Peace Out: Week Twenty-Four

In quieter moments, I find myself still gently descending a broad floor leading to the core of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which commemorates one of the true “hearts of darkness” of our country. Immense matte black rectangular blocks of corten steel, together bearing the names of over 4400 victims of lynching between 1877 and 1950, hang overhead; the constant, insistent sound of a wall of falling water resonates around me.

I pass by dozens of metal plaques bearing inscriptions. “Henry Patterson was lynched in Labelle, Florida, in 1926 for asking a white woman for a drink of water.” “Nathan Bird was lynched near Luling, Texas, in 1902, for refusing to turn his teenaged son over to a mob; his son, accused of fighting with a white boy, was also lynched.” “Calvin Kimblern was lynched by a mob of at least 3,000 people in Pueblo, Colorado, in 1900.”

On April 3, 2019, 36 parishioners from Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, TX departed on a Civil Rights tour to Alabama and Mississippi. We were led by our rector, Fr. Casey Shobe, and by Rev. Michael Waters, pastor of Joy Tabernacle African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dallas. And I believe it’s not an overstatement to say that our lives were about to be changed.

We traveled together for five days, visiting carefully chosen sites of historic significance: 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where protesters were schooled in principles of nonviolence, and which in September 1963 would become the site of a bombing which would take the lives of four young girls; the Montgomery home of Dr. Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King, and the church Dr. King pastored; the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, over which we walked in silence, two-by-two, to gain a small sense of what marchers must have anticipated as they processed toward the police blockade on “Bloody Sunday” in 1965; the park in Hayneville, Alabama where Jonathan Myrick Daniels*, an Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist, was shot to death while shielding a young black girl.

Thanks largely to Rev. Waters’ own work for racial justice - and relationships he has developed along the Way - we also received the gift of personal encounters with several who have led in the struggle for justice, who have “shared in the sufferings of Christ.” Ms. Janice Kelsey Wesley, a Birmingham educator, participated in the 1963 Children's March and was one of nearly 2000 children arrested, many having also been attacked with high-pressure hoses and police dogs. Dr. Valda Montgomery told us the work of her father, a pharmacist, in quietly organizing a massive taxi service during the crucial Montgomery bus boycott. And Ms. Joanne Bland of the Selma Interpretive Center, who by age 11 had been arrested 13 times, graphically described that “Bloody Sunday” march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in which she was a participant.

We also visited several important museums, including the National Legacy Museum in Montgomery, dedicated to the compelling argument that much of the prison system in the United States was shaped as an effort to extend slavery in another form, and that our present criminal justice system continues in injustice: in 2017, approximately 27% of all persons arrested were “black or African American,” while at the end of that year 476,000 prisoners were black, and 436,000 white. But the single most powerful experience of our five days for me was the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, sometimes called the “Lynching Museum,” also in Montgomery, to which I referred at the start of this brief essay.

I thank God for these experiences, for Fr. Shobe leading us in prayer and worship, for quiet conversations along the way. I give thanks for Rev. Waters, part of whose calling is to lead groups such as ours, and without whom our trip would have been significantly less rich. I want to thank my fellow-travelers Bill and Peggy Kwoka, whose fine notes on our journey helped spur my memories, and filled out many details which I had lost. But most powerfully, I’m grateful to be part of a community willing to continue to struggle with being the Body of Christ in the world, and which actually strives to exist for the sake of those outside its walls, to “grow up into the full measure of Christ.”

The extreme, right-wing, Fundamentalist Christian Zionists of "Christians United for Israel" are coming July 7-9 in their thousands for their annual "Washington Summit" at the Convention Center. Their mission: place heavy constituent pressure on Congress to ramp up support for even harsher (indeed apocalyptic) policies against the Palestinians.

BUT for the first time, CUFI will be met by an unprecedented, highly organized protest from Christians, Muslims and Jews -- and all who support Palestinian rights. Among Christians, we who believe that the Gospel calls on us to pursue justice for all, peace, brotherhood, and respect for the dignity of all people must not be silent. Church-based supporters of Palestinian rights must raise our voices -- nonviolently, faithfully, AND BOLDLY.

The protest is being organized by Friends of Sabeel North America, with the active support of Jewish Voice for Peace and American Muslims for Palestine. EPF-PIN has endorsed the action and has tasked DC members to help with preparations. FOSNA is urging people to register on their website (fosna.org) so as to ensure that this action, which is just the start of a long-term, national campaign to expose and oppose CUFI, will be a model of tolerance, restraint and seriousness.

Melanie's upcoming schedule:

Looking forward, EPF will be in:

June 27-29: Washington, DC "Love God, Love Neighbor: Advocacy in Action"
June 29: 20th Annual Starvin' for Justice Fast and Vigil, Washington, DC
June 30: Washington Episcopal Holy Land Committee
July 12-13: Big Provincial Gathering, Province V, Kalamazoo, MI
July 13: Commemoration of Sojourner Truth, Battle Creek, MI
July 14: St. Thomas, Battle Creek, MI
July 21: Grace Episcopal Church, Traverse City, MI
July 25: Chicago, IL
August 8: St. Andrew's, Birmingham, AL
August 9-10: Commemoration of Jonathan Daniels and Martyrs of Alabama
Visit to Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and
Justice, Montgomery and Hayneville, AL
Sept. 7: Bp. Paul Jones' feast day, St. James, Essex Junction
Sept. 27-29 Drone warfare initiative, Princeton, NJ
Oct 13-24 Palestine
Nov. 11: EPF 80th Anniversary, Providence, RI
Nov. 14-16: Borderland Ministry Summit, St. Stephen’s, Tucson, AZ
Dec. 22: National Day of Reparations (FOR) TBD

Are you near any of our planned stops and want to visit? Just shout! epfactnow

Until next time,
power to the peaceful!

Melanie

• Give to EPF
• Offers of hospitality always welcome!
• Suggestions of icons of social justice, landmarks or museums she must see.
• Driveway for parking "Miranda", her home on wheels. (home or church parking lot appreciated)
• Offer of laundry facilities.
• Suggestions of coffee shops, eateries, and sports bars she should visit.
• Identify best walks and hikes in your neighborhood.
• Invite her to church!
• Prayers for safe travel.
• Favorite RV camp sites.
• Visits with your pets -- she is feeling deprived!