Recent reading has led me through my teens, college and young adult years as recorded by my contemporaries with very different recollections. The times were tumultuous and complicated. I look back and ask, "Why didn’t I know what was happening?" And, "What was I doing that was so important?"
As a teen I was privileged to attend a highly regarded, fully racially integrated high school, oblivious to the fact that my peers in other places were denied the privilege of a first-class public education. As a college student I was isolated, unaware of the painful injustices being inflicted on people only a few miles away. Within 150 miles of my college campus U.S. citizens who tried to register to vote were harassed and several were killed in adjoining states.
Interactions between the US Supreme Court, several Presidents, a deeply divided-Congress and governors were complicated and hostile, but I didn’t know. My peers, college students spent summer months in the 60's sitting in segregated snack bars, insisting that every citizen could sit where they pleased at a concert or ride in an integrated bus or taxi while I was ensconced in a religious cocoon, unaware, unmoved and inert.
Years later, I found my attempts at communicating the Good News to be more complicated than I had anticipated. People who had grown up at the same time had a very different world view. I befriended a man who shined shoes near our church building in Newark, N.J. He became my primary informant as he gleaned neighborhood news while polishing the shoes of older men. (Young men had taken to wearing sneakers.) I learned why many neighbors were distrustful of me. Many concluded that I was a "cracker" and was using the church as a cover while spying for various police agencies. Young people thought that I was an undercover narcotic agent. It took much longer than I had thought in order to be trusted.
My friend who brought me up to speed with community news was a native of Jackson, MS. Medgar Evers’ widow, Myrlie, became his biographer and I read of the Evers’ hardships and his ultimate death in the front yard of the family home. Born in July 1925, Evers walked twelve miles to school to earn his high-school diploma. From 1943 to 1945 Evers’ fought in the Battle of Normandy during World War II and was discharged honorably as an Army sergeant. But, Evers was not allowed to enroll in an all-white state university and was blocked from voting. I didn’t know that sort of thing existed. I was isolated and naive.
The day after I finished reading the biography I visited my friend in front of the church. I asked, "This is a long shot, but, did you happen to know Medgar Evers in Jackson before moving to Newark?" My friend suddenly stopped his work, looked up as tears began flowing down his cheeks and said, "He was my neighbor." I suddenly was confronted with my ignorance of the deep pain others had experienced while I attended wonderful chapel services, made my first attempts at preaching and started a family. Most easy replies to complex problems were stripped away. Ideally, they would all be gone now, but I lapse back into carelessness, forgetting that there is only One who knows all that is needed to bring sanity out of craziness, peace out of turmoil and compassion away from bigotry.
Our nation again is in the throes of revisiting perceived and real inequities. Our President is weighing in on the results of a recent trial. Activists are demanding all sorts of responses. Political and financial dynamics are in play as much today as when I slept through challenges processed decades several ago. As events unfold this time, I am a more attentive observer. I cringe as I hear echos of past angers and divisive threats. My prayers are more humble than ever as I express my lack of understanding and plead for God to do something by His Spirit in me and in the unseen realm that will rescue us from another season of chaos and inertia.
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