“IDA B. WELLS – JUSTICE, EQUITY, AND LIFE-GIVNG COMMUNITY”

 “IDA B. WELLS – JUSTICE, EQUITY, AND LIFE-GIVNG COMMUNITY”

In 2019, Dr. Catherine Meeks and I co-authored a book about Ida Wells and her influence on our time.  It was entitled “Passionate for Justice:  Ida B. Wells as Prophet For Our Time.”  It won several awards, and I am thinking about it this week as Ida Wells’ 163rd birthday approaches on July 16.  It would be fascinating to hear Wells’ perspective on our time, and Catherine and I tried to speculate on some of that in our book.  If you haven’t read it, find it in your library or buy it somewhere (churchpublishing.org or bookshop.org are my suggestions).  Wells lived through a time similar to ours – when rights for Black people were being scaled back, and white supremacy was on the rise.

Stacey Abrams wrote the Foreword for our book, and in honor of the 163rd birthday of Ida Wells in Holly Springs, Mississippi, I want to share part of Stacey’s Foreword with you:

“The story of America has no finer an example of perseverance, brilliance, and accomplishment than Ida B. Wells.  She valiantly navigated a path of courage and strength and trumpeted the call to justice and equality, setting an example that continues to resonate for me and for millions of others.  Born into slavery in Mississippi, the state where I was raised, she saw the promise of Reconstruction and survived the scourge of white supremacy that followed.  Despite a nation that shunned her humanity and ignored her potential, she understood that her capacity stretched deeper and wider than the definitions of white supremacy and patriarchy.  Like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, she crafted her own narrative, and in so doing became a clarion for our soul’s deepest ambitions – justice.

A journalist, scholar, and activist, she wove together the ability to investigate and animate issues that robbed Blacks of full participation in the citizenship guaranteed by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.  In 1892, when white men lynched her good friend Tom Moss in Memphis, she confronted the racism that sought to legitimize murder by vigilantes.  She decried lynching and, moreover, demanded action from leaders who failed to protect their citizens.  So affecting were her calls to action, her newspaper offices in Memphis were blown up.  Though exiled from the South for more than twenty years, Wells became emboldened rather than silenced by the attack.  The tenacity, ferocity, and dedication to justice of this former slave girl from rural Mississippi challenged the moral core of America, and her strategic vision for change transformed the lives of millions.

From co-founding the NAACP to producing a compendium of investigations that shocked the conscience of leaders, she redefined what leadership could and should look like.  In particular, she furthered the role of women in the fight for justice, and she led without apology in an era when the words of women were not expected to be heard, and where Black women were summarily dismissed.  Ida B. Wells refused to be dismissed.”

If you don’t know much about Wells, go find the book that Catherine and I wrote.  Or look her up online – you will be amazed at her work and wisdom.  And, you will see how much we need her witness now, when we find the stream of white supremacy in our collective history seeking to become a tidal wave that overwhelms all of us.  Stacey closed her Foreword with these words, and I’ll close this way too:

“They honor the life of Ida B. Wells, a life carved out of the hardscrabble ground of slavery, white supremacy and oppression of women, especially Black women.  In Passionate for Justice, we find a compass that points us to the future, where we can each give voice and action to justice, equity, and life-giving community.  Ida B. Wells would have had it no other way.”  

So, on Wednesday, raise a glass to Ida Wells, give thanks for her witness and plan to find your place in her stunning and life-giving call for justice, equity, and life-giving community.  

"A BIT OF GOOD NEWS IN A DEPRESSING TIME"

 “A BIT OF GOOD NEWS IN A DEPRESSING TIME”

It felt sad and ironic to celebrate the 4th of July when Donald Trump is president, a man who cares little for the country and who cares only for himself and enriching himself at our expense.  I must admit, however, that the has had a disturbing run the last few weeks – the bombing of Iran and the passage of the “Big, Bad, Awful” (BBA) bill.  I will hold Lisa Murkowski responsible for the latter – though I was never a big fan of John McCain, I admired his courage in Trump’s first term when Trump tried to gut Obamacare.  McCain walked down to the well of the Senate floor and turned his thumb down to defeat the proposal.  Now that Trump is beginning the unraveling of Obamacare in the BBA, how I wish that Senator Murkowski had done the same as John McCain did.  It was not to be, however, and she and all the rest of us will be the worst for it.

In the midst of this depressing time, I want to acknowledge a note of hope on the local level.  On June 18, Caroline and I attended the ribbon cutting for new affordable housing located in Decatur’s Legacy Park.  Sixty-six units were dedicated for housing for people who make 30-80% of a living wage.  It is a partnership between the city of Decatur, the Decatur Housing Authority, Dekalb County, and the federal government.  At the same time, there was a ground-breaking ceremony for 66 more units, making a total of 132 units of affordable housing.  A bit of background is needed to understand this good news.

Legacy Park is the new name of what used to be the United Methodist Children’s Home, located on 77 acres of land on Columbia Drive across from Columbia Seminary.  The Home was started by the Methodists in 1877 as an orphanage for children after the Civil War, and it remained a home for orphans and children from broken or troubled families until 2017.  At that point, the Methodists decided to shift their focus from younger children to young adults who had aged out of the various public and private systems.  They did this with good reason – our state representative Mary Margaret Oliver noted at the ceremony that more than 40% of the young people who age out of foster care at age 18 will be homeless within 18 months.  The Methodists put the land up for sale, hoping to finance their new ventures with the money from the sale.  And, valuable land it is – 77 acres of undeveloped prime land.  When we heard that the land was up for sale, we knew that the developers were licking their lips in anticipation.

Many of us went to the Decatur City Council, urging them to consider a purchase of this land for public use and benefit, rather than allowing it to once again be gobbled up by private developers.  The city of Decatur has not always been receptive to the need for affordable housing, but this time the leadership, as well as numerous residents, felt the need to seek to keep this property as a good for public use.  Partnering with several governmental entities that I named above, they developed a $40 million package to offer the United Methodists for the property.  This was undoubtedly below the market value, but it also appealed to the goodwill of the Methodists.  It was an amount that would adequately fund the new ventures of the Methodists, and they accepted the offer.  The city of Decatur now owns those 77 acres and has developed a plan for its use to benefit the citizens of Decatur.

The next struggle came over what would be housed on the property.  While that is still a work in progress, many people, including our friend Mary Gould, attended many meetings to help the city of Decatur see the need and the possibility of using part of the property for affordable housing.  By this time, the city was open to the message, but it did not hurt that so many people turned out to support it.  There was also significant opposition, but the idea of affordable housing prevailed, and we give thanks for that.  

The opposition did not roll over, however.  After the environmental study indicated that the building of affordable housing would not be a further detriment to the environment, several residents asked for a second study in order to delay the beginning of construction of the affordable housing.  We attended the city council meeting last November and spoke our piece about the need for beginning the project.  One of the residents who opposed the project spoke and indicated that they had filed an ethics complaint against the council for what they took to be dishonesty and a lack of integrity on this process.  African-American Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Tony Powers responded with an unusually frank answer, something like this:  “I hear your complaint, and I can guarantee you that we have approached this project with integrity, honesty, and transparency.  I will also add that I believe that your opposition to this project is not about trees or transparency but rather about your dis-ease with the possibility that Black people will be living in some of these housing units. I’m tired of hearing that, and I’m tired of white people masking their racial concerns by using other reasons.  So, we have been transparent about the need to use some of this land for affordable housing, and we intend to do just that.”  The city council then proceeded to vote unanimously to approve the environmental report and to authorize the construction of the first set of housing units.

It was noted at the June 18 ribbon-cutting that this project is just a drop in the bucket, but that it was a beginning.  Congressman Hank Johnson spoke, and other speakers included Housing Authority Director Larry Padilla, state senator Elena Parent, Columbia Seminary President Victor Aloyo, state rep Mary Margaret Oliver, and many others.  In a time of a torrent of bad news, it was good to be together and to celebrate a bit of good news.  Let us build on that and see if we can revitalize this sense of civic duty and responsibility for the common good.

"CAROLINE LEACH!!!"

 “CAROLINE LEACH!!!”

Trump has had quite a week – bombing of Iran and the SCOTUS partial victory on the nationwide injunctions.  Yet, I’m currently tired of Trump and will write about him another time (unfortunately, more than once, I’m afraid).  So, I’m going to write on a much more pleasant subject – Caroline’s birthday is July 3 of this week.

I first met Caroline at a political rally for George McGovern in Atlanta in 1972.  I was visiting my friend Ed Loring, and I went with him to the rally, and Caroline was there.  She struck me as very interesting, but I was in a committed relationship with a woman in Nashville, where I was doing my alternative service as a conscientious objector (CO) to the Vietnam War.  I paid more attention when I met her the second time, at Robin and Linda Williams’ wedding in Nashville in early summer 1973.  Caroline had come up to the wedding with her housemate Murphy Davis, who was Robin’s cousin.  I was now living at the house where Robin and Linda got married.  I had broken off the romantic relationship with my fiancé; I had finished my CO; and I was seeking discernment for the future.  Ed, who was on the faculty of Columbia Seminary in Atlanta, was urging me to pick up my seminary career there – I had dropped out of Vanderbilt Divinity School to apply for the CO.  

By the time that we re-met in 1973, I was much more interested in getting to know Caroline better.  She was now a Columbia Seminary grad and was Associate Campus Minister at Georgia tech.  We spent a considerable amount of time together at the wedding. After that, Atlanta (and Columbia Seminary) began to look a whole lot better.  I moved to the Decatur part of Atlanta in August of 1973, and Caroline and I began to date almost immediately.  We were young adults in our mid-20’s, but we had seen enough of the world to know what we wanted.  By the end of 1973, we were in a relationship and had decided to get married.

This groundedness of Caroline was instantly appealing to me.  I’m a man, so I also noticed her looks, which were and are fine.  An article about her as a woman minister in the Knoxville Sentinel in 1973 put it this way: “The locks are long, brown, and wavy.   The figure curvy.  Marital status, single.  Sex FEMALE.  The name, Caroline Leach. “If you are a woman,” says Ms. Leach, who was in Knoxville recently for a visit, “you cannot fill the bill.  No matter how dynamic your sermons may be, how well you did in divinity school, how willing you are to work long, hard hours, how close you stand to God…..You don’t fit!”  

Caroline was describing her struggle to find her way as a woman in seminary in 1969-1972.  Her home church in Chattanooga would not sponsor her as a ministerial candidate because she was a woman – even though she had grown up in the church, taught Sunday school, played piano and organ in worship.  She just was FEMALE as the Knoxville Sentinel put it.  She was one of five women students when she went to Columbia, and she remembers how many men students came up to her, reading from the Bible, telling her that she could not be a minister because she was FEMALE, that God would not permit it.  We were talking about this terrible experience this past week, and we were laughing at God’s sense of humor and God’s working in mysterious ways.  When she came to Columbia, Caroline’s intention was to become a Christian educator, but all the “NO’S” and “CAN’TS” convinced her that God was calling her to become an ordained minister.  So, all these negative men helped her to become a minister, as well some of the faculty who had been very supportive of her.

It was an arduous journey – she had to find a new home church who would sponsor her as a candidate (yay for Rev. Randy Taylor and the Session of Central Presbyterian in Atlanta).  Atlanta Presbytery did not want to ordain her or any other women, but the competence and calling of Caroline and other women dragged the Presbytery kicking and screaming into the late 20th century.  No churches would interview her for a pastoral position, but God led her to Rev. Woody McKay, who was Campus Minister at Georgia Tech.  He had reserved a small salary, and the number of women students at Georgia Tech was growing.  So, he offered the position to Caroline, and she was able to get ordained at Georgia Tech and become the 21st woman minister in the former Southern Presbyterian Church.

When we went to get our marriage license from Dekalb County in early spring of 1974, Caroline indicated that she was not going to change her name when we got married.  The female clerk was highly offended and refused to issue a marriage license. We had to threaten to sue in order to get it.  We got married in May, 1974, and after I finished my classes at Columbia in December, 1975, we accepted a call to be co-pastors at St. Columba Presbyterian Church.  Caroline continued her pioneering ministry – we were the first clergy couple in a local church in the PCUS.  We’ve been partners in ministry and marriage ever since.  Indeed, we are working on a book now on our trailblazing ministry – if you have stories or thoughts, please let us know!

Caroline has been a pioneer most of her life, and though she would not say this, I will.  She is one of the giants upon whose shoulders the church and especially women pastors now stand.  When I’ve asked Caroline how she came to have the courage and determination to push through all the barriers and obstacles that she faced in the patriarchal structures of the church and the world, she cites her parents, her youth leaders in her church (the same church who denied her care), and most of all, the Girl Scouts.  She was a Girl Scout through high school, and there she learned that she was competent and even skilled as a woman, that she would need to be determined and resolute in a male world, and that SHE COULD DO IT.  I’m glad that she did – glad that she got the message, glad that she pushed on through all the barriers, of course, personally, glad that she graced me with love and marriage and David and Susan for these 51 years.  So, lift a glass to Caroline this week – contact her too and wish her a happy birthday!

"TRUMP MAKES HIS MOVE"

 “TRUMP MAKES HIS MOVE”

When Trump made the decision to bomb Iran on Saturday evening, he told only Republican legislators, leaving the Democrats out of the process until after the bombing was done.  We don’t yet know the extent of the damage, and we don’t yet know what Iran’s response will be, though I am guessing that the Iranians had contingency plans in place, which are likely being put into action as I write.  We all tremble as this step for US involvement in attacking yet another Middle East country is underway. We also await the response of Russia and China.

I watched Trump’s short press statement on Saturday night, with his lackeys Vance, Hegseth and Rubio close at hand.  He worked hard to project an image as the almighty leader, the one who is in control not only of the United States, but of the world as well.  It is the image that he has always cultivated, the image that drove him to seek the presidency in the first place.  And now, thanks to Israel’s Nazi-like approach to the Palestinians, Trump has been given the opportunity to make his mark as the leader of the world.  For the time being, he has control of the United States, with the Supreme Court virtually turning him loose with its presidential immunity rulings.  The Congress is exceedingly weak, with the slim Republican majority currently holding together, though Thomas Harris and even Marjorie Taylor Greene withholding support on this latest foray.  

Trump has been driven to prove that his father was wrong about him, that he is not a weakling who must be sent to military school to be toughened up.  I wonder if Trump has a shrine to his father in his White House bedroom, a shrine in which he counts up the evidence daily to demonstrate to his father that he is indeed the strong son.  He has now made his move to show that he is invincible, that he is indeed the most powerful man in the world – the Supreme Court cannot stop him, the Congress cannot stop him, the American people cannot stop him.  And now, the bad, old Iranians have felt his wrath.  Meanwhile, his ICE officers now wear masks to demonstrate the powerful, unstoppable, unknowable force that can arrest U.S. Senators, City of New York Comptrollers, and whoever else might dare to get in his way.

It is a daunting situation for us in the USA who believe in peace, justice, and equity.  Yet, the “No Kings” marches revealed a deeper truth:  millions upon millions marched against Trump in over 1500 towns and cities across the country on June 14, while only a few thousand showed up for Trump’s birthday parade in DC.  The opposition is deep and powerful to Trump and his policies, and we must be vigilant and active in expressing that opposition, pointing toward a Democratic takeover of Congress in the 2026 elections.

I’m also remembering another Republican president who attacked a country in the Middle East – the invasion of Iraq by George Bush and the “coalition of the willing” in March, 2002, because Sadaam Hussein and his buddies in Iraq had WMD’s, the weapons of mass destruction.  I remember seeing President Bush land on the USS Abraham Lincoln in his aviator jacket, declaring “mission accomplished.” And, of course, no WMD’s ever found in Iraq.  The war in Iraq would prove long and costly, with Barack Obama pulling most US troops out of Iraq in 2011, with no regime change, no real changes made.  Iraq is now mainly controlled by militias, including some loyal to Iran.  

We should note that Iran in 2025 is not Iraq in 2002, but the similarities in American arrogance in both cases is striking.  None of us knows where the Saturday night massacre will lead, but right now it is both scary and sobering.  The dictatorship of Donald Trump has begun – he has made his move.  Currently there seem to be no forces capable of checking him, but his foray into the Middle East will prove more difficult than he or his puppets can imagine.  In that unpredictability may lie our greatest hope for restoration at home.  Bush was immensely popular when he invaded Iraq, but by the time that he left office, he and his Republican party were so unpopular that white people in America were willing to vote for a Black man for president.  Trump is currently underwater in popularity, and I don’t think that will change any time soon.  The Joker has made his move, and it is now up to us to counter that move with force, dedication, love, justice, and actions in the street.  As Bob Dylan put it in the ending to his famous apocalyptic song “All Along the Watchtower”:

Outside, in the distance

A wildcat did growl

Two riders were approaching

The wind began to howl

"JUNTEENTH"

  “JUNETEENTH”

    In 2021, Juneteenth was made a national holiday, thanks to the efforts of many people.  This week many folk will celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation on “Juneteenth,” the name given to the event in Texas, where news of the Proclamation  and the Union defeat of the Confederacy did not reach African-Americans held in slavery in Texas until June 19, 1865.  At that time, U.S. General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with 2,000 federal troops and made this General Order #3:

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

            Juneteenth has become the most recognized national celebration of the end of legal slavery in the country.  Many other dates could qualify, and some are celebrated:  watch night services in African-American churches on December 31 of each year, similar  to the ones in 1862, right before the Proclamation took effect;  January 31, when the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery passed Congress;  December 6, when the states ratified the 13th Amendment. Yet, Juneteenth has held on for many reasons.  

            Perhaps the biggest reason that Juneteenth has held on is that it expresses both celebration and ambivalence.  Celebration that there was finally some recognition of the humanity and equality of people of African descent.  Ambivalence because there was so much reluctance to get this news to the people of Texas.  The racism that would eviscerate the Union victory over the next 40 years, after the Civil War,  could be seen in the last sentence of Order #3 – though African-Americans had built the wealth of much of America, they were still seen as being “in idleness.”  The order arrived over 2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.  As WEB Dubois put it:  “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”

The recognition of Juneteenth is a reminder of two of the most powerful forces in American history, forces that are opposed to one another.  One is the idea of equality, and the other is the idea of slavery (and the white supremacy that undergirds it).  These have been warring ideas in American history.  The idea of equality – the vision that all human beings are created with equal dignity – is a powerful one in American history.  It was born in Europe, but it found its deepest expression in the colonies of America.  This idea of equality is one of the great and unexpected gifts of the American experience.  It is a revolutionary idea, and it calls out to all structures -  class structures, racial categories,  gender categories – that their time is winding down, that a new way of looking sat ourselves and at one another is emerging in the world.  That way is the idea of equality, the idea that we are all created with equal dignity.  That way is the idea that the institutional and structural foundations of society should be reformed to reflect this radical idea.

Yet, as we all are well aware, this powerful gift of equality is always banging against the idea of white supremacy, which seeks to tell us that those of us classified as “white” that we are meant to be in control.  We saw that struggle this past weekend, as the Trumpster gathered his tanks and soldiers and a few people in DC, while millions marched and protested in cities and towns across the country against the white supremacy that is the base root of the MAGA movement.

            It is now time to step up, speak up, and act out.  So, on June 19,  find a way to celebrate the great American vision of the fundamental equality of all people.  Find a way to acknowledge how deeply white supremacy still has a hold on our hearts and vision.  Find a way to work against that captivity, as did Frederick Douglass and Abby Kelley and William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Tubman and Ida Wells and Anne Braden and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker and many others have done.  Let us join in that parade of witnesses. 

"FIFTY YEARS AS A MINISTER!!"

 “FIFTY YEARS AS A MINISTER!”

Last year was Caroline and my 50th wedding anniversary, and this year  marks the 50th anniversary of my ordination as a minister in the Presbyterian Church.  Caroline was ordained as a pastor in 1973 by Atlanta Presbytery, the 21st woman to be ordained as a pastor by the former Southern Presbyterian Church.  So, she is the senior pastor in our family.

I was ordained by Norfolk Presbytery (now Eastern Virginia Presbytery) as co-pastor with Caroline of St. Columba Presbyterian Church on Sunday afternoon, June 8 at St. Columba Church in Norfolk.  Caroline and I were the first clergy couple to serve in a local church in the former Southern Presbyterian Church (the Presbyterian denominations reunited in 1983 after the Southern church split off at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, so that it could support slavery).  We came to St. Columba from Atlanta, where I was finishing up seminary at Columbia, and Caroline was a campus minister at Georgia Tech.  Though no one had ever tried it in the Southern church, we wanted to try it, and we were young enough to still have that pioneering spirit.  St. Columba was a small missionary church, located in a private 1500 unit low income housing project, with many Navy families.  Norfolk Presbytery was funding the work, and we later received the Presbyterian Women’s Birthday Offering to put St. Columba Ministries on solid financial ground.  

I grew up in First Presbyterian Church in Helena, Arkansas, and though its members included wealthy planters, First Pres was largely a working-class Presbyterian church.  My mother was a dedicated church member, so we were at the church all the time, and I drank in the atmosphere of hearing that God loved me.  This was especially important to me because my father had abandoned my mother and me when I was an infant. It was especially important to hear that definition rather than feeling that I was defined as child abandoned by my father.  I loved the church, and it loved me, and because of that, many people in the church indicated that I would make a great minister.  

Though I loved talking about and thinking about God and religion, I resisted the idea of becoming a minister for a long time.  Part of my resistance came from my sense of not being worthy, of not being good enough.  Ministers lead public lives, and I had enough internal impulses and feelings that made me feel that I could never live up to the call.  Second, southern white culture sought to emasculate most male ministers, so that the liberating power of the Gospel would be mitigated as much as possible.  How could white people who were Christians hold people in slavery and in neo-slavery?  By splitting out the Gospel from justice issues – God only cared about what happened to people when they died.  Though I could not articulate this as a teenage boy, I intuited this idea that I would have to give up some of my humanity and my masculinity and my passion if I were to become a minister.

The Reverend Harold Jackson was my pastor in my teenage years, and he helped to mitigate some of my resistance to becoming a minister.  He was fully a man; he was a passionate and good preacher; and he believed in weaving the Gospel with life in the world.  In 1963, he led my youth group in a staged reading of the play “A Cup of Trembling,” about the life and death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  It only occurred to me later that in that same spring of 1963, MLK was leading the Birmingham campaign.  I am certain that Harold had this revolution in mind as he led us in the reading and discussion of this play.  He was helping us to see the necessity of living the Gospel faith out in the world, that God cared about not only what happened to us when we died, but what happened to us when we were living as well.

After college, I went to Vanderbilt Divinity School with the intention of getting a PhD in philosophy and religion, but mainly I wanted to be near my fiancé, who was still a student at Rhodes College.  While at Vandy, I met Ed Loring, who was getting his PhD in American church history, and he was an ordained Presbyterian minister.  He was articulate, manly, intelligent, and he was passionate about the need to weave the Gospel message in with the life of the world.  He encouraged me to move towards ordination, and so I did.  

I have served three Presbyterian churches as pastor:  St. Columba in Norfolk; Second in Nashville, and our long pastorate at Oakhurst Presbyterian in Decatur.  I discovered that I loved to preach and that I loved to be a pastor to people – to hear their faith stories and struggles, to help them hear about God’s love, as I was helped to hear about God’s love.  It is a sacred walk to be invited by people into their deepest journeys and feelings, and it has been a great privilege to do so.  And the preaching!  I preached yesterday at North Decatur Presbyterian Church on Pentecost Sunday, and I loved putting together the sermon which noted how afraid the first disciples were and how afraid we are in these crazy days.  

Though I did not want to become a pastor, I have leaned in to in a way that has astonished me and has enriched me in ways that I could not have imagined.  And, I have been privileged to walk in this space as a pastor.  These fifty years have not gone by quickly, but in many ways, it seems just the twinkling of an eye since that Sunday afternoon when I said “yes” fifty years ago in Norfolk.  I give thanks to God, to Caroline, to my mother, and to all those who have nurtured me along this way.  

"NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!"

 “NEW YORK, NEW YORK!”

Caroline and I are back in Decatur after a two week trip to Baltimore, Providence, and New York.  Our daughter Susan drove us all around the Northeast, as we celebrated granddaughter Emma’s graduation from Brown and then went to visit New York City.  We were blessed to stay with Nancy Regalado Horwitz, sister of Margery Freeman.  Nancy’s apartment is in Greenwich Village, and she was such a gracious host, fixing us scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast each morning before we went out on our adventures for the day.  On Tuesday evening we rode the subway from 14th Street to 231st Street to eat supper with Margery and David Billings at their home in the Bronx.  The subway was full of different kinds of people, all heading home from work.  It was good to be with David and Margery again, especially since David and I had first experienced New York City in the summer of 1966.  We were grateful to see them each of our three days in New York.

Our first foray into the city took us into Brooklyn, where we had taken a Lyft to see Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, the church that changed the lives of David and me.  Caroline, Susan, and I were greeted by LAPC’S administrative assistant Harriet Bodner – the pastor Emily Brewer was on vacation.  As we entered the building through the South Oxford Street entrance, I was flooded by so many memories of the place that changed my heart and my mind. We went into the sanctuary, which is currently not being used because some of the ceiling has fallen in.  The church will soon launch a capital campaign to do repairs to the sanctuary.  The sanctuary has many Tiffany stained glass windows, but in 1978,  a powerful, fluid mural was added to the sanctuary walls and ceiling.  It is called “Cloud of Witnesses,” and it was painted by Hank Prussing, who was around when David and I were summer staff members.  It is a collage of the people of the Fort Greene in which LAPC is located. 

As we walked through the sanctuary and some of the rest of the building, I felt the pangs and the possibilities of urban ministry that Caroline and I had experienced in our pastorate at Oakhurst.  Like Oakhurst, LAPC is an old building, constantly in need of repair but also with a center of a vibrant spiritual and social justice ministry.  It is the urban church at its best and at its neediest – congregations are shrinking, but funding is always needed.  Before I get in too lofty a space, we also went into the Jarvie Room, which was a gathering place for the summer staff in 1966 and 1967.  It was also the place where I had my first real romantic kiss – a young Black woman named Deirdre Jordan and I began a summer romance that at the time I hoped would last longer, but time and distance diminished our fervor.  Yet, it. was stunning and great at the time!

We left LAPC, ate lunch at a local diner, then took the subway back to 14th Street, where we went to Strand Books, which advertises itself as having 18 miles of books.  It was indeed overwhelming, but I managed to get out with only some postcards.  That night we ate supper at Nancy’s apartment with David and Margery and daughter Stella coming over – we had not seen Stella in many years.  It was great to catch up, and also to hear of Nancy’s impending birthday party – she will be 90 this month!

On Thursday we met Margery at the Guggenheim Museum in the Central Park, and we saw a powerful exhibit by Rashid Johnson called “A Poem for Deep Thinkers.”  It wound all around the spirals of the Guggenheim structure, and it is many kinds of media, with its emphasis being the glory and the struggles of being Black in American culture – look him up and check it out if you can’t get there in person.  Since Caroline had never been to Central Park, we took a quick walk through there, before taking a bus back to Nancy’s apartment in the Village, a long but relatively quick trek through late afternoon New York traffic.

That night we had a fine finish to our New York trip by joining David and Margery at the Majestic Theater in the Broadway district to see Audra McDonald star in the reprise of the play “Gypsy.”  She gave a stunning performance as the mother who seeks to drive her daughters into stardom, with one of them – Louise – becoming Gypsy Rose Lee.  Ms. McDonald has been nominated for a Tony Award for this performance, and though I have not seen any other performers, it is hard to imagine one better than hers.  After the play, we went to John’s Pizzeria with David and Margery to discuss the play and to reluctantly say good-bye to our good and longtime friends. Susan suggested that we take a cab back to Nancy’s, so that we could experience all of NYC’s modes of transportation – subway, train, bus, rideshare, and personal car.

New York City was a magical place to me in the summers of 1966 and 1967, and as I have written before, it changed my life forever.  Though some of the magic has dimmed over the years, in this visit, I still felt its call and its vision for a multicultural life seeking to move towards equity and justice.  I am grateful to Caroline and Susan, who suggested that we take a short trip into NYC on the way back from Providence.  It was good to be back in the Big City, the greatest in the world, according to many.