This is a reprise on Day 903 - The Sins of Our Fathers (and Mothers) that dealt with the difficult and sordid past of racial bigotry during and after the War Between The States well into the ciurrent time.
The younger one is, the more difficult problem we have with time and perspective due to how slowly things change. This is especially true for those who are young enough not to have had direct experience with upheaval of social change in the years between 1950 and 1990. (It is also true that where you live has a great effect.) [On the other hand, the older one gets the easier it is to have no patience or accommodation for younger views of the world (see the three posts on Day 685, for example.]
One of the major points of my post on Day 903, was that regardless of how we want to identify examples of current racism as proof the world has not changed (the response to President Obama's twitter account being a great example), unless we take a long view we do ourselves an injustice. Were I lifted out of time when I was 12 years old and put back into it today, I would not be able to grasp the magnitude of change that has occurred in racial relations.
Having read a little of Reinhold Niebuhr, I would see and acknowledge that racial parity on a social scale is incomplete and variable geographically.
While I was sitting in the lobby of the walk-in Crisis Intervention Center a week or so ago, waiting on the staff to do an evaluation of one of our urban ministry members, I stumbled across a glossy magazine with the odd title, GARDEN AND GUNS." (Feb./Mar. 2015 Issue, p23-25)
Low, and behold, they had an interview with John Lewis, one of the last of the stalwarts of the original civil rights movement. I think Mr. Lewis and Dr. King are the only two I have not had the privilege to meet at one time or another; for example, Andrew Young, Julian Bond, Hosea Williams, even Jimmy Carter (a more "Jimmy-come-lately"). If you are old enough you remember SNCC.
Representative Lewis (a 15 term House member) has become by siege of time the senior spokeperson for the movement. He was severely battered at the Selma March and fairly established his credentials as one who has a right to offer an assessment of our current situation.
Representative Lewis maintains the civil-rights movement (truly a Southern phenomenon that was the stand-in for a national racism and hypocrisy about race) always centered around whether the best of the Southern soul, its grace, love, generosity and Godliness would win out over its worst (racism, hatred, fear, cruelty). He acknowledged that there is a ful dose of evil in the South (see two replies to the Lewis article posted in Gun and Garden.) but also a large quantity of good. He described the South as being in a period of "becoming." (This is a very good theological concept made famous by process theologians such as John Cobb - see Day 752, or look him up on the internet.)
Personally I am not sure sure I have as rosy a picture of the state of our national rehabilitation as Mr. Lewis does of the Southern one, but I do share his general assessment. I suspect the South will lead the way to racial conciliation because it is in our soul, as Mr. Lewis recognizes.
Mr. Lewis is hopeful the American South will achieve what Dr. King called the "beloved community." He concluded, much as I have, that when he comes back to the South after much travel, he sees great progress and feels the sense much of the South has been redeemed as a freer, more whole and complete people.
He can say this in view of glaring counter examples, knowing his perspective is the long view that few of the younger folks have access.
I'm not a maudlin kind of person and have never been wholly comfortable with those who revel in how great the South is. But there is an essence of the Southern soul that sets us apart and is a source of pride (Yes, pride can be a nasty vice).
His final comments in the article are that "we are one people, one family (see Day 909), one house; not just a house of black and white, but the house of the South, of America. There will be setbacks but we are going to get there."
Mr. Lewis recognizes that the great virtues of the South are its soul, grace, love, generosity and Godliness. Those virtues set the South apart from the pervasive de facto racism of the North and Midwest. We must hope and live by the example of those traits that they remain the principal descriptors of Southern life.
Since our obligation as Christians is to spread and share grace, I pray we identify with John Lewis' confidence.
Grace and Peace.
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