50th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre

21 March 1960. Remember.

I'm still here, just writing...

... and editing, in those rare summer moments of quiet and solitude of which I get so little during the year.

Also mowing the lawn, griping about muggy weather, and enjoying being with my cat and my congregation again.

On Saturday, I chaired my last meeting (as Chair - I'm staying on the committee) of the Bishop's Committee for Racial Justice and Reconciliation of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.

And then of course there are naps. And the bureaucracy ye shall have always with you.

I still plan to write here about Halifax, about which I continue to think fond thoughts.

Patience, my turtledoves.

Hiroshige, "Tree of Good Writing." More info here.

April 4: two MLK anniversaries and a third, with the Freedom Seder

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 3, 1968, before MLK gave the last speech of his life. Photo: Ken Ross via American RadioWorks. He was assassinated the following day.


Today is the anniversary of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.

It is also the anniversary of the "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech which he gave exactly a year before, on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City.

Although I have posted the speech before, I post it here again for those who have not read or hear it. The link includes audio as well as transcript text. The speech is long but well worth pondering.

A good feature on the last year of King's life (the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, the Memphis sanitation workers' strike, et al.) is here, courtesy of American RadioWorks. It includes both text and audio.

And, with thanks to my colleague the Rev. Susan Redfern Spencer (also here), via Facebook, the note below from the Shalom Center and YouTube video:

On April 4, 1969, the first anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, the third night of Passover, hundreds of people of varied racial and religious communities gathered in a Black church in the heart of Washington DC to celebrate the original Freedom Seder. For the first time, it intertwined the ancient story of liberation from Pharaoh with the story of Black America's struggle for liberation, and the liberation of other peoples as well.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Seder and to address one of the greatest dangers ever to face the human race --the danger of "global scorching" worse than the traditional "Ten Plagues"-- The Shalom Center has initiated a New Freedom Seder for the Earth was scheduled to sponsor it in Washington DC on March 29, 2009. Here is more information on the original Freedom Seder and the New Freedom Seder for the Earth. (You can download the text of the Seder for the Earth at that last link.)

Journey of Reconciliation: the first "freedom ride" - in 1947! Commemorations in Chapel Hill.

I received this letter a few days ago from the Fellowship of Reconciliation:

Did you know that the first civil rights "freedom ride" took place in 1947, fourteen years before the 1961 riders captured the nation's attention by exposing the brutality of Jim Crow in the South? The Journey of Reconciliation was organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which was born at FOR, and was led by FOR staff members Bayard Rustin and George Houser.

The interracial group of nine men on the Journey of Reconciliation set out from Washington, D.C. on April 9th, 1947. They met some resistance from passengers and drivers on buses in Virginia and North Carolina. But when they attempted to sit at the front of a bus in Chapel Hill on April 12th, the driver refused, and removed some of the riders by force. They were then attacked by angry cab drivers at the Chapel Hill bus station, and arrested by local police. Their subsequent time serving on a chain gang led Rustin to write about the experience. His serialized journal led to major reforms in the North Carolina prison system.

[Note from Jane: For a much earlier post on Bayard Rustin, see here.]

There are so many fascinating parts of this story. Please read this narrative by a local historian to learn more about the context and outcome of this journey.

Next week, a state historic marker will be installed in Chapel Hill to commemorate the Journey of Reconciliation. The event will be an opportunity to remember the horrors of Jim Crow past, and to look forward at the racial justice challenges of our future. I hope you can join me at one or more of these events in Chapel Hill. If not, perhaps you can show your support by making a donation to FOR in honor of the first freedom ride . Click the titles below to learn more and RSVP for these events.

Thursday 2/26, 7 pm: Screening & discussion: "You Don't have to Ride Jim Crow." Watch the documentary and discuss Chapel Hill's civil rights history with filmmaker Robin Washington. Sponsored by FOR and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP.

Friday 2/27, time TBA: Nonviolent direct action organizing, then and now . A discussion of old tactics and new frontiers with Robin Washington. Sponsored by FOR.

Saturday 2/28, noon: Day of Commemoration and Re-dedication . Freedom Riders in Chapel Hill 1947-2009: The Struggle for Racial Justice Continues. Sponsored by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and the Community Church, with support from the Town of Chapel Hill.

I am helping to organize these events because I believe in the power of nonviolent direct action to bring about justice. I want others to remember this powerful legacy and to be inspired about the change we can continue to make happen today. I hope you will join me in Chapel Hill.

Peace,

Ruby Sinreich

Communications Co-Director

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Chapel Hill, N.C.

Fellowship of Reconciliation • 521 N. Broadway • Nyack, New York 10960 • 845-358-4601 • http://forusa.org/

Cross-posted at Race, Justice, and Love.

A note on the reactions to the death of John Updike (R.I.P.)

This isn't really about John Updike, may he rest in peace, but about the descriptions of John Updike on the radio.

I found myself yelling at the radio this morning. Yes, me, yelling at my blessed NPR shows in the car on the short drive to work.

Updike was a great writer, no doubt about it, and an art critic and thinker and many other things. So this isn't a dissing of Updike.

What is getting to me is how everyone is speaking of him as a writer about (the United States of) America, American post-war life, the American middle.

Excuse me?!

Updike wrote about white American post-war life.

Of course, he wrote about other things too. I have had his novel about a fictional African country, The Coup, on my shelf for years and have been meaning to read it, and I will read it in memory of him. Updike was, as one critic said, kaleidoscopic.

But Rabbit is not (the U.S. of) America.

Is Rabbit a part of it? Of course. A significant part of it? Of course. The whole story? No. "Representative" (of the whole story)? No.

We are so (as the kids would say) not out of the era of white privilege.

If we're going to name the fact that people are chroniclers of Jewish life or Black life in these United States, then let's name the fact that people are chroniclers of White or White Protestant life in the United States. (Or, for that matter, of the U.S. white middle class, or of middle-class Northern men.)

Either that or I want the obits for Toni Morrison (long may she live and continue to write) to say as much as the obits for Updike that she wrote the Great American Novel.

'Cause if you think that slavery and its aftermath or love and work in Harlem or the U.S. South have not been as American as apple pie and as the life of suburban white businessmen, you are still thinking of white America as normative --as the rule, the standard, the "normal"-- and the rest of these United States as the exception or the other.

White privilege is not just present in what we do or in what happens to us, but in how we think and how we speak. *

Think about it.

*See, for instance, re: the American novel, item 7 in the list on the document at the "white privilege" link above.

Also on "Talk of the Nation:" MLK's challenging words

If anyone still lives under the delusion that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. only spoke of holding hands and singing Kumbaya, that person would do well to listen to the final segment (twenty minutes before the hour, mas o menos) of "Talk of the Nation." The show mentioned below offers to us one of Dr. King's most eloquent speeches.

It is the "I Have a Dream" speech, but in full, with the criticism and prophecy -- not just the final few sentences everyone knows and quotes.

Listen. Listen.

The speech is also available here. It will be up at NPR via the link above (the green words) this evening.

"We Are One" online

HBO rebroadcast of this afternoon's "We Are One" event at the Lincoln Memorial (an American liturgy if I ever saw one) is supposed to be free on HBO, but it isn't on my TV. You can watch it online, as I am right now. (Tom Hanks has just read the words of Lincoln. Marisa Tomei is on right now.) And here comes my man James Taylor. Watch here. You can watch anytime. This is also good if you are not in the U.S.

Enjoy.

+Gene Robinson's prayer wasn't included in the broadcast, but you can read it here.