traveling as “Mr. Johnson,” could not read or write.  In order to keep from having to sign any documents, she had her arm in a bandage and a sling, hoping to avoid the confrontation over her lack of literacy.

They had many trials and close calls and delays, but they sailed to Charleston on a ship from Savannah.  They did not know when the bounty hunters would be sent to capture them, so they were always on edge.  In Charleston, they got bad news – the steamer to Philadelphia had stopped running for the season.  They had to take a ship to Wilmington, NC, and from there they hoped to take a train to Philadelphia in the land of freedom.  They took ships and trains to Washington, DC, then finally to Philadelphia, all the time posing as wealthy white master and dark skinned personal slave.  Along the way, several white enslavers urged “Mr. Johnson” to be more forceful with his slave, and they warned him of going to Philadelphia, because they indicated that many Black people held as slaves had escaped their slavery in the city of brotherly love.  At their last stop in the South – in Baltimore – a white station master argued with “Mr. Johnson” that he had to have proof that the enslaved man belonged to her, and the station master indicated that he would refuse to let them board the train to Philly unless Mr. Johnson demonstrated such proof.  Ellen – as Mr. Johnson – put on her haughtiest and most entitled face, and she demanded that the tickets for the “slave” and for herself be honored.  The station master relented, and off they went on the train to Philadelphia.

In the pre-dawn hours of Christmas Eve, the train pulled into Philadelphia.  As one older Black person put it to William:  “Wake up, old horse, we are in Philadelphia.”  As they crossed into the streets of Philly, William remembered that he felt “as if the straps that bound the heavy burden of slavery began to pop, and the load to run off.”  Harriet Tubman had a similar feeling when she discovered that she had made it to Pennsylvania.   In Philadelphia, Ellen and William Craft made their way to the office of William Still, the great Black conductor on the Underground Railroad.  Still was astonished at their story and congratulated them on their ingenuity, skill, and courage in carrying this escape out.  Still connected them with other conductors and urged them to go farther North because the bounty hunters would be after them soon.

In their segregated rooming house, the Crafts later described the change that happened when they arrived on free soil:  “Scarcely had we arrived on free soil when the rheumatism departed – the right arm was unslung; the toothache was gone; the beardless face was unmuffled; the deaf heard and spoke; the blind saw; and the lame leaped as a hart, and in the presence of a few astonished friends of the slave, the facts of this unparalleled Underground RailRoad feat were established by most unquestionable evidence.”  They were funded to go on up into England, especially Boston, and they encountered and toured with Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Robert Purvis, Henry “Box” Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, and many others.  Many people classified as “white” were astonished to learn their story, but they were even more astonished to see a “white” woman named Ellen Craft standing before them, learning that someone who looked like them could also be held in slavery.  

    The Crafts also helped to change the narrative not only about slavery but about the agency of those held as slaves.  Theirs was not a story of courageous white people who saved dark people held in slavery.  Theirs was the story of the agency of those classified as “slaves” to plan and escape and to use their wits and courage against the very people who sought to tell them that they were too stupid and primitive to be anything but slaves.

    The Crafts would have to escape the bounty hunters several more times, going to Canada and then to England, where they lived for many years.  After the Civil War, they would return to Georgia to found the Woodville School to teach Black people reading and writing – the school was so successful that it attracted many students, as well as the attention of the KKK.  They were under constant threat, but remained powerful and vital witnesses.  Ellen died sometime in 1891, but her burial place (like Clarence Jordan’s) remains unknown.  William died at the beginning of the 20th century and is buried in Charleston, SC.  For more info, you can see the Crafts’ book “Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom,” first published to great success in 1860, or the more recent NYT best-selling biography by Ilyon Woo called “Master, Slave, Husband, Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom.”  If you don’t know about this extraordinary couple, learn about them! And, if you know some documentary folk, contact Catherine Meeks!

"SHE MADE A WAY' AND THE POWER OF CAPTIVITY

 “SHE MADE A WAY” AND THE POWER OF CAPTIVITY

I’ve begun to talk about my book “She Made A Way: Mother and Me in a Deep South World,” most recently at a salon at Ann Starks’ home.  I am grateful to Ann for inviting me and friends to share together, and I’ll be glad to come and share with you and your group at your home or other places.  As we talked yesterday, I was reminded again of how much I have been captured by the systems of the world, what the Bible calls “sin,” or what I like to call “captivity.” I grew up in a church that was deeply important to me. They emphasized that the primary elements of sin were individual issues – fornication, alcohol, cursing, lying, cheating, stealing, etc.  While all those are definitely relevant, as I came into young adulthood, I began to discern that the Biblical view of sin, of captivity, was much deeper and more radical.  Systemic powers like racism and sexism and homophobia and militarism and materialism – all these and more are at the root of the Biblical view of sin.  I tried to address some of that issue in this book, in “She Made A Way,” as my mother and I negotiated our way through that morass of captivity.  

I began my talk yesterday with a reading from the beginning of the book, and I want to share it now:

“It is one of my earliest memories.  I am trapped in our room in our home on Porter Street  in Helena, Arkansas.  I say that I was “trapped” because it felt like that to me at a young age of four.  It was in a hot, sticky room on a Sunday afternoon, with both doors  shut.  Summer in the Mississippi River delta in 1951 – hot and muggy, no air conditioning, only a small rotating fan whirring on the dresser, trying to draw me some cool air.  I had been ordered by my mother to take a nap, and failing that, ordered to lie there quietly until she opened the door to tell me that I could get up and play.  At least I had open windows on three sides of the room – to the east Fannie and Mack Thompson’s house, facing the Mississippi River a mile away.  To the south was our backyard, where I longed to go and play in the fifty yards or so of ground before the steep climb began to Crowley’s Ridge;  to the north was a window to the screen porch, where we would often go sit in the evenings to seek to cool off and get relief from the stifling heat.

    On this particular afternoon, though, these windows were not welcome entries into relief but rather reminders that I was trapped by my tyrannical mother, who refused to allow me to get up and play until she gave me permission.  I fumed and tossed and turned, waiting for the excruciating time to be ended.  In my fuming on that hot Sunday afternoon in 1951,  I had no idea of the depth of the story that underlay my confinement.  It would take me decades to learn the depths and nuances of that story, but for now I will say that my mother worked six days a week as a beautician in someone else’s shop.  The only time that she had to take a nap and rest during those grinding days was on Sunday afternoons, after attending church and Sunday school and eating Sunday dinner.  

    I grew up fatherless in a patriarchal world.  My father, for whom I was named, had abandoned me (and my mother) for another woman before I was a year old.  I was born in Memphis, and after my father left, we lived in Memphis for a time, living with an Irish woman, who she kept me while my mother worked as a beauty operator.  This Irish woman nicknamed me “Nibs,” using  an Irish word for the British aristocracy, who consider themselves to be the center of the world – “his Nibs” and “her Nibs.”  That appellation is even heard on occasion now to refer to the Queen of England in an affectionate way.  I have come to use “Nibs” as my primary name – one of the great ironies of that development is that I don’t know the name of the Irish woman who named me. My mother told me during my childhood, but I have simply forgotten it.

    I may be projecting onto to my mother a sense of shock and loss in my father’s departure – for reasons that will become clearer, we never talked much about him or his departure.  Undoubtedly, she felt loss, and undoubtedly, we were poor,  and she was looking for shelter.  She would find shelter with her grandmother’s sister, Bernice Brown Higgins, who had recently been widowed.  Because of this, Mrs. Higgins needed fiscal and physical companionship in her small home on Porter Street in Helena.  

    It is not surprising that these two women, my mother and Mrs. Higgins (whom I called “Gran”) pooled their resources in Helena to create a new household.  We moved from Memphis sometime in my second year to live with Gran on Porter Street in a green clapboard house facing the north.  That small home - two bedrooms, one small bath, a combined living and dining room, an average sized kitchen and a wonderful back porch and spacious side porch – would become my constant and stable home until I left for college in 1964.  It was in the east bedroom of that house where I would find myself confined on that hot, sticky afternoon in 1951, fidgeting while my mother sought some rest from the grind of her life, on the couch in the living/dining area.  I would come back often to this home until my mother’s death in 2004……..

    I will be telling the story of my mother and I negotiating our individual selves, our selves together, and our relationship in a world that changed.  The external world changed dramatically from our 1947 move to Helena to the early decades of the 1970’s, when I permanently left home.  Yet our internal world also changed as my mother and I discovered a deeper and larger world out there.  This larger world envisioned Black people as siblings rather than enemies, envisioned women as equal partners with men, celebrated people who loved others of the same gender, and began to see that money was not the key to life.  I grew up being immersed in racism and sexism and homophobia and militarism and materialism by my mother and by other people who loved me, people whom I loved and trusted.  Most of them taught these things to me not because they were mean, but rather because they too were caught up in their cultural environment by these repressive and oppressive powers.  This book will be about seeking liberation from those powers, while knowing that captivity to them came to me from people who loved me and whom I loved.

    My mother and I had a powerful connection because she dedicated herself to raising me as a “real” man, becoming both father and mother to me.  “Manless” herself, she nevertheless taught me what a real man is:  protective, loving, nurturing, challenging.  Trapped by and influenced by these very forces, she taught me to begin to think about liberation from them, a liberation that would take me out into a whole new world, while bringing her along also towards her own liberation.  These will be stories of that journey towards liberation, fashioned by a woman who was a captive herself but who gave me the foundation to work against those oppressive values.”

    Again, I’d be glad to come and talk with your group or do a session on Zoom.  I’ve had many readers already tell me that this book was an occasion for them to return to their own roots and to think about their journeys. So, get a copy and let’s talk!

"YAY FOR SUSAN STROUPE!"

 “YAY FOR SUSAN STROUPE!”

Our daughter Susan’s birthday is September 12, and I am writing this week to give thanks for her being in our lives!  She arrived in the birthing room at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville about 1 AM in 1982.  Caroline and I had gone to the hospital about 11 PM, and Susan wasted no time in coming out into the world in a couple of hours.  Indeed, Caroline had given birth to David over a period of about 12 hours with few drugs.  She had hoped to do the same with Susan, but about 12:30 AM, she told me that the contractions were coming so hard that she did not think she could make it, that she would have to have some drugs to see her through the delivery.  I went to get the nurse, and she came to see about Caroline.  When she looked at her womb, she exclaimed:  “Oh, wow, I see the head – your baby is coming on out.  But, stop pushing, because I want to get Dr. Neff so that she can be here for the delivery.  This baby will be her first in her new practice.”  Caroline said: “What?  You’d better get her here fast because this baby is coming out soon.”  Dr. Betty Neff arrived soon after, and we all celebrated when she helped to guide Susan out, saying “Welcome to the world, Mary Susan!”

Susan has been delighting us and surprising us ever since.  We left Nashville when she was 5 months old, moving to the Atlanta area where we would be pastors at Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur.  Susan was baptized at Oakhurst by the Reverend Murphy Davis, and she grew up at Oakhurst, learning theatrical and many other skills there.  At her young age, she was very shy, and some people at Oakhurst thought that she might have some learning issues because she did not talk at church.  Even her brother David defended her when people asked him about it – “She talks – she talks all the time at home!”

Susan made her oral debut at Oakhurst about a year later, when Dr. Lawrence Bottoms (former senior pastor at Oakhurst) and I were officiating at the wedding of Christine Johnson and Charlie Callier.  Caroline attended and brought David and Susan with her.  Somewhere in the middle of the ceremony, while I was talking, all of a sudden, we all heard a loud voice shouting out: “Dada!  Dada!  Dada!”  Susan had made her voice known, and as everyone turned to look at who was making the noise, Caroline shrugged and said:  “Well, at least you know that she talks!”

Susan has taken us to many new places in her young adult life.  We ventured up to cold Minnesota where she attended college at Macalester College.  We dropped her off on the last day for parents and flew back to Atlanta.  A few days later, the twin towers in New York were attacked in the horrific 9/11 attack.  We were worried about her, since she was so far away, but one of our former ministerial interns, the Rev. Alika Galloway contacted us that night.  She was now a pastor in Minneapolis, and she called us to tell us that she didn’t know what else would happen, but if something more happened, she would get Susan and take her to her home.  We were so grateful to Alika, and we were relieved that nothing else happened like that terrible occurrence.

Susan worked at Americorps in Albuquerque after her graduation from college, and we got to see the whole new world of the desert Southwest, seeing mesas that were hundreds of miles away, learning that some of the pueblos only averaged 7 inches of rain per year. We also saw a multiracial culture of Anglo, Native American, and Hispanic come together in a world that seemed to mock the racism in which Caroline and I had been raised in the Deep South.  Though I would not want to live there (I need more trees and greenery around me), we certainly enjoyed our time visiting there.  

Then it was on to Westfield, NY, where she did a year-long internship at a puppet theater.  We helped to drive her up there, and as we came into town, I saw all these cottonfields with buds on them.  I remarked that I didn’t realize that cotton could grow so far up north with the cold weather.  Susan set me straight: “Dad, those aren’t cotton fields – they are grape vineyards.  Westfield is the home of Welch’s grape juice.”  Anther learning for me!  I’ll always remember the year that Susan started there, because we had rented an Airbnb while we moved her into her apartment.  We all watched the Republican convention that week, and we were shocked when John McCain announced his pick for vice-president:  Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

There are many other Susan sightings and musings to share, but I’ll save those for another time.  For now, we give so many thanks for Susan and for all her gifts to us and to so many others.  So, on September 12, raise a glass for Susan and sing “Happy Birthday” (in the Stevie Wonder style).

"MUSINGS ON THE BEACH"

 “MUSINGS ON THE BEACH”

Caroline and I were at the beach last week at Tybee Island near Savannah.  It’s still known as “Savannah Beach” by many.  It’s been one of our go-to beaches for over three decades.  We first learned about it from our late Oakhurst friend Fred Dresch, who loved going fishing there and also loved the funkiness of Tybee.  It was not very developed then, and it has still retained that “laid back” feeling.  Ever since we moved to Atlanta and the kids got old enough to enjoy the beach, we have tried to go somewhere each summer.  Through our friends Bob and Phoebe Smith in Daytona, we met Mary Ann Richardson who gave us a free place to stay at the El Caribe for over a decade – it was such a great gift to us.  She was so generous – we met Jim Wallis and Vincent Harding there, who were also gifted by her.

We keep going to Tybee because it is close, and because it is still relatively undeveloped.  We usually stay at a condo situated near the mouth of the Savannah River, and it is powerful to watch the Savannah River meet the Atlantic Ocean, with the River flowing to the southeast, and the Ocean rolling in to the west.  We often see dolphins swimming and sometimes frolicking – this time we saw a turtle taking its life in its legs by crossing busy Hiway 80 between Tybee and Savannah.  We heard rumors of an alligator nearby this time, but fortunately we never saw it.  It is both powerful and soothing to sit out in the hot sun, listening to the waves ebb and flow with the tides.  

     Since it is a Southern beach, Tybee has its share of historical racism.  It was a “whites only” beach for over a century.  Here is a description of its recent history from a plaque installed on Tybee in 2021.  “On August 17, 1960, eleven African-American students were arrested at Georgia’s first wade-in protesting the Whites-only public beaches. During the era of segregation, Savannah’s African Americans were forced to travel outside of the city for public beach access. NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins announced the wade-in as a desegregation tactic for public beaches following the April 1960 wade-in at Biloxi, Mississippi, where an angry White mob attacked protestors. An extension of the Savannah Movement, the Savannah Beach wade-ins were planned and implemented by the local NAACP Youth Council under the leadership of W. W. Law. The last wade-in at Savannah Beach was in July 1963. Savannah Beach and the city’s other public places were integrated by October 1963, eight months before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

  In our visits there lately, there have been a growing number of African-American tourists there, but nothing compares to the Orange Crush that happens at spring break in Tybee each year.   Black students on break come to Tybee, and the racism that is inherent in Southern white culture rears its head once again.  Orange Crush has officially moved to Jacksonville to friendlier confines, but some Black students still come to Tybee for spring break.  It is as if all those ancestors who were denied access to the beach at Tybee are now returning.

    We usually go into Savannah for a day while we are at Tybee, and this year was no exception.  We had planned to go on Thursday, but with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz coming into town as part of their bus tour that day, we opted for a Wednesday trip to Savannah.  Had we known the city and its streets better, we would have loved to go in on Thursday, but we figured that many streets would be blocked off.  Our usual gathering area is around Madison Square, which is next to the Green-Meldrim House. At that house in 1864, General William Sherman established his headquarters as he and the Union Army made its March to the Sea.  In this house, he met with Black ministers and other Black leaders, and they inspired Sherman to issue Field Order #15, which confiscated land previously owned by slavers, and then gave it to Black people as part of his “40 Acres and a Mule” reparations program.  President Andrew Johnson, a committed white Southerner, later rescinded that order as one of his first acts as President after Lincoln’s assassination.  What a difference Sherman’s order would have made, if it had stayed in place! 

     Also nearby are SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and the wonderful bookstore “The Book Lady” – as Susan has put it, that is a dangerous place for our family members to go!  Because of the timing this visit, we were not able to make a visit to the former childhood home of Flannery O’Connor, which is only open on weekends. O’Connor was born there and lived there into her early teens.

    This time, we went a couple of blocks south to the newly renamed Taylor Square.  It had previously been known as Calhoun Square, named after the infamous slaver and Confederate supporter and US Senator from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun.  It is now named after Susie King Taylor, a Black woman who was born into slavery in 1848 in nearby Liberty County, but escaped slavery and became the first Black nurse in the Civil War.  Despite Georgia's harsh laws against the  education of African Americans, she attended two secret schools taught by Black women. Her literacy proved invaluable not only to her but to other African Americans she educated during the Civil War. She became free at the age of 14 in 1862 when her uncle led her out to a federal gunboat near Confederate-held Fort Pulaski.  After a lot of work and lobbying, the Savannah city council voted unanimously in 2023 to rename the Calhoun Square to be the Taylor Square.  We can imagine that Calhoun is turning over in his grave at this development – or maybe by now, God and Ms. Taylor have brought Calhoun out of purgatory by converting him to the idea that all people are children of God. 

"JOHN LEWIS!"

 “JOHN LEWIS!”

On Saturday, Caroline and I had the privilege of joining hundreds of others to participate in the unveiling of a statue of John Lewis on the courthouse square in Decatur and Dekalb County.  There is quite a story behind this unveiling.  It stood in the space previously occupied by an obelisk in honor of Confederate soldiers, an obelisk that had been erected in 1908 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  At the same time, they erected a cannon celebrating the “Indian Wars of 1836,” in which Native American Muscogees had been forced out of Georgia as part of the Trail of Tears.  Both of these monuments occupied land in the Decatur square for over 100 years.  It was part of a successful movement by the burgeoning Confederacy in the first decade of the 20th century to venerate the “Lost Cause” and to re-affirm the neo-slavery that had been re-established in the South after the dismantling of Reconstruction.

Over the years, many people protested these monuments to racism and neo-slavery, but the main energy came from the jolt of the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer of 2017.  The state of Georgia passed laws that prohibited the removal of Confederate statues on public land, and many people felt stymied because it was felt that nothing could be done about these statues.  As Dekalb County CEO Michael Thurmond put it at the unveiling on Saturday, young people and activists pushed and pushed on this, seeking to find a way to remove these offensive statues.  The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights was especially forceful and creative in seeking to find ways to get these statues removed.  Dekalb County Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson was a leader in the county to get it removed.  After the obelisk was vandalized, and many protest gatherings were held at the statue, the city of Decatur went to magistrate court in 2020 to get the obelisk declared a public nuisance and safety issue, with the atmosphere juiced up because of the police murder of George Floyd in Minnesota.

    In early June, 2020, Superior Court Clarence Seeliger (who was near retirement) ruled that the obelisk was indeed a public nuisance and safety hazard, and he ordered Dekalb County to remove it.  CEO Thurmond recalled on Saturday that when the court order came down, his assistant asked him if he wanted him to file an appeal of the order.  Mr. Thurmond said “Not only no, but HELL NO – excuse my language.”  There were protests from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who asked that the order be reconsidered, but Judge Seeliger refused.  

    I remember the night that the obelisk was removed.  It was removed by the County late at night because of the fear of protests and even worse from the right-wing.  Downtown Decatur streets were blocked off, and a demolition crew went to work removing the obelisk.  We went down to see part of it, and our friend Lorri Mills stayed for the entire removal, and with no small amount of irony, Dekalb County removed it in the early morning hours of Juneteenth – June 19, 2020.  The Task Force to Design the Statue met a lot and commissioned Basil Watson to sculp it.  Mereda and Decatur Mayor Patti Garrett raised over $700,000 to pay for the sculpting.

    There was quite a lineup of luminaries at Saturday’s gathering Decatur Square.  Jennifer Holliday sang so powerfully – the two national anthems (Star Spangled Banner and Lift Ev’ry Voice), “Everything Must Change” and “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”  Senator Raphael Warnock spoke, as did Congresswoman Nikema Williams (who now holds John Lewis’ old Congressional seat in the 5th district – our Congresswoman).  Mereda gave a powerful speech (full disclosure here – she is the daughter-in-law of our longtime Oakhurst friend Christine Callier and spouse of Congressman Hank Johnson), and I was so glad to see her get such fine recognition.  As I noted, CEO Michael Thurmond gave a fine speech, and he noted that he is near the end of his term-limited CEO office in Dekalb County – I hope that he will run for governor in 2026.  He introduced Mereda by noting that she was one of the first Dekalb County Commissioners to welcome him as CEO.  She told him that he would do well as CEO – if he would always do what she advised him to do.  And, he has been a fine CEO, so he must have listened well!

    There was thunderous applause when the statue was unveiled, and I look forward to taking some time soon to go and look at it more carefully and meditate on the witness of John Lewis, a rural Black boy from Troy, Alabama, dubbed “the boy from Troy” by his mentor and preacher Martin Luther King, Jr.  Lewis grew to be a giant in the hearts of so many of us, from his boarding the Freedom Rider busses in Alabama to his wrestling with A. Philip Randolph at the great March on Washington – Randolph had been commissioned to try to get Lewis to tone down his speech – to his fateful crossing of the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma in 1965.  What a man – what a witness!

    On our way out from the ceremony, I was telling Caroline that Michael Thurmond was on fire today, and an older Black couple walking nearby said “Amen – he sure was.”  We chatted about how glad we were that this had taken place, and I noticed that the man had a Barack Obama 2008 T-shirt on.  I remarked that we had been fortunate enough to attend the Obama inauguration in 2009.  He indicated that he was hoping for another Black person to be inaugurated in 2025, and as we parted ways, he said:  “See y’all in DC in January!”  May it be so.

"VISION AND HOPE"

 “VISION AND HOPE”

The Democratic Convention begins today in Chicago, and as I wrote last week, it calls me back to the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968.  That convention was a total mess, as Mayor Richard Daley took over the convention inside and sent his police power outside to beat up and push back the 10,000 demonstrators against the Vietnam War.  I was at my home in Helena, Arkansas, after my college graduation, waiting to go to Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville.  I watched that convention with my mother and her brother Bud, who was visiting from Chicago on vacation.  Bud was a conservative, “boot-strap” guy, but he was always loving to Mother and me.  During that 1968 convention,  we had tremendous clashes because he felt that Mayor Daley was great, and I felt that Daley was a repressive tyrant.  We held it down because Mother felt caught in the middle. 

I looked back at my journals and found many phrases about that 1968 convention – here is one that catches my thoughts on it: from Tuesday, August 27: “I just saw a sickening and disgusting display at the convention.  A motion to adjourn was made by Donald Peterson from Wisconsin, but he was ruled down. Then the god of the old politics, the mayor of Chicago, said that the gallery should be quiet or that it would be cleared.  However, the delegates were tired of being pushed around by Daley and the other machines.  If that is Humphrey’s way, then **** it.  The police have clobbered about 20 reporters and no telling how many protesters.”   

The convention careened along until Hubert Humphrey received the nomination to run against Richard Nixon.  One highlight of a lowlight convention – Julian Bond, a delegate from Georgia was nominated from the floor to be Vice-President by a Wisconsin delegate.  Since he was only 28, he was ineligible, but he was the first Black person to be nominated on the presidential ticket of either major party.  And, speaking of that,  here’s a little trivia quiz – who were the vice-presidential nominees for the two major political parties in 1968?  (Answer at the end).

All of that intro is to say that I hope that this year’s Democratic convention does not follow the pattern of the 1968 one.  It should not, though there are plenty of anti-war demonstrators coming to protest the Israeli war in Gaza.  A ceasefire seems close, so maybe that will help.  And, the positive energy released by President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election should give the delegates a wave to ride.  Though she was not my first choice (Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was my first choice),  Vice-President Kamala Harris has so far demonstrated maturity, vision, and energy in her road to the nomination.  If she can stay near this level, she has an opportunity to defeat the Trumpster.  She seems to have genuinely flummoxed Trump, and has him so off balance that he has returned to his hyperbolic ways and personal attacks.  May that continue throughout the campaign.

So, here’s hoping for a substantial and unifying Democratic convention.  The world has changed a lot since 1968, but as I have noted before, the historical parallels are striking.  Here’s hoping also that the parallel ends on November 5 – Harris needs to be president rather than Trump.  It would be so great to send Trump back to TrumpWorld as a loser once again, and it would be so great to change the conversation from grievance and grumpiness to vision and tolerance and hope.  The main issue, of course, is on us – getting the vote out.  Register to vote and ask everyone you meet if they are registered to vote – it they are not, get them motivated to do it.  Because of the Chicago fiasco in 1968, I chose not to vote in the presidential election that November - I joined thousands of other anti-war protestors who sat out the 1968 election.  And, as a result, we got Richard Nixon.  I won't make that mistake again - and please don't you do it either this year.

{The vice-presidential candidates were Edmund Muskie of Maine for the Democrats and Spiro Agnew for the Republicans.  Both Nixon and Agnew would resign from their offices after being elected – Agnew in 1973, and Nixon in 1974.}

"A TUMULTUOUS TIME"

 “A TUMULTOUS TIME”

August is always a hot month in the South, and so it is this summer.  We are also in a hot and tumultuous time politically, with a close Presidential race and Congressional races.  The Democratic convention will start next week in Chicago, and that is a call back to the chaotic Democratic convention of 1968 in Chicago.  I’ll write more on that next week, but this week, I want to remember the tumultuous summer of 1964, especially the month of August, 1964. Sixty years ago, the country was in more turmoil than it is now, if that is even possible.  Lyndon Johnson had become President in November, 1963, after the assassination of President John Kennedy, an event that shocked the nation, whether you supported Kennedy or not.  It was as if the 1960’s was saying to the mundane 1950’s – “your time is up, there are sweeping changes coming.”  

        Indeed, today’s tuumultous times are in many ways an echo of those struggles – do we want to return to a time when everyone agreed that white men should be in control, or do we want to be in conversation about a multiracial democracy with shared power and influence?  The idea behind “Make America Great Again” is to seek to return to that time of the 1940’s and 1950’s when everyone acknowledged that those classified as “white” males should be in control.  The 1960’s are a central part of that conversation, and especially 60 years ago in 1964.

The summer of 1964 began with the Mississippi Summer Project (later to be renamed Mississippi Freedom Summer) being instituted by SNCC and CORE.  Its creative director was the great visionary and organizer Bob Moses of SNCC, with assistance from Dave Dennis of CORE.  The idea was to bring white volunteers from the North to work in Mississippi in the summer of 1964, hoping to get as many Black people registered to vote as possible.  This was before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, so registering to vote in Mississippi was an act that could cost a Black person their lives in 1964.  The idea was that bringing white students down to Mississippi would lessen the violence, and what violence that did occur would be magnified to the nation because there would also likely be white victims, rather than just the Black victims, who were often ignored by the national media.  Reverend James Lawson was a leader of non-violent training for the many white volunteers, who soon came to Mississippi.

The summer began in high hopes.  Congress passed the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 on July 2, the most significant civil rights bill passed by Congress since 1875, almost 90 years.  The bill outlawed discrimination and segregation in the USA on the basis of race, religion, sex, or creed.  It also emphasized the need for integration in public schools and made it illegal to discriminate in employment practices.  It was the beginning of the end of the neo-slavery that had plagued the South and the country since the end of Reconstruction.  It was a difficult political achievement, but President Lyndon Johnson used his considerable political skills to get it done.  Indeed, when he signed the Civil Rights Bill, he noted that Democrats would lose the South for at least a generation, which has proved to be prescient, with the shift from Democrats to Republicans lasting longer than a generation.

The white, Southern resistance had already begun, however.  On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers – James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman – were kidnapped by the KKK.  A massive search for them began and continued through most of the summer.  I had just graduated from high school in May of that year, and although I was still firmly in the grip of the power of racism, I had begun to wonder about its accuracy and power.  

        Sitting in front of me as I write this today is the Memphis Press-Scimitar of August 5, 1964, a paper that I have saved for these 60 years.  It was the afternoon paper at that time, and we received it at my home in Helena, Arkansas, with its being the “Mid-South Edition.”  I saved it because it has two glaring headlines: one is a smaller headline “Bodies of Civil Rights Trio Identified.” The article supporting it indicates that the bodies of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman had been found in shallow graves at a farm pond site near Philadelphia, Mississippi.  They had all been beaten severely and shot to death.  And, yes, that Philadelphia is also the place where Ronald Reagan kicked off his presidential campaign of 1980, as if to make certain that everyone understood what his platform would be.   It took a long time to find some of the murderers, and some were convicted in 1970. But it would be over 40 years before the main leader Edgar Ray Killen would be convicted.  He died in prison in 2018.

The main headline in that Memphis Press-Scimitar, however, was not the discovery of the bodies of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.  The main headline was in dark black one inch type:  “NAVY PLANES DESTROY 25 PT’S, HIT FIVE NORTH VIET NAM BASES.”  The article under it indicated that the US Navy had responded to attacks by the North Vietnamese on U.S. destroyers Maddox and C. Turner Joy.  President Johnson had addressed the nation on Tuesday, August 4, and had indicated that these military attacks had taken place.  He also indicated that he would seek Congressional support for protecting American troops in the area.  Two days later on August 7, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving LBJ the power to prosecute this campaign as necessary.  The House of Representatives passed the Resolution unanimously, and the Senate voted 88-2 to support (dissenting were Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska).  It was the beginning of the disastrous Vietnam War, in which over 50,000 American troops were killed and millions of Vietnamese killed. The huge protest over this war drove Johnson not to seek re-election in 1968 and led to the election of Richard Nixon as president.

So, this one day headline in the Memphis Press-Scimitar points to the turbulence of the 1960’s and points us to the turbulence of our own time.  In many ways, this election of 2024 is eerily similar to that of 1968, with a defeated presidential candidate running again for the Republicans, and the sitting Vice-President (Hubert Humphrey)stepping in for the President who had declined to seek re-election.  I hope that the similarity ends there, because the once-defeated candidate, Richard Nixon,  won in 1968.  If Trump wins in 2024, we will look back at the election of 1876, where the gains of Reconstruction were wiped out, just as Trump has promised to take us back to the 1950’s if he wins. The power to prevent that retrenchment lies in our hands and hearts, so let us take care of business in this tumultuous time. 

"KAMALA HARRIS!"

 “KAMALA HARRIS!”

I supported Kamala Harris for President in 2019 and 2020, before she suspended her campaign.  Now, she becomes the Democratic nominee for President, a dramatic turn of events that no one expected on the morning of July 21.  I had called for Joe Biden to step down several times this year, but as July came to a close, it seemed as if he would stay on.  Then came his announcement on July 21 that he would not seek re-election, and that stunned so many people.  He endorsed Kamala Harris, and so much Democratic energy and money flowed her way – people had hope again that Donald Trump could be defeated.  

I supported Harris in 2019 for many reasons, the chief of which was how she handled herself in the US Senate, especially when she questioned white men.  I remember that Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that Senator Harris made him nervous because she came at him from her prosecutor’s background.  She seemed ready to take the next step, and although it was delayed 5 years, she now has taken that step.  I hope that there are some white men who will not be intimidated by her, because she will need some of our votes.

Harris has hit the ground running, and so far she has shown remarkable dexterity, insight, and presence in front of a crowd.  Though I am loathe to say it, Trump does have presence in front of a crowd, but I am glad to say that Kamala Harris demonstrates some of that same presence, if not more so.  She will definitely need it, because in order for her to win the Presidential election, she will need to sway some white men in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Nevada, Arizona, and North Carolina.  She does bring a maturity that she has seemed to lack in the past, but even on her worst days, she has already shown more maturity than Trump has ever shown.

Despite Trump’s glaring flaws, many people classified as “white” (especially white men) still support him and will vote for him.  I don’t understand this, but I am gaining some clues from the knowledge that by 2040 at the latest, there will no longer be a majority racial classification in the USA.  Those of us who identify as “white” feel the presence and the power of “the other” in the American system of racial classification in a way that we rarely have known in American history.   And, for many of us, it is not a good feeling.  We hope to stave it off as long as possible, and for us, Trump seems to be the ticket to purchase our whiteness to remain in power, long past the day when we cease to be the majority in the country.  

Yesterday I preached at Smyrna Presbyterian Church in Conyers, GA, and the epistle lesson was Ephesians 4:1-16.  It is called “Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians,” though many scholars don’t think that Paul wrote the letter.  Whoever wrote it, in this passage, Paul urges the “newbies” in the faith (the Gentiles) to live a life worthy of the calling into which they have been called.  He lists the traits that comprise this higher life:  humility, gentleness, patience, bearing one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  In case anyone thinks that Paul means people who are passive and hesitant, he has already noted that he himself is in prison because he disturbed the peace.  He urges the newbies in the faith to stand fast and to mature in the faith, so that they are not like immature people who are “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

I noted in my sermon that Trump seems to be one of those deceitful people who are highly creative in their desire to win people over by their trickery.  Trump, of course, is stirring and riding the wave of  the powerful stream of white supremacy and now white grievance, and many white people seem to have drunk the kool-aid.  I am hoping some of them will see Kamala Harris as a breath of fresh air, as someone who has some integrity and who is not trying to win people over by deceitful scheming.  Harris has already re-set the Democratic ticket – maybe she can also reset the American scene, polluted as it has become with the Trump and white grievance vitriol.  Trump has been nominated for President three times in a row by the Republicans, so we are in a dangerous time.  Let’s pray that Harris is able to defeat Trump (and let’s practice what we pray), because if she is not able to defeat Trump, we face an apocalypse similar to the Civil War in our life as a nation.

  

"SHE MADE A WAY - PART 3"

 “SHE MADE A WAY” – PART 3

“She Made A Way” is now out and about for reading, review and discussion – get your copy now!  I’d love to come to your church group, community group, or book club to talk about the book.  Central Presbyterian in Atlanta and North Decatur Presbyterian have already scheduled times, and I’ll be glad to schedule one for you.  One of my friends will be hosting a “salon” at her house, inviting friends and family to meet and talk with me about the book. I’ll be glad to do that with you too!  Here’s my friend and colleague Dr. Susan Hylen’s endorsement.  She is Professor of New Testament at Emory University:

“This is a memoir of a man and his mother, but it is also the story of a journey away from the racism that still dominates our country.  Although we often imagine people as either good or bad, racist or ‘woke,’ Nibs Stroupe understands racism to be deeply entrenched in caring people, even those who start to move away from their prejudice.  This rich and honest account moves beyond the simplistic binaries to help us understand the American South – and ourselves – in new ways.”

This book is written in honor of my mother, Mary Armour Stroupe, but also as an answer to a question with which I have long wrestled in my adult life:  How did I – and how do any of us – get caught in the web of racism and sexism and materialism?  How do we get so captured by demonic powers like this?  It is a captivity so deep that it changes the way that we perceive ourselves and perceive the world around us.  It is a captivity that is so subtle that it takes over our hearts long before we know anything about it.  We are taken so deeply into such a captivity because it is given to us by those we love and whom we love.  That is the stark and difficult answer, and this is why so many people who are classified as “white” are in such deep denial about our captivity.  To acknowledge our captivity would be to put ourselves in conflict with those we love, and it is a great price to pay.

This book does not leave us in despair, however.  It offers us hope for beginning to find some liberation from our captivity.  While my mother helped to bind me into this captivity, she also offered me ways to find a different path.  Her love, her compassion, her tenacity, her decency, her sense of fairness – all these factored into the tentative steps that I began to take to find some liberation from my captivity, steps that brought me into tension with her.  

So, go get the book!  You can find it at bookshop.org (the link is https://bookshop.org/p/books/she-made-a-way-mother-and-me-in-a-deep-south-world-nibs-stroupe/21530365?ean=9798385208548), your local bookstore, Amazon, or me.  I’ll be glad to get your comments on it.  And, of course, I’ll be glad to come to any of your groups to do a book talk/signing.  Thanks to our daughter Susan, I now have an author page on Facebook, and here’s the link for that: https://www.facebook.com/nibsstroupeauthor/

"THE DECISIVE WEEKEND"

 “THE DECISIVE WEEKEND”

For over a year, I have been arguing that Joe Biden should not run for re-election because he is simply too old.  The same can be said of Donald Trump, but I have other reasons for not wanting him to run.  How I wish that Nikki Haley had beaten Trump in the primaries. How I wish that President Biden had decided over the Christmas holidays of 2022 that he had saved the country by beating Trump in 2020, and that now it was time to turn over the reins to a younger leader.  I remember a conversation with my friend Ted Smith in late 2022 concerning the 2024 Presidential election.  Trump had already announced that he was running, and given the many opponents, we felt that he was likely to win the primaries and sweep into the nomination.  We so hoped that President Biden would see that the aging monkey was coming for him, but we both felt that his ego was too big to allow it, that he would seek the nomination again.

And now, over the weekend, President Biden has fooled me (and others) by wisely choosing not to stand for re-election.  I am grateful to him for his fine presidency and for his many decades of service to the nation.  It shows the stark contrast between Biden and Trump – Biden put the country’s interest ahead of his own, while Trump continues to put his own interest ahead of the country’s. I am also grateful to President Biden for stepping down, though I wish that he had done so earlier.  I am grateful that he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, and I think that she would be the logical choice.  I don’t think that she is the strongest Democratic candidate, but that is not her fault – she will face deep racism and sexism.  My choice has been Gretchen Whitmer, but that is precluded now by the narrow window of opportunity.

    Assuming that the Democratic party does not continue to shoot itself in the foot, I expect V-P Harris to be the nominee.  Though she does bring liablities, she does generate excitement and hope for defeating Donald Trump.  Harris should choose Josh Shapiro or Andy Beshear or Roy Cooper or Mark Kelly as the VP (again, I prefer Whitmer, but if Harris gets the top spot, there will need to be a white man in the VP slot.)  I’m hoping that the bickering and arguing will now stop, so that the Democratic party can try to build itself up enough to take on the MAGA Donald Trump.  .

As many have said, this is a Presidential election with existential consequences for the future of America. It is hard to believe that so many Republicans have coalesced behind Donald Trump, a grifter superb and now a convicted felon.  That they have done so reminds me of my days growing up in the neo-slavery South.  Demagogues like Orval Faubus, George Wallace, Ross Barnett, Gene Talmadge and others were given so many passes by the white populations of the South, because they held the line on keeping the “black menace” in check.  Well-meaning and good people like my mother kept them in power because they promised to keep the social order of neo-slavery in place.  Trump is making the same appeal, seeking out like a laser our white grievance and deepening it and solidifying it.

I have been comparing this election in 2024 with the 1968 election, in which a sitting President decided not to run for re-election (President Johnson’s decision came late, at the end of March, 1968).  Like this year, political violence rang out, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy.  The parallels are striking – a once defeated presidential candidate, Richard Nixon, running for President again, the Democratic convention once again in Chicago, and Robert Kennedy’s son now running on a third party ticket. 

Despite those parallels, though, this 2024 election is now seemingly more similar to the presidential election of 1876, which marked a fundamental turning point in American history and which marked a decisive step away from the civil rights won for Black people in the Civil War.  Because of all the MAGA shenanigans, I am anticipating that the results of the 2024 Presidential election might be given to the House of Representatives to determine the winner, as happened in 1876 because neither Rutherford Hayes nor Samuel Tilden got enough electoral votes to win.  Hayes made a deal with the Special Committee of Congress to pull federal troops out of the South in exchange for their support.  That deal was made, and neo-slavery became a reality in the country, and especially in the South for the next 89 years – and of course, Hayes became President.

So, buckle up – whoever is at the top of the Democratic ticket is in for a rough ride.  And, if Trump wins, we face sea changes comparable to those made in 1876.  The turnout will be key, not only in voting for President but in voting for House members, because they will ultimately determine in a ceremonial (or in a real) way who will be the next President of the United States.  

'SHE MADE A WAY - PART TWO"

 “SHE MADE A WAY – PART TWO

I’m waiting to receive my order of my newest book “She Made A Way:  Mother and Me in a Deep South World.”  It is part memoir, part story of my mother’s courage and tenacity, part study of our captivity to the destructive powers, and part reflection on seeking liberation from those powers.  For a long time, I have wanted to write the story of my single mother and me, seeking to live out of love in a world of racism, sexism, and materialism.  I’ve also wanted to work through the story of my mother raising me as a single, working mom in a patriarchal society, seeking to keep me from harm, while offering me some possible paths to liberation.

Here is what Dr. Chris Boesel wrote in his endorsement of “She Made A Way”:  

“This startlingly honest memoir is essential reading for white folk in the USA, and for anyone struggling to understand the intractable power of racism and white supremacy in our personal and social lives.  At the heart of this story is the mystery of how the destructive forces of racism – and sexism and homophobia – can reign in the hearts and lives that are also full of genuine, life-giving familial love and loyalty.  The book’s stark promise: transformative change is possible, but only as a lifelong journey accompanied by heartbreaking division and conflict.  Nibs Stroupe’s gospel is one of truly redemptive power – that also divides like a sword.”  

So, this book is written in honor of my mother, Mary Armour Stroupe, but also as an answer to a question with which I have long wrestled in my adult life:  How did I – and how do any of us – get caught in the web of racism and sexism and materialism?  How do we get so captured by demonic powers like this?  It is a captivity so deep that it changes the way that we perceive ourselves and perceive the world around us.  It is a captivity that is so subtle that it takes our hearts long before we know anything about it.  We are taken so deeply into such a captivity because it is given to us by those we love and who we love.  That is the stark and difficult answer, and this is why so many people who are classified as “white” are in such deep denial about our captivity.  To acknowledge our captivity would be to put ourselves in conflict with those we love, and it is a great price to pay.

This book does not leave us in despair, however.  It offers us hope for beginning to find some liberation from our captivity.  While my mother helped to bind me into this captivity, she also offered me ways to find a different path.  Her love, her compassion, her tenacity, her decency, her sense of fairness – all these factored into the tentative steps that I began to take to find some liberation from my captivity, steps that brought me into tension with her.  

So, go get the book!  You can find it at bookshop.org (the link is https://bookshop.org/p/books/she-made-a-way-mother-and-me-in-a-deep-south-world-nibs-stroupe/21530365?ean=9798385208548), your local bookstore, Amazon, or me.  I’ll be glad to get your comments on it.  And, of course, I’ll be glad to come to any of your groups to do a book talk/signing.  Thanks to our daughter Susan, I now have an author page on Facebook, and here’s the link for that: https://www.facebook.com/nibsstroupeauthor/

"THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR"

 “THE 50 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR”

Caroline and I are coming to the end of our 50th Anniversary Tour, and it has been a great trip!  It began on June 16 with the arrival of Susan from Baltimore, followed by David, Erin and Zoe from Salt Lake City on June 18 and Emma from Houston on June 20. We all planned and worked for the 50th celebration at the Hawkins Dining Hall at Legacy Park in Decatur on June 22.  Susan and David had organized it, and they were the emcees for it.  We had hoped for 80 or so people to attend, but we had 135 instead – yay!  The celebration began with a combo of a slide show and sound track via techno wizard Nick Downey, backed by wonderful food from Inez Giles and crew.  We had set out tables with photo albums from our wedding in 1974, as well as copies of the six books that we have written, including the latest from Nibs (“She Made A Way: Mother and Me in a Deep South World.”) People had time to visit and catch up. 

    About 3 PM, David and Susan stepped forward to get the formal program going.  It began with a video by Rev. Sandy Winter, a longtime mentor of Caroline’s and one of the officiants at our wedding in 1974.  Other videos came from Rev. Ed Loring (the other officiant at our wedding, in whose back yard we got married), Rev. Reggie Avant in Seattle, Rev. Dr. David Billings and spouse Margery Freeman, Dr. Leah Gose, and Dr. Collin and Vienna Cornell.  Speakers included a “dialogue sermon” from John and Dee Cole Vodicka, and then Christine Callier, Inez Giles, and Nick Downey.  Trivia questions were added by David and Susan, and we had fun seeing who could answer them.  One such question was “Which card game did Nibs Stroupe not invent to entertain the kids in the last hour of a 9 hour drive to Arkansas?” (Possible answers were a. Toe poker, b. Oddy Roddy, c. Blankjack, and d. Even Steven – let us know your guess!).  Then we were treated to a toast from 3 of the young women whom we had helped to raise: Bemene Baadom-Piaro, Keisha Scales Gabriel, and Patrece Giles Cunningham.  Then, of course, we scooted the tables back and had dancing – here’s the link to one of the videos of the dancing: https://www.facebook.com/whitworthg/videos/1197183134971674

    A couple of days later, Caroline, Susan and I headed out for sites related to our 50th anniversary, stopping first at Edisto Beach, South Carolina, for some fun beach time and to visit with Pat Hiott-Mason in Charleston.  I had met Caroline at Robin and Linda Williams’ wedding in Nashville in the early summer of 1973.  She lived in Atlanta, where Pat lived, and when I let Pat know that I was interested in Caroline, she became matchmaker for us (it did not take a lot of work!).  We paid homage to her and enjoyed the beach, then we drove to Norfolk, Virginia, where we had our first church as the first clergy couple in the former PCUS – we were at St. Columba Presbyterian Church. 

     It was located in a 1500 unit, low-income apartment complex, and our calling was to develop the congregation and the community ministry.  We wrote a grant for the Presbyterian Women Birthday Offering in 1978, and we were blessed to receive that.  It was a grant of $220,000 (equivalent to $800,000+ today), and we started St. Columba Ministries as an outreach to those who were caught in the grips of poverty and racism.  In the middle of that, the city of Norfolk decided to tear down the 1500 apartment units and build an industrial park.  We had many protests, and we lost the City Council vote 5-4 (the 2 Presbyterians on the Council voted against us).  Though the church closed in 1983, St. Columba Ministries continued and grew under the leadership of Alice Taylor – it still exists today under the leadership of Alicia Matthews and long-time administrator Helmi Ortiz (Helmi was there when we were at St. Columba!). 

    While in Norfolk, we showed Susan the first house that we ever bought, and we tried to find the exact spot where the church used to be.  We had a fine meal one night with former SCM members: Linda Davenport, Jonathan Davenport, Toni Fields, Alice Taylor, Carol Bayma, Sue Shepard, and Wanda Shepard Goff.  We drove to Susan’s home in Baltimore for a birthday dinner for Caroline with Glenn Ricci and Ursula Marcum, and Trustina Fabah, colleagues from Susan’s Submersive Theater troupe. We also enjoyed a visit with Bemene Baadom-Piaro, who drove over for Caroline’s birthday.  On July 4, I visited with my longtime friend Ed Loring of the Open Door Community. 

     We made a day trip to Shrewsbury, PA, to meet our friends Dave and Joyce Hess, former stalwart members at Oakhurst, and we also had a day trip to see former Oakhurster Chelsea Friauf-Evans in Silver Springs.  So, wow, a great 50th anniversary tour!  Thanks to Susan especially who served as guide, friend and driver for us, and to all who helped us celebrate!

"TIME FOR JOE TO GO"

 “TIME FOR JOE TO GO”

I wrote back in early March that it was time for Joe Biden to end his presidential bid in order to allow a younger person to step up.  Biden has been a good president, but his performance in Thursday’s debate only strengthens the idea that it is time for him to go.  The NYT and others are calling for him to suspend his campaign and release his delegates, and while the time is extremely short, he must go in order to save us from a second Trump presidency.  I’m repeating my March 4 blog below with my original arguments.  

“SHOULD JOE GO?”

I am thinking and worrying about the Presidential election in November.  I started to name this blog “Joe Should Go,” but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do that.  The time is running short, but if President Biden wanted to step down as the Democratic front-runner, there is still a small window left.  Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election at the end of March of 1968.  That did not turn out well for the Democrats, but Bobby Kennedy was on the rise until his assassination in June of that year, and I believe that he would have beaten Nixon had he not been killed.  There are a lot of parallels between 1968 and 2024 – a sitting President whom many in his own party have great doubts about their chances for re-election; the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968, which turned into a disaster for the Democrats, as Mayor Richard Daley manhandled the anti-war demonstrators; and a scary Republican candidate.

Up until the Michigan presidential primary, I was feeling OK about President Biden’s chances to defeat Trump.  Michigan was the first presidential primary with significant urban centers, and for me that meant that it was a key reflection of what we might see in November.  The numbers in Michigan were not good for Biden beating Trump.  There were the noteworthy “uncommitted” voters  totaling over 101,000 in the Democratic primary, many of them a protest vote against Biden’s failure to uphold human values in the war in Gaza.  

    More disturbing to me, however, were the vote totals in the primaries.  Some 768,000+ voted in the Democratic primary, and Biden won over 80% of those.  But, over 1,102,000 people voted in the Republican primary, meaning that 334,000 more people in Michigan voted for Republicans than for Democrats.  Indeed, Trump received almost as many votes as all the Democratic candidates combined.  I recognize that the Republican primary was more contested than the Democratic, but the vote differential is staggering to me.  It means that many Democratic voters stayed home for the primary, and while they may not stay home in November for the general election, making up 334,000 votes is a tall order in such a swing state. 

    I’m thinking that Joe should go.  There are strong Democratic candidates waiting in the wings – Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, Cory Booker, Stacey Abrams, Gavin Newsom, to name a few.  The time is exceedingly short, but with Trump’s legal troubles, there is much more of an open window for new Democratic candidates. Obviously, none of them will step in unless Biden steps out.  Every time that I see President Biden on tv, he looks more and more frail.  He has done a good job as President, but he is simply too old to run for a second term.  If he stays in the race and gets the nomination, I will work hard for him and vote for him, but I do not believe that he can beat Trump, given what the Michigan results look like. 

  I feel today as I felt when President Biden announced for re-election on April 24 last year– he is too old to run for re-election.  As Trump’s legal woes mount (and his age is showing too,), there is a good chance for a Democrat not named President Biden to win the presidency.  And, given the nature of Trump’s self-delusional narcissism, it is absolutely imperative that he not return to the Presidency.  I’m guessing that is why Governor Nikki Haley is staying in the race, figuring and hoping that Trump’s legal troubles will do him in before the election in November.  And, I do not think that President Biden can beat Haley, if she were the Republican nominee.  The New York election interference Trump trial at the end of this month will tell us a lot, but with all the delays, none of those are a given before the election.

So, I believe that President Biden still has time to bow out of the Presidential election, but only a few weeks.  As I wrote in an earlier blog at the beginning of the year, this year of 2024 will be one of the most chaotic and most consequential of many in recent history.  We have a lot of events left to occur and to digest, but I do believe that Joe should go.

"SHE MADE A WAY"

 “SHE MADE A WAY”

The advance copy of the book has arrived – yay!  “She Made A Way:  Mother and Me in a Deep South World” is published by Wipf and Stock (they did my book of sermons “Deeper Waters” in 2017), and it should be available now at their website (orders@wipfandstock.com), bookshop.org, Amazon, Thriftbooks , or from me.  Let me know if you want to get one from me.  And, of course, I’ll be glad to do a book-signing/talk with any group of which you are a member.  Let me know, and we’ll line something up.

The liner notes from Wipf and Stock have this to say:

“She Made a Way is a memoir of survival and growth under the twin threats of white supremacy and male dominance. It is an intimate story of perseverance and coming of age: how a single, white working mother and her only son made their way in the patriarchal and racist world of postwar Helena, Arkansas, a Mississippi river town. It is also a story of transformation: a lifetime of journeying together out of captivity to white supremacy and toward the deeper truth of compassion and liberation. In an era saturated with forces of racism and sexism, we find here a mother and son struggling in their relationship to each other and to America, maintaining love while living toward a new vision of themselves and the world.”

My friend John Blake (if you haven’t read his memoir “More Than I Imagined” about his relationship to his mother, please do so!) wrote the Foreword to “She Made a Way.”  Here’s part of that Foreword:

“I know this story so well because I was one of those journalists who

stopped by Oakhurst to write about Nibs and the church. But unlike the

other journalists, I stayed and joined Oakhurst. And what I discovered

was that the story behind Nibs’ conversion on race was no racial kum-

baya story. It was much richer, confounding, and ultimately more inspir-

ing than any brief news report could capture. And today I would make

another argument: At a time when the United States is more divided than

arguably anytime since the Civil War, Nibs’ story is more urgent than

ever.

Nibs is one of the most insightful and thought-provoking com-

mentators on race and religion in contemporary America. His range of

experience is virtually unmatched by any of the leaders that the media

traditionally go to for commentary on race and faith. He has a visceral

understanding of how racism warps the souls of White America, and

the psychological games many play to deny their complicity because he’s

played those games himself. As Nibs once told me, he grew up in the

“belly of the beast”—the segregated world of Helena, Arkansas where

White supremacy was widely considered to be normal and ordained by

God. ‘I know this stuff; it’s in my veins,’ he once told me.”

I had wanted for so long to write this book, mainly to express my gratitude to my mother for raising me as a single, working mom in the midst of a patriarchal and racist time.  Yet, in doing so, I discovered a key nugget in my work on combatting racism – most of us who are captured by its power learned it not from mean and nasty folks, but from good folks, people like my mother who loved me, and whom I loved.  I learned it from my church and my school system.  To use St. Paul’s provocative metaphor from Ephesians 2, we breathed it in, as part of the power of the prince of the air.  Because we learned racism through loving, it makes it so much harder to engage and to find liberation, because we risk not only our loving relationships, but we also risk changing our view of ourselves, our history, and our way of living.  

This book “She Made A Way: Mother and Me in a Deep South World” is the story of one constellation of that journey of loving, of captivity, of seeking liberation in complex and essential work.  It is multiplied many times in America, and I urge you to get a copy of this book, read it and let’s talk!

"50 YEARS!"

 “50 YEARS!”

Caroline and I were married 50 years ago on May 18, 1974, in Ed Loring’s back yard in Decatur, with Ed and Caroline’s long-time friend Sandy Winter officiating.  It was an outdoor “hippie” wedding, though we did not think of it in those terms then.  We asked people not to bring gifts but rather to make donations to four non-profits that we designated – if they did not like any of those, we asked them to make a donation to a non-profit of their choice.  We had a potluck, covered dish lunch, and many people brought dishes and Corningware.  They did not clean them up and take them home with them.  We wondered what was going on – how would we get all those dishes back to the owners?  Then it dawned on us – they had left them as “unofficial” wedding gifts for us.  We are still using some of those Corningware dishes to this day.

Caroline did not want to be a June bride, so we got married in May in the middle of my final exams at Columbia Seminary.  We only had a couple of days for a honeymoon, and we are ever grateful to Erskine and Nan Clarke for allowing us to use their apartment for it in Montreat.  During that time, we went in to Asheville (long before it became so hip), and we toured Thomas Wolfe’s home there.  As we were approaching the Wolfe home, we saw a man who had huge hands and who looked like a Wolfe.  He introduced himself, and it was Fred Wolfe, brother of Thomas Wolfe.  We had a great and somewhat awed conversation.

Caroline and I met at Robin and Linda Williams’ wedding in Nashville in June, 1972, and I was smitten with her.  I moved to Decatur in the summer of 1973 to resume my seminary career at Columbia, after serving as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.  Spurred on by Pat Loring (now Pat Hiott-Mason) who played matchmaker for us, we started dating that summer.  Caroline had already been ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1973, to serve as a campus minister at Georgia Tech, with an emphasis on the growing number of women students there.  I had one more semester to complete my seminary career, and we began to look for churches where we could serve as a clergy couple.  There had never been a clergy couple serving in the same church in the former Southern Presbyterian Church, so we started a pioneering ministry there.  Indeed, our pioneering and partnering ministry will be the subject of our next book.

Though the denomination’s leadership discouraged us –(“you’ll never find a call – just let Nibs find a church, Caroline can find something in the area”), we were blessed to find a church in Norfolk, Virginia that was looking for a woman pastor to minister to Navy families in a huge housing complex in Norfolk.  They were willing to add me on as part of a clergy couple, and we became co-pastors of St. Columba Presbyterian Church in Norfolk.  The ministry that we established there became a powerful one, even with only 12 official members.  We were blessed to receive the Presbyterian Women’s Birthday Offering in 1978 to establish St. Columba Ministries, which still is rolling today, even though the church itself is closed.  Our son David was born in Norfolk in 1980.  He was conceived in Montreat – we had gone there to do study leave with Ed Loring and Murphy Davis at the Davis home in Montreat.  It was in April and still cold in Montreat, but being the Spartan people that they were, Murphy and Ed would not turn on the heat.  We found a way to stay warm, and David was born 9 months later.

We left Norfolk for Nashville in late 1980, and it was a difficult parting with St. Columba Church – it had grown, and the ministry was booming, even as we fought the city, which wanted to tear down the apartments to make an industrial park.  The elders and members were shocked and hurt when we announced that we were leaving for Nashville, where I would be working on the staff of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons.  Our hearts were hurting too, but we missed our families.  That pain lingered for a long time, and perhaps that is one of the reasons that we stayed so long at Oakhurst – we did not want to experience that pain again, nor inflict it on anyone else.

Since it took so long to get pregnant with David, we began pretty quickly “working on” getting pregnant with Susan, and she was born in September, 1982.  I had been a part-time supply pastor at Second Presbyterian in Nashville while they were between pastors.  They were such a great congregation to us, and it reminded me how much I missed being a pastor in a local church.  I began looking for a church, while Caroline stayed home with our small children.  Through Ed Loring, we were connected with Oakhurst, and I was called to be their pastor early in 1983.  Caroline continued to stay home at first, but she came on staff on a part-time basis in the fall, 1984.  We would remain as co-pastors there for 30+ years, and Caroline had to work several other part-time jobs to keep us afloat financially.  But, it worked – Oakhurst became a nationally known leader in multicultural ministry, and the membership grew to over 400.  You can read more about this part of the journey in our book “O Lord, Hold Our Hands: How a Church Thrives in a Multicultural World,” which the denomination asked us to write in 2003.

So, 50 years of pioneering and partnering – quite the journey!  We’ll celebrate our 50 years this Saturday, June 22 – lift up a glass to us, and of course, we’d be glad to see you or hear from you.