And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land, yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
This past May I was part of a Civil Rights Movement Pilgrimage well led by Mennonite Mission Network which began in Atlanta and took us to Alabama, ending in Mississippi. A group of engaging, thoughtful people were a part of it. The trip was like a symphony, well-orchestrated, each part having its special contribution.
Beginning with Casa Alterna in Atlanta led by women there with its founder and director Anton Flores-Maisonet, an ordained Mennonite pastor, which by itself was worth the trip, though I could honestly say that for each part. We listened along with a good meal to recent refugees, some with children, seeking asylum in the United States. Anton gave us a wonderful tour with lecture and some preaching the next day on our way to the King Center.
There was a wonderful food center nearby, and I chose a most tasty meal from Ethiopian vegan cuisine. After that, we were at the center, and it was moving to see the crypt, not much larger than the caskets/coffins of Corretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr, outside, near a beautiful fountain that had the words creatively inscribed, “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
In the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in which Martin Luther King’s father was pastor and later, Martin himself, we heard a lecture from an older Black man who knew people and events of the past from a firsthand perspective. I wanted to get into the beautiful new Ebenezer Baptist Church across the street, but alas, the doors were locked. On that side is a government run building in commemoration of King.
Off to Montgomery the next day to the Equal Justice Initiative, Memorial, Museum, and very recently opened Sculpture Park which officially opened this Juneteenth. Magnificent, breathtaking, moving, the best of anything you could imagine in telling this story. Sheer genius, period. Bryan Stevenson, an “American lawyer, social justice activist, law professor at New York University School of Law, and the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative.” Note his book which is essential reading: Just Mercy. He has worked tirelessly for decades for the release of prisoners, mostly Black on death row, some who were innocent, and is an advocate of ending the death penalty. He believes not in punitive measures, but restorative justice. Certainly, there are necessary consequences for violent acts, and there’s a few who might have to be incarcerated for life. Stevenson and the lawyers which eventually became a part of EQI have been instrumental at being agents of improvements in the justice system such as not sentencing children to life imprisonment. Stevenson says that no person is equal to the worst act that they have done. He believes in and speaks about redemption along with truth and reconciliation. But Stevenson began to believe that because of reversals in recent judicial rulings, the story must be told for needed change to come and take root.
I think just $5 for adults and no cost for children to access the legacy sites there, a Black owned restaurant on the premises. It is good to arrive when it opens, and maybe you’ll get through it all in one full day to your satisfaction, but I’m sure you could spend three days there, and still not get through everything. Two days would probably be enough for most who want to take their time, one day will get a good glimpse of everything. A special Hotel nearby is being built by EJI to be ready in 2025. Much reading in the museum, though of course you can’t read it all, and remarkably they creatively help you enter into something of the actual experience of Blacks in America, the slaves telling their story, etc. The remarkable congruence and connection of what happened hundreds of years past to what is happening now especially in mass incarceration and voter suppression (etc.) also comes through. This place is a MUST SEE. If you could go to only one place to better understand systemic racism and all related to that, the Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama are it. And unlike the wonderful Civil Rights Movement Museum in Jackson, Mississippi which is most definitely worth visiting, you are left with the impression that the work is far from finished. Montgomery, by the way, was the location of the first Confederate White House before the Confederate capital moved to Richmond, Virginia. And the location of the museum was the very same place Blacks were caged and sold, more of that in Montgomery than any other place in the south for a certain period of time. Well into the 21st century, there were 39 monuments in Montgomery commemorating the Confederacy of the Civil War, but not one about slavery. No more.
Next we took a tour of Selma, Alabama and the Edmund Pettus Bridge where the US Bloody Sunday occurred in 1965 and the march from there to Montgomery occurred later. Joanne Bland, who was eleven at the time when this took place led us. Her granddaughter works with her. Joanne is an entrepreneur, a fierce, loving spirit. We rode around Selma with her and stopped at a site which see is overseeing. Then we sat for a short time with her afterwards, a lecture/talk with questions and answer time. Then to a nearby eating place where we heard from her sister, Lynda Blackmon Lowery. After that we walked across the bridge and back.
Then off to Philadelphia Mississippi. On our way, Pine Lake Fellowship Camp, Mennonite, a nice spot to stop and unwind a bit, though never for long. In Philadelphia the next day we heard the first Black mayor there, James A. Young who is mentoring Leroy Clemons to be the next mayor, Leroy running in November. Contrary to naysayers, James helped the city make marked improvements in both growth and I think rehabilitation. Interestingly, Leroy said that back in the 1960s there was a certain space in which Blacks could live safely, but if they crossed a line, all bets were off. One time the KKK came into the Black’s territory with pistols, only to find those in Leroy’s camp with shotguns in hand, and so the KKK retreated. Leroy himself is not a Mennonite or pacifist, but I think this is the first time those of Mennonite Mission Network caught that aspect of him. Lots and lots of storytelling from Leroy. There has been nothing like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as in South Africa and other places. Those in power more or less stayed in power so that any change was grudging at best and resisted at worse for a considerable time until by law there had to be change. Many whites- perhaps a majority of them, were not happy with the blatant, threatening, at times violent racism of the significant number of whites involved in that. But they feared for the lives of their families, their own lives, and their livelihoods if they would speak out or try to help the Blacks in any way. It seems like the needed healing hasn’t really taken place there, though Leroy and other leaders who come across as tough might dispute that, or perhaps just shrug their shoulders over it. There has not been enough truth telling, acknowledgment of wrongs done, commitment to make things right (reparations or whatever would be appropriate) for there to be real healing and reconciliation. The Black leaders therefore live within that system thinking they have to hold their ground. Something like that is the strong impression I had. I gathered all of this not so much from my own thoughts, but from what was expressed there by others.
We went to the church with the memorial for the three young boys, one Black, the other two white who were most brutally murdered. The story behind that is chilling. “The 1964 killings of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Neshoba County sparked national outrage and helped spur passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They later became the subject of the film ‘Mississippi Burning.’” Essentially every bone was broke in the Black boy, James Chaney’s body, as whites took turns I think battering him while his two friends helplessly stood by, emasculated him, which they often did to Black men in their killings, and put that in his mouth before shooting him. Then proceeded to kill the two white boys as well (I should say young men), one they could tell was buried before he died. Mississippi was the worst of the southern states, though any of them were bad. The book, Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody opened my eyes to that. Though the north sadly could be dangerous for Blacks and ended up being more segregated, Martin Luther King Jr. once saying that the Mississippi violent racists could learn some things from some whites in Chicago. We went to the site of the boys’ murders, and Leroy seemed a bit concerned by some motorist who passed by according to a couple in our group, and another time when he had another group there, he apparently clearly was concerned. So the fear is not completely gone, nor healing by any means complete. But the Blacks there seem to be taking the bull by the horns so to speak, I specifically am referring to leaders, and moving on, while many Blacks just want to avoid consideration of history, and the entire thing, maybe out of fear and sheer exhaustion. I don’t want to forget to mention that we went to the grave site of James Chaney and his mother. Which, by the way, I don’t want to neglect to say, was a danger accepted by the church out in the country. Other churches out of fear declined to accept burial of his body in their cemeteries.
Off to nearby Nanih Waiya Church, of indigenous, native Americans. This church was bombed three times in the 1960s. An emphasis took hold there of love overcoming hate. Tasty meal. Covering over the table which I didn’t know was uneven, so my big cup of icy, thankfully just water since I chose that ended up on my lap, though at least it missed my phone in my right pocket. Afterwards a meaningful time in their church. We heard some of their language. It was really another sacred space and time for us, certainly as much so as all the rest. Of course, what has been done to the indigenous peoples was evil, also. It was said that while we shouldn’t feel guilty for what happened and is happening, we should take responsibility for it in the sense of listening, learning, and trying to find our place and part in the needed redemptive, restorative, full reconciliation that needs to take place.
Next we took a tour of Meridian, Mississippi with Gerald Hudson, a pastor and scholar who went to and was a part of Eastern Mennonite University at one time. He now operates more in an ecumenical way, though I think he holds to the pacifist, Mennonite influence he has had, at least the peacemaking aspect of that. A vibrant and learned man. He took us to the Baptist church where Martin Luther King Jr had been, I think several times. He also took us to a spot where there are plans underway to build a center to help the poor in that area, most of them Black. He had much to share, but again, he shortened that significantly because of what we had already gone through that day. It was noteworthy that in a friendly way he challenged Leroy a bit during Leroy’s talk in ways that I along with our group found helpful.
Sunday arrived and we went to Open Door Mennonite Churchin Jackson, Mississippi. Met the people there, Pastor Hugh Hollowell and Rhoda and Warren Yoder among others. Meaningful Sunday service, apt, quite good message/sermon. All three of these people very sharp in understanding and knowledge with considerable experience.
Next we went to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum there in Jackson. Next to it, across the way is the Museum for Mississippi history in general. I kind of wish I would have went to that museum just a bit, as well. Others said it included a bit on the Civil Rights Movement, maybe Black history. But there was much to see and take in at the actual Civil Rights Museum there. Just as good in getting across the message of what happened to Blacks in the past, but not much if anything to speak of, about the systemic racism against Blacks in the present.
In the evening we were wonderfully hosted by the Yoders, Rhoda and Warren, the conversation as inspiring as the meal was good.
Finally, a tour of Jackson with Pastor Hollowell. Jackson has gone down in population; I think one of the very few cities where the majority are Black. Though it is the capital of Mississippi, much of it has been neglected, a stark difference between one part of the city and the other, mostly along racial lines. Ramshackle, broken-down houses in contrast to home after home that could be photographed for Better Homes and Gardens. Water issues there, also.
Our last meal back at Open Door Mennonite Church, prepared by an older (I suppose around my age, probably a bit less), Black woman, Bobbie Jean, who is part of that church, the food native and quite good, and afterwards a celebration of Communion together (as we had done the day before during the Sunday service there). Good conversation with Pastor Hollowell and much involved in on the ground humanitarian work in that area. A most fitting ending to our pilgrimage.
Summary of the trip: A LOT to take in and process. I’m definitely one who takes probably more time than most to process things. I think one thing for sure: though I’ve always had a special interest in books on racism in America, from now on I think it will be rare for me to go to a library or bookstore without looking for books on that issue.
What Blacks have gone through is beyond words but has to be communicated. The resilience, even singing in the face of suffering is indelibly marked on the Black experience and ethos overall. Rob Vander Giessen-Reitsma who was a part of our group (executive director of culture is not optional, an entrepreneur for nonprofits in that area to help where needed, very much engaged with a lot of knowledge) at the end of the Legacy Museum in Montgomery with the walls of Black leaders who have contributed significantly to the cause of Civil Rights happened to enter when Aretha Franklin was singing an exuberant song which for him was the perfect ending to that experience. Suffering and singing. But no doubt for many, the normal struggle of life is compounded with the fact that they are Black.
Special thanks to Arloa Bontrager, Joani Miller and Marten Gunawan who wonderfully led us on this pilgrimage.
Jesus community 