Through the years, I have been blessed to receive many more
honors and awards than I deserve. Each
one has been special and I have always been humbled and grateful. But two weeks ago, I received one of the
greatest honors of my life when I was asked to speak at the annual NAACP Freedom
Fund Banquet. The NAACP went “outside the box” as President Elder Gloria Cross
stated by asking a white person to speak.
That in itself was humbling, but the greatest blessing was experiencing
the power of love, acceptance, and equality that permeated the packed YMCA
Banquet Hall on this memorable night.
I have tried to
be an advocate for racial equality throughout my ministry. But I have always realized that while I can
sympathize with minorities and people of color who continue to experience
discrimination and oppression, I cannot truly empathize with them, because I am
a white man. I cannot know what it is
like to be black.
I grew up in a
nice brick house on Main Street, a street two of my best friends were not
allowed to walk on because it wasn’t “proper” in our little Alabama town. My two friends lived on the other side of a
path that cut through some bushes on the backside of our property. The bushes served as a dividing line between
the white side of town and the black. At
the banquet I shared what it was like to grow up “on the other side of the
path.”
I recalled how
scared I was as an 8-year old boy who witnessed people filled with anger and
hatred being worked into a frenzy by George Wallace with his venomous and
vitriolic rants on segregation. I told
about a store owner who grabbed me and shook me, demanding to know what I was
doing with two black boys, my two good friends who lived on the other side of
the path. I remember sitting in a barber’s
chair while the barber bragged about carrying a gun to church to keep the
blacks out. And then there was the
school principal.
In an effort to
circumvent the federal mandate on integration, the state offered what they
called “freedom of choice” to students.
Ostensibly, the student could decide where he or she wanted to go to
school. I decided I wanted to attend the
“Training School” on the other side of the path. My friends went there and it was a short walk
from the path behind my house. I
confessed I failed to tell my mother about this and when I came home from
school that day she was shaken, but not from my wish to attend the black
school. The principal had called her up
and chewed her out, asking if she had lost her everlasting mind wanting to send
her son to a ---- school!
I shared these experiences and
more that night at the banquet. I
concluded by telling about standing at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
one morning. As I reflected on the
58,000 names in front of me, my first thought was “but by the grace of
God.” Yes, my name could have easily
been on that wall if I had not gone to college.
But then it hit me that it wasn’t just the grace of God that spared me;
it was because I lived on the other side of the path. My family could afford to send me to college
which deferred my being drafted. When I
finished college the draft had ended and the war was winding down.
But my friend James, who lived on
the other side of the path—he could not afford college. He went to Vietnam. His name is on the wall.
I shared these life experiences
from deep within my heart. As I did, an
amazing thing happened. I don’t know
that I have ever felt such a dynamic connection with an audience. As I was speaking from the raw pain of my
experience, people were responding from the raw pain of theirs. The atmosphere was electric and powerful as
God’s Sprit descended with love and grace and God’s people were lifted up with
hearts of healing and redemption.
I was truly blessed beyond
measure!
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