DELIVERED BY THE REVEREND HAROLD T. LEWIS, Ph.D.,
D.D., D.C.L.
RECTOR, CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL, BURLINGTON,
VERMONT
FRIDAY 17 JANUARY 2003
Good evening. It is great pleasure and privilege it is to be here tonight,
to have the honor of delivering the Kendig Brubaker
Cully / Christian Century Lecture. I am grateful to Dean Poppe,
Canon Wallace, and all the organizers of this event. You have
profoundly humbled me and my friends will tell you that that is no small
feat. First, I was overwhelmed by the unprecedented
publicity I received in The Christian Century, which forced me immediately
to do something I should have done long ago ---
and that is, to subscribe to that excellent publication. Second, I am honored
that you have found my writings and hymns useful
as you have contemplated how we as Christians can best combat the sin of
racism in church and society. It is heartening to
learn that my experiences, which were incorporated into the Advent Study
Guide, might have been of some assistance to the
people of this community in their pilgrimage. In preparation for coming
here, I reread everything that I had written, as it
occurred to me that you all are probably more familiar with my writings
than I am! Seriously, I do want to commend you for
your dedicated and assiduous work on the issue of racism, which receives,
sad to say, far less attention than it merits.
Perhaps a good place to start would be to explain the title I have
chosen for this lecture: "Whatever happened to racism?" I have
chosen it because I believe that racism is no longer at the forefront of
the American consciousness. In fact, anyone in this
audience thirty years of age or younger never knew a time when it was.
America's consciousness --- and conscience about
racism lasted for a period between mattins and evensong on a Wednesday
in the mid-sixties. That day, America woke up to
the morning news and was treated, as it were, to a mosaic newsreel that
showed Bull Connor hosing Negro --- and white ---
demonstrators in Birmingham, and Governor Wallace standing in the schoolhouse
door in Alabama. That morning, America
saw black girls in Little Rock walking to school escorted by Federal troops,
and a tired African American seamstress sitting in
the wrong section of a bus in Montgomery. That morning, America heard a
Baptist preacher address multitudes in the nation's
capital, a preacher who had the temerity to dream of a day when people
would be judged for the content of their character and
not the color of their skin --- a radical thought, indeed.
That day's newsreel showed students from North Carolina A&T being
bodily evicted from Woolworth's for asking for a cold
drink at a soda fountain in Greensboro. America might even have seen me
on the newsreel that morning, being carried by
members of New York's Finest into a police wagon, and off to jail (thankfully,
that was about fifty pounds ago when that
would not have been so arduous a task!) because I was part of a group who
had protested against discrimination in hiring at
a construction site in Brooklyn, New York. The next image to flash before
America's eyes that morning was of the corpses of
"outside agitators" from the North, including an Episcopal seminarian
from Cambridge, Massachusetts, who had dared to
suggest to blacks south of the Mason-Dixon Line that they, too, had the
right to vote. That day America also saw the charred
bodies of four little girls in their Sunday finery, who had been on their
way to Sunday school when a bomb cut short their
innocent lives.
As the nation paused at noon that day to listen as church bells rang
the Angelus, America, shocked, saddened, repulsed, and
guilt-ridden, rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Legislation was passed
that afternoon to make it possible for blacks and
other racial minorities to use public conveyances. "Colored only"
signs were taken down from rest rooms and fountains.
Institutions of learning, from nursery schools to graduate schools, flung
wide their portals, and, moreover, scholarships were
awarded to enable blacks to have access to quality education. More legislation
was passed, enabling African Americans to
exercise their franchise at the polls. Unions let in black workers. The
removal of "covenants" made it possible for minorities to
move into neighborhoods previously off-limits, and banks for the first
time made money available to them for mortgages.
By the time the ruffle-collared choirboys in the Cathedral of St. John
the Divine had finished singing the Magnpicat that
afternoon, their treble voices enunciating our Lady's revolutionary words
"He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and
hath exalted the humble and meek," America breathed a sigh of relief
American ingenuity had fixed the problem. Racism
had been done away with, once and for all --- and, perhaps even more important,
America's guilt had been assuaged. God
was in His heaven, and all was right with the world. I trust you will excuse
me for describing in this most circuitous fashion
that the first reason racism is no longer on the American radar screen
is that there is a widely cherished belief that racism in
America is a pre-Civil Rights Movement phenomenon.
The second reason that racism is not part of the American consciousness
is discomfort. Most definitions of racism describe
it as, for example, "prejudice plus power." In other words, racism
is not merely the act of thinking ill of, or superior to,
another racial group. Rather, it manifests itself when the group in power
uses its clout to subjugate the group it deems inferior,
when it has, in other words, the ability to effect a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Since guilt died on that Wednesday in the Sixties,
whites in America, in whose hands most power still resides, are loath to
admit to any culpability in the matter. And a younger
generation of whites claims it is not their problem, since they should
be held blameless for the sins of their fathers. The fact that
they are beneficiaries of the legacy of a racist history presumably has
not occurred to them. Such denial has led, in my opinion,
to the invention of"multiculturalism," through which it is possible
to celebrate the varied gifts of each ethnic group's experiences,
while pretending that racism and the pain it has inflicted on racial minorities
were entirely absent from the picture. I call this the "you-sing-my-spiritual-I-eat
your-taco" syndrome.
The third reason for the absence of racism from the psyche of twenty-first
century America is that we choose so often to label
as racist only extreme, overt and virulent acts, such as Ku Klux Klan cross-burnings.
We find it far more difficult to recognize
racism in its subtler but no less invidious forms. Several years ago, the
Klan marched on Pittsburgh. There were perhaps a few
dozen Klansmen who participated in the event, but they attracted thousands
of protesting demonstrators. The next day's
Post-Gazette carried several photos of blacks and whites embracing
each other, thereby demonstrating to all the world the great
gulf fixed between them and the Klan. The caption for these photographs,
if I may make a minor change in the words of the
Pharisee in Luke's Gospel, could have been: "God, I thank thee that
I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,
or even like this Klansman. Some of my best friends are Negroes. I give
to the NAACP." While the public displays of affection
between blacks and whites might well have been genuine, it was superficial.
The real question was whether the blacks in the
photos enjoyed equal opportunity in the job and housing markets, and whether
they would be considered for board membership
in Pittsburgh's major corporations.
But lastly, I have chosen the title "Whatever happened to racism?"
because I believe it bears especial relevance to the way the
church in general, and the Episcopal Church in particular, has treated
the problem. The decade I spent on the Presiding Bishop's
staff taught me that our church can be like a fickle lover. We have a remarkable
propensity to embrace the "cause dujour." And
each age ushers in its own cause. We have purported, at various junctures
in the church's history, to deal with racism by the
establishment of a "committee on the status of the Negro," an
"audit" conducted by General Convention, or by a collection of
platitudinous statements promulgated by the House of Bishops, and then
we run off to the next issue. The well-meaning
Episcopalian needs a score card in order to figure out which group is "in"
in a given season. It could be women, or Native
Americans, or the physically challenged, for example. And our current preoccupation
with the matter of human sexuality
virtually ensures that racism will be a back-burner issue for some time
to come. But WI may belabor the metaphor, back-burner
pots do continue to cook; the only problem is that they receive less attention
--- that is, of course, until they start to boil over.
The race pot has boiled over periodically in the four centuries that Anglicanism
has been on these shores, and each time, true to
form, the Episcopal Church has managed to turn down the heat. Let me offer
a random sampling of such occurrences, citing
an incident from each of the past three centuries.
In the early eighteenth century, Southern planters expressed a concern
that since the Baptismal rite contained the rather
unfortunate word, "freedom," slaves might get the mistaken impression
that the administration of the sacrament was
tantamount to manumission. The Bishop of London, when asked to rule on
the matter, dispelled the concerns of his
slave-holding flock, declaring that "Christianity, and the embracing
of the Gospel, does not make the least alteration in
civil property,... and as to their outward condition, whether bond or free,
their being baptized, and becoming Christians,
make no manner of change in it." [1]
Another example: The Episcopal Church has long boasted that unlike
their Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist brethren,
Episcopalians did not split into northern and southern denominations over
the slavery issue at the time of the Civil War.
But this is not entirely true. Bishop Leonidas Polk of Louisiana (who became
a general in the Civil War and died in battle
defending slavery) and his counterpart in Georgia, Stephen Elliott, duly
organized the Episcopal Church of the Confederacy
in 1862, describing the institution of slavery as one of "those sacred
relations which God has created, and which man cannot,
consistently with Christianity, annul."[2] Northern Episcopalians,
wishing not to be involved in a "political issue," simply
refused to recognize the secession. At the General Conventions of 1862
and 1865, the names of the confederate dioceses
were dutifully read when the roll was called, and were simply declared
"absent" when there was no response. Like Hyacinth
Bucket (which she insists on pronouncing "Bouquet") in the British
sitcom, the Episcopal Church has long been adept at
"keeping up appearances."
If we examine the role of the Episcopal Church in more recent history,
we note, as church historiographer John Booty has
observed, that in the civil rights movement, "Episcopalians were joked
out of their complacency." [3] As another church
historian has observed, "As long as a relative calm blanketed black-white
relationships in the U.S., the Church acquiesced
in and tacitly approved a de facto segregated church in a segregated
society." But when such relationships no longer conformed
to the mores of society, the church, exhibiting its chameleon-like qualities,
became an advocate for racial equality. [4] Indeed,
it was only after the Brown vs.Board of Education decision in 1954,
that the Church gradually began to adopt an integrationist
policy in its own schools, camps, parishes, and other institutions. In
fact, the General Convention of 1955 (held in Honolulu
because the Diocese of Texas could not guarantee housing for African American
deputies in its see city of Houston) passed
a resolution urging Episcopalians "to accept and support the ruling
of the Supreme Court... and to anticipate constructively
the local implementation of this ruling as the law of the land." It
is a source of disappointment to us that the church, ever
the "non-prophet organization," did not hold up an example for
race relations which the nation could follow, but instead
followed the example held up by the nation. The Cross of Jesus, in this
case, was not understood as "going on before,"
s the hymn reminds us, but was seen instead bringing up the rear! In the
Church's defense, however, the same resolution
contained these words: "Discrimination and segregation are contrary
to the mind of Christ and the will of God."
My sisters and brothers, in this theological utterance, the Episcopal
Church recognized one important fact. The Christian
must be an anti-racist, not because such a position is politically correct
or socially expedient, but because racism is sin.
This week, we observe Martin Luther King's birthday, and this year, the
fortieth anniversary of the delivery of his famous
"I have a dream" speech. Dr. King was killed because, as an old
saying goes, "he left preachin' and went to meddlin' ."
Listen to the words of the speech he delivered when he received the Nobel
Peace Prize, words which are timely, indeed, as
America steels herseW even as we speak, for the very real possibility of
war against Iraq:
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to
the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright
daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I refuse
to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation
must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear
destruction. [5]
To Dr. King, racism and war were two sides of the same ideological
coin, because he believed that "racism is a philosophy
based on a contempt for life. It is the arrogant assertion that one race
is the center of value and the objection of devotion."
Dr. King believed that "racism is total estrangement. It separates
not only bodies but minds and spirits. Inevitably, it
descends to inflicting spiritual and physical homicide upon the outgroup."
[6] Attacking racism at its roots, therefore, to
Dr. King, was the surest method of ensuring world peace. Racism to Martin
Luther King, then, was no mere philosophical
tenet; it was for him a profound theological problem. He firmly believed
that because racism denies the dignity of every
human being as a child of God, because racism precludes the possibility
of our loving our neighbor as ourselves, that
racism is sin.
Dr. King's remarks are echoed in the words of another Nobel Peace laureate,
dear to Episcopalians, Archbishop Desmond
Tutu. In a sermon at the Episcopal Divinity School, the Archbishop, who
had valiantly led the fight against apartheid in South
Africa, and who later, as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
was instrumental in bringing about the healing of
that nation, not only declared racism to be incompatible with the message
of the Gospel, but described it an evil so egregious
that the Christian is morally bound to combat it. He said:
Racism is the ultimate blasphemy because it could make a child of God
doubt that she or he was a child of God. Racism is
never benign and conventional or acceptable, for it is racism that resulted
in the awfulness of lynchings and the excesses of
slavery; it spawned the Holocaust and apartheid and was responsible for
ethnic cleansing. People of faith cannot be neutral
on this issue. To stand on the sidelines is to be disobedient to the God
who said we are created, all of us, in this God's image. [7]
The American predilection toward turning the heat down on the pot of
racism, always simmering, and occasionally boiling
over on the back burner, can be seen in the recent debacle produced, directed
and orchestrated by the Honorable Trent Lott,
senior senator from Mississippi. The reason that Mr. Lott was prevented
from assuming the post he had worked so
indefatigably to achieve, that of Senate majority leader, is that he did
not play by the rules. According to those rules, America's
official story is that racism is dead. It was a pre-Civil Rights Movement
aberration in "the land of the free and the home of the
brave." The present Administration had gone to great lengths to prove
that the "party of Lincoln" is squarely behind equal rights
for all citizens and their equal access to positions of power. It was widely
held that the large number of blacks who participated
in the Republican National Convention, providing both entertainment and
testimony, was grossly disproportionate to the relatively
paltry number of African Americans who are registered Republicans. Many
observers described that ploy as transparent; not a
few described it as a minstrel show. Yet it proved to be more effective
in the long run than a rather protracted kiss between the
then incumbent vice-president and his wife. Moreover, the appointment of
Cohn Powell as Secretary of State and Condoleezza
Rice as national security advisor were intended to send the message that
African Americans could aspire to and be accepted in
the most prestigious positions in the land.
It took a few days to sink in, but it became abundantly clear to the
powers-that-be that not even the most skillful spin doctors
could heal the wound to the party inflicted by Mr. Lott's statement at
Senator Strom Thurmond's one hundredth birthday party.
In that statement, Mr. Lou said that the nation would have been better
off, indeed that the nation "would not have had all these
problems over all these years" had they voted for Mr. Thurmond in
1948, when he ran for President on an overtly
segregationist platform. The reason it took so long to sink in (the Senate
minority leader condemned the remarks five days
after their utterance and the President so the day after that) is that
it confronted America with a truth it was unwilling to accept,
a truth immortalized by William Faulkner in his oft-quoted dictum: "The
past is never dead. It's not even past." Quite frankly,
America was into denial, and Mr. Lott blew our cover. He had to go! The
New York Times, commenting on the incident and
its aftermath put it this way:
Americans often tend to sanitize their past, smooth the edges, develop
a happy amnesia about the hardest parts, particularly
when the subject is race. In the culture at large, the story of civil rights
has become a simple morality tale of a great wrong
righted by a just people through the intercession of the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. But historians say the agonizing
struggle and chaos of that era. . . gets overlooked. [8]
One of the sad ironies of Mr. Lott's fall from grace is that it was
not due to his own record on race relations, which many
believe should have been cause enough to preclude the possibility of his
becoming majority leader in the first place. It was
that his remarks, which were interpreted as espousing a racist agenda,
proved to be a political liability. The older I get, the
more I believe that politics takes its cue from Madison Avenue. Political
statements are commodities. The trick for
politicians is to determine just how much the traffic will bear. The pricing
of most commodities, including political
statements, has less to do with their intrinsic worth than they do with
how much the retailer can get away with. Everybody
knows, for example, that at Tiffany & Co., we don't seem to mind if
we pay as much for the famous blue box with its
perfectly tied satin ribbon as we do for its contents. Likewise, spin doctors
advise those in power just how much the public
is willing to pay, as it were, for a particular statement. Mr. Lott misjudged
his public, and his packaging was all wrong.
In this connection, for example, it is interesting that the President,
who was quick to condemn Senator Lott for statements
deemed incompatible with what our nation stands for, has only this week
weighed in, in connection with the upcoming
Supreme Court case concerning the extent to which the University of Michigan
uses race as a factor in its admissions
policies. Moreover, Mr. Bush has asked the Justice Department to draw up
a brief declaring those practices to be
unconstitutional. If the Administration were truly anti-racist, would it
not applaud practices which serve as a corrective to
a centuries-old affirmative action policy whose sole beneficiaries have
been white males? (A cursory glance through the
yearbooks of any prestigious prep school or Ivy League university before
the early Sixties or so will give credence to this
allegation.) If the Administration were anti-racist, would it not support
a program which seeks to achieve diversity in the
student body, so that the law school, for example, could be more representative
of the nation on the whole? The flawed
reasoning of the conservative element to whom the President is pandering
is that academic achievement is the only valid
criterion to be used in the admissions policies of our nation's colleges
and universities. But the same persons who oppose
race as a criterion for admission, would be irate if their own children's
chances of admission could not be enhanced by
legacy, which favors the sons and daughters of alumni, or athletic prowess,
which favors those who will help the
university's football or basketball team to achieve prominence, which in
turn has a favorable effect on the munificence
of alumni.
A comparison of the Administration's treatment of these two recent
matters concerning race goes a long way toward
answering our question, "Whatever happened to racism?" The President,
it would appear, is safe in his condemnation of
a senator's ill-chosen words which would give the impression that
the Administration is racist. But the same President is
in hot water if he is seen to endorse a university's policy which would
have the effect of eliminating racism. How can both
of these be true? These statements can coexist because the President is
not committed to any systemic change in America
that would result in the uplift of minorities, his castigating remarks
about Mr. Lott' s statement notwithstanding. His sole
concern was the loss of a well-cultivated image --- and therefore of votes
---- which the party would suffer. Likewise, the
constituents to whom the President is truly committed would be lost if
he were seen to espouse cases which would
ultimately result in those constituents' loss of power. For loss of power
is the logical consequence of ceding, or sharing
power, and it is such a loss of power and privilege which is at the basis
of the assertion of the three white students who
brought the suit against the University of Michigan.
Far from being an advocate of the rights of racial minorities, then,
the Administration is in fact contemptuous of them,
for it is apparently impervious to the criticism from minority groups that
its actions are duplicitous. Whatever happened
to racism? It seems to have become relegated to the status of something
which everyone agrees is evil, an evil to which
everyone pays lip service, but which the powers-that-be are unwilling to
try to eradicate, especially if such attempts at
eradication results in a loss in their power, prestige or preeminence.
The problem with such analyses, dealing as they do with Presidential
policies, senatorial gaffes and Supreme Court
decisions, is that we can lose sight of the myriad ways that racism rears
its head on a daily basis. When I worked at
the national church headquarters in New York, we had a racism awareness
day. The facilitators asked us to divide
ourselves into two groups --- white and people of color. The assignment
was to discuss the extent to which we think
about race in a given day. The white group came back, and basically reported
that they didn't give their race a thought,
except perhaps in those very rare occasions when they found themselves
in a decided minority. Everything in society
reinforced their identity, from TV shows to billboards. The people of color,
on the other hand, reported that they were
consistently reminded that their race might be a factor, in hailing a taxi,
shopping in a store, or interviewing for a job.
My own favorite taxi story (most black men have at least a few) is
about the day I stood in front of the Yale Club of
New York City, where I have been a member for almost 30 years, in basic
black and clerical collar, with my doctoral
robes thrown over my arms. I was in a hurry to get to the New York Theological
Seminary to participate in the faculty
procession at graduation. I was relived when a taxi pulled up to discharge
someone at the club, relieving me of the need
to track one down. The cabbie informed me, however, that he was off duty,
on his way to the garage. I stood there and
watched, when not a half block away, he put out his off-duty sign, and
picked up a white passenger and drove into the
New York traffic. I could tell you about the time I was running late for
a flight to California. I huffed and puffed my
way to the counter, only to be told by the agent that her line was only
for first class passengers. "And what makes you
think I am not in first class?" I asked. She turned scarlet as she
gave me my boarding pass. During the time that I worked
at '815,' and spent a lot of time on the road, my son was a student at
St. Paul's School in New Hampshire. Each August,
the year's schedule arrived, and my wife and I made note of every concert,
rowing meet, and parents' weekend for the
coming year. Claudette's comment to me was "Do try to make all these
events. I don't want to go alone. If a white woman
turns up alone, they will assume her husband is on a business trip, but
if a black woman is alone, they will assume she
has no husband." It was at that School that I had to threaten one
of Justin's teachers with dismissal. In giving a backhanded
compliment to my son for an English assignment in which he excelled in
his class, she unfortunately added "I thought
he must have been on drugs or something!" Examples abound. I would
only add that the medical profession, who used
to believe that the prevalence of hypertension among blacks could be traced
to diet, now concur that it is directly due to the
inherent stress of being black in America.
The fact that racism seems to be so inextricably woven into the fabric
of America can be discouraging. It can send the
message that as individuals were are powerless to effect any change. Nothing
is farther from the truth. Archbishop Tutu
tells the story of a mouse who finds himself in the unenviable position
of having just had a lion sit on his tail. He is
immobilized, and had just about given up hope when a lion happens along.
"Oh, Mr. Lion," he cries, "can you help me?
Mr. Elephant has sat on my tail and I cannot move. If you would just let
out a roar, Mr. Elephant will be startled. He'll
jump up, and I can be released." "I sympathize with your plight,
Mr. Mouse," replied the King of the Jungle. "But as I
see it, the problem is between you and Mr. Elephant." Exasperated,
the mouse replied, "Very well, Mr. Lion, but it seems
to me that you are either part of the problem or part of the solution."
We can all assume the role of the lion who roars. Someone once said
that the most insidious "ism" in our society is neither
racism nor sexism --- but somnambulism. It is when we sleepwalk through
life, failing to speak up and speak out, failing
to take a stand, finding our comfortable perch on the fence, that we aid
and abet the perpetuation of the other "isms." We can
begin to learn the rudiments of roaring and how to dismantle racism from
the Baptismal Covenant.
To proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in
Christ means taking on the Christian's job
description as Jesus himself outlined it in his first sermon in Nazareth:
to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim
release to the captives, to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Lk.
4:18). I have a parishioner who works for a
company that acquires small businesses. When he feels that his company
could be seen as taking unfair advantage of a
client, or that something in the deal is not quite "kosher,"
he raises the ethical implications of the proposed transaction.
The standard response of his colleagues is, "George, don't go church
on us again!" We must be willing to "go church," to
take into the workplace and elsewhere to share the good news we have hopefully
received in church. To do less is to be
derelict on our Christian duty. As someone said, "If you don't stand
for something, you will fall for anything!"
To seek and serve Christ in all persons means that everyone
has a claim on the Gospel, regardless of what he or
she may look like. We are in the season of Epiphany, when we celebrate
the Manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the
Gentiles. And I am reminded that the original Greek word translated "Gentiles"
is ethnoi. Long before the days of political
correctness, it will be remembered, the Wise Men, as representatives of
the ethnoi, were always depicted in different colors,
as an outward and visible sign that our Lord's first official act, even
as a helpless infant, was to show that he came to save
the whole world, and not just the House of Israel into which he was born.
I am reminded, too, of one of the lessons
appointed for the first Sunday after the Epiphany, the day on which we
celebrate the Baptism of our Lord. Peter proclaims:
"In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation
whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted
by Him" (Acts 10:34-35). Peter is saying, in effect, that for the
Christian, water is thicker than blood --- that is the water of
baptism which binds us together is thicker than the blood of race, tribe
or clan. A radical concept, indeed!
To strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect
the dignity of every human being reminds
us of our obligation to strive for what is right for our brothers and sisters.
It reminds us that we are, indeed, our brothers' and
sisters' keepers. It reminds us that if we are indeed the Body of Christ,
all of us suffer if one member suffers. Otherwise put,
none of us can truly enjoy freedom if freedom is denied to one of us. It
calls to mind, as well that God "has made from one
blood every nation to dwell on the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26).
We have seen that the church has had, unfortunately, an historical
propensity to be a chaplain to the status quo and not an
advocate for the oppressed. When it comes to racism and other "isms"
the church has too often fallen into the trap of which
St. Paul warns, of being conformed to this world, instead being
an instrument for the transforming of the world (Rom. 12:2).
My prayer is that each of us, in our witness, may help the church be the
church, so that together we might build up Christ's
kingdom in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free,
neither male nor female, but all one in Christ Jesus"
(Galatians 3:28).
_____________
[1] The Rt. Rev. Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, "To the Masters
and Mistresses of Families in the English Plantations
Abroad," 1727, cited in Harold T. Lewis, Yet With a Steady Beat:
The African American Struggle for Recognition in the
Episcopal Church, Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996,
20.
[2] Joseph Blount Cheshire, The Church in the Confederate States,
New York: Longmans, Green, 1912, 114, cited in
Lewis, 44
[3] John Booty, The Episcopal Church in Crisis, Cambridge, Mass.:
Cowley Publications, 1988, 55, cited in Lewis, 148.
[4] John Kater, "Experiment in Freedom: The Episcopal Church and
the Black Power Movement," Historical Magazine
of the Episcopal Church, March, 1979, 88, cited in Lewis, 148.
[5] Martin Luther King, Jr. Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo,
Norway 10 December 1964.
[6] Martin Luther King, Jr. "The Triple Evils," Where
Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Boston: Beacon
Press, 1967. Dr. King identifies "The Triple Evils" as poverty,
racism and war. He writes: "[They] are forms of violence
that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated, all-inclusive, and
stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community.
When we work to remedy one evil, we affect all evils. The issues change
with the political and social climate of our
nation and world."
[7] Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Absalom Jones Sermon, Episcopal
Divinity School, 6 February 2002
[8] Robin Toner, "A Sanitized Past Comes Back to Haunt Trent Lott
--- and America," The New York Times,
Sunday 15 December 2002, Sec. 4, p.1.