The Emancipation of a White Preacher
October 1, 2000
It was 1954. My letter appeared in the Richmond, Virginia, morning newspaper decrying the recent Supreme Court decision ending "separate but equal" schools. I wanted to be with my own kind; Negroes felt the same way, I said confidently.
It was 1979. My wife and I joined the NAACP-sponsored march down the main street of the capital city of South Carolina. We stood before the capitol, which flew the Confederate flag alongside the national and state flags. "Why are you here?" a reporter asked, noting that only a few whites had joined the march. "We're here because we support the NAACP in its quest for racial justice in our country," I responded.
It was March 2000. At Ozark Christian College, where I currently serve as librarian, we had just completed our third annual Racial Reconciliation Week. I, along with faculty colleagues, had helped produce James Weldon Johnson's "God's Trombones" and a dramatic presentation of Bishop Joseph Johnson's magnificent vision of Revelation 7:9, as recorded in his book, The Soul of the Black Preacher. A black chaplain from the Missouri state prison would follow with a stirring call to action. "We gotta go through!" he said, referring to Jesus' compulsion to go through Samaria where he ministered despite cultural, gender, and racial differences.
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Becoming a reconciler
What produced such a change? The cry for racial justice was not heard during my youth in Virginia. The last lynching in Virginia occurred in 1921 about one mile from my father's house, where my aunt lives today. I visited that spot with my uncle. I asked, "Was my father among the scores of men here that night?" He said he probably was. My memory flashed back to a time when my mother showed me a picture of that lynching which she ...
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