It was 1954. My letter appeared in the Richmond, Virginia, morning newspaper decrying the recent Supreme Court decision ending “separate but equal” schools. I wanted to be with my own kind; Negroes felt the same way, I said confidently.
It was 1979. My wife and I joined the NAACP-sponsored march down the main street of the capital city of South Carolina. We stood before the capitol, which flew the Confederate flag alongside the national and state flags. “Why are you here?” a reporter asked, noting that only a few whites had joined the march. “We’re here because we support the NAACP in its quest for racial justice in our country,” I responded.
It was March 2000. At Ozark Christian College, where I currently serve as librarian, we had just completed our third annual Racial Reconciliation Week. I, along with faculty colleagues, had helped produce James Weldon Johnson’s “God’s Trombones” and a dramatic presentation of Bishop Joseph Johnson’s magnificent vision of Revelation 7:9, as recorded in his book, The Soul of the Black Preacher. A black chaplain from the Missouri state prison would follow with a stirring call to action. “We gotta go through!” he said, referring to Jesus’ compulsion to go through Samaria where he ministered despite cultural, gender, and racial differences.
It was Easter Sunday, 2000. That morning I preached to the saints gathered at the Handy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Joplin, Missouri, a tiny congregation that I had volunteered to serve as a pulpit-supply preacher. That Sunday, I talked about Jesus from Revelation 4 and 5: Where is he today, and what is he doing? The congregation was generous and loving in their response to this white preacher’s earnest, albeit very vanilla, effort.
Becoming a reconciler
What produced such a change? The cry for racial justice was not heard during my youth in Virginia. The last lynching in Virginia occurred in 1921 about one mile from my father’s house, where my aunt lives today. I visited that spot with my uncle. I asked, “Was my father among the scores of men here that night?” He said he probably was. My memory flashed back to a time when my mother showed me a picture of that lynching which she had hidden away in an old trunk. She told me that I must never tell anyone I had seen the photograph.
Southside Virginia, where I lived, was close to 50 percent black. We engaged in the typical segregationist practices of that day in our schools, theaters, and neighborhoods.
I recall the first time I broke a cardinal rule of Jim Crow society and addressed a black man as “Mister,” doing so in the presence of my mother. She scolded me.
“Call them by their first names,” she said.
Shortly after, I left home to attend a Christian liberal arts college in Richmond. Later I would attend a Bible college in Florida. Not once during those educational experiences did anyone decry racial prejudice or racism. The “rightness of whiteness” was never challenged.
I entered the gospel ministry with my prejudices intact. I recall sitting in a ministerial meeting in Marion, North Carolina, where a local “liberal” minister suggested the creation of a biracial committee to handle local tensions. The chair called for a second to the motion. I remained silent, as did the rest. I feared the personal and professional consequences of merely seconding his motion.
I also recall preaching on the Sunday following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I had heard the commotion that followed his death—glass breaking, sirens howling, the yelling, all just a few blocks from my home. But I was silent that morning. I feared the elders. One elder, in particular, did not believe Negroes had souls. And he was not ashamed to share that opinion.
Seeing the need for further training, I entered Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. It was there that I first realized that God was working on my heart concerning the race issue through both professors and students.
I could not help noticing a student named Merle. Merle associated with blacks. He attended a black church. Blacks visited his apartment. He lost his job driving a school bus because of his relationship with the black community.
I left Kentucky and moved to New York City—quite a change for a small-town Southern boy. While living in Manhattan, I visited Merle, who had moved to Harlem to become an associate minister in a large black church. Again I could not ignore his bold commitment to multiracial ministry.
A church in Brooklyn, mostly black, invited me to be their supply preacher. The several months there were formative for me.
I quickly learned how to adjust my style of preaching and relating to people to fit my new environment. I found myself preaching differently from the typical conversational style of most white preachers. I tried to bring energy to my effort, building in cadence and allowing time for response from the congregation. I also attempted to have a strong closing, which did not “dribble down” into an invitation. While the congregation was not accustomed to a “whooping” style (the sing-song form of delivery that often provides the climax for many black sermons), I did not feel I could just speak conversationally and get by.
While avoiding anything that might be interpreted as mimicking a traditional black preacher, I simply aimed to be true to myself with the understanding that there was always room for a little more passion in my delivery.
Learning sovereignty, and rejection
Later my wife and I moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where I took a position in the library of a Bible college.
A call came to the college asking for a Bible teacher to come to a local black church to teach an evening Bible class. I volunteered. A temporary role turned into a three-year assignment.
That assignment led to a new church relationship. After several months, we made the decision to join the church. It was a church founded by freed slaves who had pulled out of a prestigious “first church” in that capital city. We were the church’s first white members.
It was a formative decision. I came to a new appreciation of the sovereignty of God as celebrated in black congregations.
We also experienced rejection. When we joined the choir, we overheard one woman say, “They don’t belong here.” One usher avoided speaking to us for the entire time we were there, turning his back when we approached. This was good for me. It helped me to experience the rejection that this man had been experiencing from whites all his life. I needed that education.
From conviction to action
Healthy cross-cultural ministry comes about through developing relationships. Those relationships can only come about with the passage of time and with time spent together.
I’ve come to realize that whites have to avoid “taking charge.” We are so prone to doing that. We also must avoid the perception that we are going in to “help.” Rather, we should understand that we are going to be helped by our black brothers and sisters.
Whites must come to genuinely appreciate black church traditions and expressions of worship and ministry. The white way is not always the right way.
As a white Christian, I lay most of the burden on whites for successful multiracial ministry. At the same time, our black brothers and sisters must give us a chance to earn their trust.
Relationships across racial lines must be based on understanding and empathy. Guilt and pity are the worst possible grounds for such relationships. You might ask: “How do I make friends cross-culturally?” My answer: How do you make friends with anyone? That’s how you make friends cross-culturally. Go in humility, be willing to learn, earn trust, give it time—and relationships will develop.
I needed to develop an understanding and appreciation for African-American history and culture. One way I did this was to read books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X, or the marvelous biography of the late Medgar Evers by his wife, Myrlie, or the writings of evangelicals like Tom Skinner and John Perkins.
And nowadays, one can go on the Internet to view sites like www.Africana.com.
First steps
Newsweek in 1989 reported that racism is still the biggest domestic issue of all. But it continues to be under-addressed. Too few ministers and Christian writers include racism on their lists when naming the social ills facing our nation.
A first step toward reconciliation is putting it on our agendas, and into our sermons and Bible-study lessons. As Christ’s ambassadors, we must be faithful to expose racial insensitivity and disrespect when we see it, to challenge racial stereotyping in conversations, in jokes, and in sermon illustrations, to speak against racial injustice wherever we find it, and to take action to make racial reconciliation a reality whenever possible.
How do you take action? I can speak only from my personal experience. Here are a few ways I have tried to be faithful to the call of justice and reconciliation.
- At two colleges where I served, I was instrumental (along with others) in bringing to fruition annual Black History Month observances.
- When one of the most popular preachers in our denomination made a remark about “watermelon music” during a sermon, I took exception. I wrote him a letter, which he followed up by a phone call, offering a weak apology but never really owning up to the racial perceptions reflected in his remark.
- I have written letters to several newspapers and magazines, either commending or bemoaning issues as they relate to race relations in the community and nation.
- Periodically, I post or distribute to our faculty and students articles addressing racial issues.
- I promoted the Birmingham Pledge to our students and faculty. Over 200 persons signed the declaration, which committed them to racial reconciliation.
These are small steps, but they begin to translate convictions into actions.
The church needs God’s viewpoint on justice. We must read the Old Testament prophets for more than the fueling of millennial speculation; we must read to understand God’s great compassion for the poor and those being treated unjustly. We must ask for the help of our brothers and sisters of color in fully understanding God’s Word. We must pray for God’s power to break down the walls that separate us.
I don’t tell my story to lay a guilt trip on anyone. We are not responsible for what happened 200 years ago. We are responsible, however, for what happens today.
William Fraher Abernathy is librarian at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri, and an ordained minister.w_abernathy@hotmail.com
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