In This New Year, Let’s Respect the Humanity of Everyone

In December, I finished (slightly) revising and updating the 2020 book I wrote primarily for my children and grandchildren, the subtitle of which now is The Story of My Life from My Birth to My 85^th Birthday (1938~2023). My daughter Kathy (who lives nearby) helped in several ways, including doing some proofreading. 

A few times in my book, I used the word Black(s) to refer to African American people. Kathy, who is a teacher of gifted students in the local public school system, said that that terminology should be changed, and referred to the current recommendations of the APA in that regard.

In their style guide for writing, the American Psychological Association (APA) lists some “general principles for reducing bias,” one of which is “be sensitive to labels.” In that regard is this directive: “Acknowledge people’s humanity.” They went on to say,

Choose labels with sensitivity, ensuring that the individuality and humanity of people are respected. Avoid using adjectives as nouns to label people…or labels that equate people with their condition.

Although there are some descendants of enslaved people in this country who reportedly prefer to term Black to African American, I soon agreed with the APA’s guidelines, and with my insightful daughter.

This insight is something I heard more than 60 years ago from Wayne Oates, the professor of my seminary course in Pastoral Counseling.* I have not, though, sufficiently or consistently put that perspective into practice.

I still remember Dr. Oates telling us “preacher boys” (and I don’t remember even one female student in that course I took in 1961 or ’62) that in our work as pastors, we shouldn’t say things like we’re going to visit the sick or the elderly. Rather, we should always refer to them as sick or elderly people.

Oates, who had a Ph.D. in religious psychology, was emphasizing then what the APA is still stressing now: adjectives should not be used as nouns to label people. The humanity of all people should always be recognized.

Even the humanity of our enemies must be affirmed. That is one thing that impressed me when I read the Sojourners article that introduced and included an interview with Ali Abu Awwad, the Palestinian pacifist I wrote about in my previous blog post.** That article begins with these words:

A core principle of nonviolence is recognizing the humanity of your opponent.

Considerable progress has been made in this regard in recent years. In the public media, “slaves” are now usually referred to as enslaved people. Such language choice separates people's identity from their circumstance.

And just the other day, I was surprised to hear a newscaster on the radio refer to “people experiencing homelessness” rather than “the homeless.” That was another example of people’s humanity being emphasized over their current condition.

But what about Awwad’s emphasis on recognizing the humanity of one’s opponents or enemies? It is certainly commendable that as a Palestinian man he can see the humanity of the Israelis who incarcerated him.

Can Israelis or even us in this in country, though, recognize the humanity of Palestinians affiliated with Hamas? It is certainly easier to demonize such people—and the enemy in every war is demonized. That makes it much easier to kill them.

As an advocate of nonviolence, I agree with Awwad’s recognition of the humanity of all people, including enemies. After all, Jesus said to his followers, “…love your enemies and pray for those who harass you” (Matt. 5:44, CEB).

The Hamas fighters are usually called terrorists, and not without reason. But if we follow the guidelines given above, perhaps they should be called “desperate people engaging in terrorism [=the use of intentional violence and fear to achieve political or ideological aims].”

I do not in any way condone the 10/7 violent attacks on Israel. But I do want to affirm their humanity, and that affirmation comes partly from recognizing their legitimate grievances at the way Palestinians have been treated since 1948.  

There is no telling what may happen, in the Levant or the world as a whole, in this new year of 2024. But among other things, let us always endeavor to respect the humanity of all people.

_____

  * In my 10/20/14 blog post I wrote that Wayne Oates was “probably the wisest teacher I ever sat under.”

** Only after making my previous blog post did I learn that Awwad was one of two men awarded this year’s Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development in December. That award was bestowed on Awwad for his “efforts towards a non-violent resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.” That prestigious Peace Prize has been awarded annually since its establishment in 1986. Jimmy Carter was the recipient of it in 1997.

Does Renaming Help Anything?

In last Sunday’s issue of Kansas City Star, the editorial board published an opinion piece titled “Relics of racism belong in museums, not on Kansas City street signs.” That provocative piece called for renaming some of the major streets in Kansas City—but would renaming those streets help anything?

“Kansas City leaders must develop a plan to rid the city once and for all of street names, monuments and other public symbols that honor slaveholders and others who participated in the oppression of Black Kansas Citians and other minorities,” the editors declared.

There has already been some movement in that direction. As the editors wrote that three years ago “Kansas City took the bold step of stripping the name of prominent real estate developer J.C. Nichols from a parkway and fountain near the Country Club Plaza.”*

Now the target is historic—and infamous—Troost Ave., a major north-south street that has long been the dividing line between the affluent part of Kansas City to the west and the economically deprived and racially segregated part of the city to the east.**

The avenue is named after Dr. Benoist Troost (1786~1859), the first physician to reside in Kansas City and an outstanding civic leader. But according to the 1850 Federal Census Slave Schedule, Troost owned six enslaved men and women.

But is that sufficient reason to remove Troost’s name from the historic street?

It is rather ingenious that Truth is the proposed new name—but that reminds me of the rather untruthful social media platform known as Truth Social, so I don’t know if much would be gained by renaming.

June and I are graduates of William Jewell College (class of ’59), and most of our college classes were in Jewell Hall. Dr. William Jewell (1789~1852) was a physician in Columbia, Mo., and provided the bulk of the funds for the founding of WJC in 1849.

Construction on the first classroom building of WJC was begun in 1850, and it was named Jewell Hall. The first major remodeling was completed in 1948, and that is where June and I had most of our college classes. Recently, though, there have been strong suggestions for the name to be changed.

According to an April 28 article in The Kansas City Beacon, “A commission created to study William Jewell College’s historical ties to slavery recommends renaming Jewell Hall, its oldest building, to honor the enslaved people who built it.”

What would it help to rename Troost Avenue or Jewell Hall? I didn’t know when I was a student that Dr. Jewell had been a slave owner or that enslaved people had helped build stately Jewell Hall—and I don’t know that I would have been particularly upset if I had known that.

After all, that was more than 100 years earlier, before the Civil War. What I should have been more concerned about was the fact that there were no African American students at Jewell when we were students. (June and I were friends, though, with Gladstone Fairweather, a very black Jamaican.)

The first African American students at Jewell were not admitted until the early 1960s, and one of those was A.J. Byrd, who has become a prominent citizen of Liberty and was recently elected to a second term on the Board of Liberty Public Schools.

For decades, though, WJC was primarily a White school with just a few Black students. In recent years, however, the percentage of BIPOC students at Jewell has increased dramatically.

June and I are encouraging enrollment of Black students in Jewell with the establishment of the Leroy and June Seat Family Scholarship, which awards $2,500 each year to an incoming student who self-identifies as a person of color and an active follower of Jesus Christ.

Whether it is an avenue in Kansas City or the college here in Liberty, rather than renaming, seeking to change the past, it seems wiser to make changes in the present which will create a better future for those who belong to segments of society that have been unfairly treated in the past.

_____

* My 3/20/19 and 6/30/20 blog articles were partly about Nichols. You can access those articles here and here.

** The Wikipedia article gives helpful (and correct) information about Troost Avenue, including “points of interest.” One of those is Rockhurst University, located between 52nd and 55th Streets along Troost. For years I drove down part of Troost Ave. going to teach my weekly class at Rockhurst U. 

“Carved in Ebony”: In Observance of Black History Month

In December, I received a book from my granddaughter Katrina—and I am happy to report that on February 9 she and her husband Ryan became parents of Nina Irene, a beautiful baby girl and Junes’ and my first great-grandchild. But this blog post is about Katrina’s Christmas present to me. 

Observing Black History Month

As is widely known, February is designated every year as Black History Month in the U.S., and I read the book Katrina gave me partly as a way to learn more about Black history. Let me share with you a little of what I learned from that book.

Carved in Ebony (2021) was written by Jasmine L. Holmes, a youngish (b. 1990) Black woman who lives in Jackson, Mississippi, with her husband Phillip and their three young sons.

Author Holmes’s slim book is about ten outstanding African-American women, all born in the nineteenth century, who have largely been unknown by the general public. Indeed, I didn’t remember hearing even one of their names prior to reading this book.

But they were all notable women—and good for me (and you) to learn about during Black History Month.

“God’s Image Carved in Ebony”

While, fortunately, it is not nearly as true now as when he spoke those words fifty years ago, in the Introduction, Holmes cites these words of Malcolm X: “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman” (p. 18).

But writing about ten outstanding Black women of strong Christian faith, Holmes asserts, “black women are made in the image of God. They are that image carved in ebony hues, wrought with a purpose, for his glory” (p. 19). Their exemplary lives should no longer be neglected.

“God’s Image Carved in Ebony,” the fifth chapter, is about Amanda Berry Smith (1837~1915), who even though she was born into slavery, became an evangelist, a missionary to Africa, and the founder of an orphanage for Black children.    

Amanda’s father bought his freedom from slavery and then that of his family when she was still young. But the Berry family was still poor, so Amanda left home to work as a live-in domestic.

She married at the age of seventeen, but that rocky marriage ended when her husband didn’t return from the Civil War. Then her marriage to James Smith ended with his death due to cancer in 1867. Soon afterward, Amanda began to fulfill her calling to be an evangelist.

In 1878, Amanda traveled overseas and preached in Great Britain and in India. Then she served as a missionary in Liberia for eight years, beginning in 1882.

Her final ministry was at the Amanda Smith Orphanage and Industrial Home for Abandoned and Destitute Colored Children, which she founded in Illinois in 1899 and where she served until 1912.

At the end of her long, productive life, Amanda was described as a woman in whom “God’s image was carved in ebony.”

The Example of Charlotte Forten Grimké

Charlotte Forten was born the same year (1837) as Amanda Berry and died about seven months earlier (in July 1914). But their lives were vastly different: whereas Amanda was born into slavery, the Forten family were prominent free Blacks in Philadelphia and active abolitionists. 

Although I hadn’t heard of Charlotte before reading the ninth chapter in Jasmine Holmes’s book, I had probably heard of the man she married in 1878, the nephew of the amazing Grimké sisters, the subject of my Feb. 24, 2016, blog post.  

The same year Amanda went overseas as an evangelist (1878), Charlotte married Francis Grimké, pastor of the prominent Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.

In addition to her position as the pastor’s wife at that church until her death, in 1896 Charlotte helped found the National Association of Colored Women, and she remained an active advocate for civil rights until her death.

Yes, although not widely known, there are many outstanding nineteenth-century Black women—and now in 2022 the U.S. will likely have a new Supreme Court Justice similarly “carved in ebony.”

Blessed are the Good Troublemakers: A Tribute to John Lewis

It isn’t one of the Beatitudes, but I think Jesus could have said, Blessed are the good troublemakers. And I am sure Jesus would have many positive things to say about John Lewis, who died on July 17, 2020, and the way he espoused “good trouble.” 

The Making of Good Troublemaker Lewis

John Robert Lewis was born in February 1940 near Troy, Alabama, about 50 miles southwest of Montgomery. His parents were sharecroppers, but he had a happy, though very segregated, life as a boy.

He was 15 years old and in the 10^th grade in 1955 when he heard of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Later, as an adult he told high school students how when he was their age, “I got in trouble. I got in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

He challenged the students he was speaking to: “Go out there and be a headlight and not a taillight. Get out there and get in the way, get in good trouble, necessary trouble . . . .”

His first troublemaking was when he tried to integrate his local library. That was in 1956 when I was a freshman in college, but Lewis couldn’t even use the public library because he was Black. Then he tried to enroll in an all-White college, and his application was never answered.

Lewis wrote MLK, Jr., asking for help, and King sent him a round-trip bus ticket to come to Montgomery to meet with him. By that time Lewis was a student at American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville. In 1958 he made the nearly 300-mile trip back to Alabama to talk with King.

In Nashville, Lewis also met and was deeply influenced by Jim Lawson, known as “the non-violent activist who mentored John Lewis.”

Lewis said that Lawson taught him “the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence”—and that way was integral to his activities as a good troublemaker.*

The Legacy of Good Troublemaker Lewis

Lewis had a long and distinguished career in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 until his death last year.

Now the illustrious legacy of Lewis is being widely recognized. Last year eminent author Jon Meacham’s book His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope was published. Also in 2020, CNN Films produced Good Trouble, a splendid documentary about Lewis.

This month, an imposing statue of Lewis has been erected in a new Atlanta park. A Nashville road named for Lewis will be dedicated this week. The christening of a Navy ship named after Lewis is scheduled for July 17.

A crowning tribute will be the passing of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act later this year.

Blessed are the good troublemakers; their legacy will live on.

Learning from Good Troublemaker Lewis

Lewis stands in a long line of good troublemakers. Earlier this year, Andy Roland, a retired Anglican vicar in the UK, published a book titled Jesus the Troublemaker.

Last year I posted a blog article about Daneen Akers’s book Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints, which includes people of the past such as Francis of Assisi and Harriet Tubman. I suggested that she should include Lewis in her planned second volume.

It needs to be noted, though, that there are no “good troublemakers” for those who benefit from the status quo and wish to protect it. Those who inveigh against troublemakers are mostly people who like the way things are in the present and want to preserve their privileged position.

In the Afterword of Meacham’s book, Lewis wrote,

The teaching of individuals like James Lawson, Gandhi, and Dr. King lift us. They move us, and they tell us over and over again if another person can do just that, if another generation can get in the way or get in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble, I, too, can do something. I, too, can get in trouble for the greater good (p. 248).

Can we learn, and act upon, that from John Lewis?

And can't we affirm that, indeed, good troublemakers are blessed?

_____

* The above paragraphs have drawn heavily from a February 2020 article by Marian Wright Edelman, founder of Children’s Defense Fund. (My 11/25/14 blog post was about Ms. Edelman.)

Honoring Katie Cannon, Womanist Pioneer

The Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon died a year ago, on August 8, 2018. This article honors the life and legacy of this outstanding black woman. 

Katie Geneva Cannon (1950~2018)

Who Was Katie Cannon?

Katie Cannon was born in 1950 in Kannapolis, North Carolina, the town that grew up around Cannon Manufacturing, the textile mill that began production in 1908 and soon became the world’s largest producer of sheets and towels.

That company, which in 1928 became Cannon Mills, was founded by J.W. Cannon (1852~1921), and Katie was a descendant of slaves who were owned by his family at the time of his birth.

In 1974, Katie Cannon was the first African American woman to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA. She also was the first black woman to earn both the M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Through the years, Cannon taught in several universities and seminaries/divinity schools. From 1993~2001 she was a professor in the Department of Religion at Temple University.

June’s and my daughter Karen, who is now a professor at the University of Arizona and head of the Department of Religious Studies and Classics, did her graduate work at Temple. During her Ph.D. studies there, Cannon was one of her main professors and her dissertation advisor.

(I was happy to have had the privilege of meeting and talking with Katie during that time.)

Cannon finished her career as Professor of Christian Ethics at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond (Va.), where she taught from 2001 until her death last year.

The Womanist Ethics of Katie Cannon

Alice Walker, best known for her award-winning book The Color Purple, coined the term womanist in her 1983 book In Search of Our Mothers’ Garden: Womanist Prose. Katie Cannon soon began popularizing that term in theological circles.

Cannon’s first major book was Black Womanist Ethics (1988), and she became the first theologian to use the term womanist widely. (She accepted Walker’s definition of womanist as a black feminist or feminist of color.)

Early in her book, Cannon states:

Black women are the most vulnerable and the most exploited members of the American society. The structure of the capitalist political economy in which Black people are commodities combined with patriarchal contempt for women has caused the Black woman to experience oppression that knows no ethical or physical bounds (p. 4).

That is a compelling statement of the challenge Katie Cannon spent her lifetime combatting—and her efforts helped to make American society better than it was thirty years ago, although there is still much that needs to be done.

Tributes to Katie Cannon

In April of last year, the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership was inaugurated at Union Presbyterian Seminary. Alice Walker (b. 1944) was the guest speaker at the inaugural ceremonies. 

Katie Cannon and Alice Walker (4/18)

In January 2020, the first issue of the new Wabash Center Journal on Teaching (formerly Teaching Theology and Religion) will include a special section on Katie Cannon's contributions to the development of womanist pedagogy.

Our daughter Karen was one of Cannon’s former students asked to write a brief article for that special edition. Here is how she began her tribute to her graduate school professor:

Katie Geneva Cannon’s life and legacy stand as a call to grapple with the injustices of the past and present while creatively constructing previously unimaginable futures.

With Karen and many others, I am still sad because of Cannon’s passing last year at the age of 68. Still, there is much to celebrate because of Katie’s active efforts to combat racism and sexism.

American society has been made better because of how Katie Cannon creatively confronted those challenges—and taught her students to do the same. 

The Worst Aspect of Racial Segregation

Vital Conversations is a monthly discussion group that meets in the Northland of Kansas City. June and I have been regular members of that group for more than twelve years now, and we have enjoyed many profitable discussions there.

Some of My Best Friends are Black

At the March 13 Vital Conversations meeting, the 25 or so who attended discussed Tanner Colby’s book Some of My Best Friends are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America (2012).  

The meeting was a very helpful one, especially since there were four African-Americans present—including the venerable Alvin Brooks (b. 1932), a civil rights leader who is a former police officer and former city councilman of Kansas City.

The second part of Colby’s book is about racial segregation in housing—and in getting loans for purchasing a home. The situation in Kansas City is a prime example of segregation having been actively enforced by housing planning—and restrictions.

In particular, Colby writes about J.C. Nichols, whom Colby (no doubt rightfully) calls “the most influential real estate developer” in the U.S. during the first half of the twentieth century. Colby adds, “One could make the argument that he still holds that title today, despite being dead for sixty years.” (p. 82).

(Specifically, Nichols died in February 1950, several months before his 70th birthday.)

Nichols was the developer of Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, regarded as the nation’s first shopping center. After his death, he was memorialized with the impressive J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain, just east of the Plaza, and the nearby street renamed the J.C. Nichols Parkway in 1952.

The King of Kings County

In addition to the County Club district and Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, a lasting legacy of J.C. Nichols is the development of Johnson County, Kansas, whose eastern border is just a mile west of the Plaza.

That story, which is told to some extent in Colby’s book, is the theme of the novel The King of Kings County (2005) by Whitney Terrell, a nephew by marriage to J.C. Nichols’ son Miller.

As Colby writes, the novel “tells the story of Kansas City’s blockbusting and suburbanization in a way that only a novel can: fictionalized, but brutally truthful” (p. 291).

(In the book, Nichols is called Bowen, the Plaza is Campanile, and Johnson County is Kings County, but for those who know the history of Kansas City, the identification is obvious.)

“Troost Avenue”

Adam Hamilton is the best-known Christian pastor in Johnson County, Kansas. He is pastor of the 20,000-member Church of the Resurrection, said to be the largest United Methodist Church in the U.S.

“Troost Avenue” is the title of the fifth chapter of Hamilton’s 2018 book Unafraid: Living with Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times.

As also explained in the books mentioned above, Hamilton writes, “The street in Kansas City that serves as the dividing line between predominantly white and black communities is Troost Avenue” (p. 57).

As some blacks sought to move west, Nichols and Bob Wood, an unscrupulous realtor, found ways to profit greatly by the development of Johnson County. They developed “restrictive covenants” that prevented African Americans from buying homes in many of the new, and white, communities.

Black homeowners and communities were also greatly disadvantaged by redlining and other means that meant financial loss.

I used to think that racial segregation was bad because of the deprivation resulting from being separate—and certainly repressive restrictions and lack of freedom are major problems.

But I have come to see that maybe the worst aspect of segregation has been the financial inequity entwined with forced separation.

Perhaps now the major goal is not integration (or equality) but rather thoroughgoing equity.

The Election of 1868 (and 2018)

Since my hometown is Grant City (Mo.), I have long had an interest in, but not much knowledge of, Ulysses S. Grant. My recent reading about him, though, has convinced me that he is a man who should not be taken for granted and that his election in 1868 was one of great importance.

The Election of 1868

Even though my Oct. 30, 2016, blog article was about the presidential election of 1868 (see here), I didn’t write much about Grant, who was the winner of that election and thus became the 18^th POTUS.

For whatever reason, during most of my lifetime Grant seems not to have received the attention and the accolades he has deserved. But he and his accomplishments as President should not be taken lightly.

In one of the most important elections in U.S. history, 150 years ago on November 3, 1868, Grant won a decisive victory that was of great significance to the nation.

His election was especially significant for the American Indians and for the “freedmen,” the former enslaved persons who had a new birth of freedom because of the Civil War.

The Background of the 1868 Election

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio in 1822, the son of a tanner—and a fervent abolitionist. When he was 16, Ulysses, the name by which he was called, was nominated to West Point by the district’s U.S. Representative—but his name was mistakenly given as Ulysses S., and the name stuck.

After graduation, Grant distinguished himself as a daring and competent soldier during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. He left the army in 1854 but joined again in 1861, the beginning year of the Civil War.

Grant distinguished himself as a war hero, and after being elevated to the rank of lieutenant general in 1864, he forced and then received Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender in April 1865.

Results of the 1868 Election

Because of his great popularity across the nation—and it has been said that he was more popular in the 19^th century then Lincoln—Grant was nominated unanimously as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1868.

In spite of his political opponents calling Grant a drunk and accusing him of trying to “Africanize” the South, he won the 1868 election decisively: 214 to 80 electoral votes.

Among the premier accomplishments of Grant’s presidency are these:

** Organized (in April 1869) the Board of Indian Commissioners; this was Grant’s attempt to formulate a new humane policy towards Native American tribes. While not without problems, this “Peace Policy” was a great advancement in the way American Indians had been treated in the U.S. up to this time.

** Ratification (in February 1870) of the 15^th Amendment giving the freed slaves the right to vote.

** Passage of the “Ku Klux Klan” Act (in April 1871) that curtailed the activities of the KKK and other white supremacy organizations; this bill is also called the Civil Rights Act of 1871.  

(Actual 1868 campaign poster with an explanation added)

And What about the Election of 2018?

While not a presidential election, U.S. voters will go to the polls tomorrow (Nov. 6) to determine whether the racist, xenophobic, pro-white supremacy policies and rhetoric of the current administration are going to remain unchecked by a supportive Congress or whether there will be a better balance of power in the U.S. government.

The election of 1868 proved greatly beneficial for people of color then, and I fervently hope and pray that tomorrow’s election will similarly turn out well for people of color, immigrants, Jews, and the poor in contemporary society.

For further reading:

Two recommended books for further study of Grant (and the election of 1868):
** Grant (2002) by Jean Edward Smith, which presents Grant much more positively than most biographies up to that time.
** Grant (2017) by Ron Chernow, the latest, highly-acclaimed, 1000-page tome about Grant.

Becoming/Being Bicultural

Studying and thinking about Drew Hart’s noteworthy book Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism (2016) stirred me to reflect on a potentially helpful mindset for minorities living in a dominant culture.

The Meaning of “Being Bicultural”

“The term bicultural describes a state of having or inheriting two or more cultures (e.g., one of an ethnic heritage and one of culture lived in) or two or more ethnic traditions.” That is the opening sentence of a helpful article about the subject in an iResearchNet piece about biculturalism (check it out here).

Massey University in New Zealand gives the following explanation of the meaning of being bicultural: 

While becoming bicultural can cause problems for some individuals, for most there are far more benefits than difficulties.

The Experience of Becoming Bicultural

Last Sunday was my dear daughter Kathy’s birthday. She celebrated her 6^th birthday in Japan after she and her brother Keith, who is two years older, arrived in that fascinating country with June and me on September 1, 1966.

By that November when we celebrated Kathy’s birthday with a family overnight trip to Hakone National Park near Mt. Fuji, we were well on our way to becoming bicultural.

Being bicultural, though, doesn’t usually mean an equal balance between two cultures. Our children went to English-speaking schools and we spoke only English at home. Our dominant cultural identification continued to be as English-speaking Americans.

Still, the children played with their Japanese neighbors, we became active in Japanese-speaking churches, and we enjoyed participating in Japanese cultural activities.

In my career as a full-time faculty member at Seinan Gakuin University, I was elected to administrative positions of increasing importance—not because I was a gaijin (foreigner/outsider) but because in spite of being a gaijin I was an integral part of the Japanese cultural and educational milieu.

For June and me, as well as for our children, being immersed in and accepting of Japanese culture did not mean giving up our American cultural identity. But we were largely able to become bicultural and to enjoy being a part of two cultures without having to choose one over the other.

Recommending Becoming Bicultural

Drew Hart is a youngish Anabaptist pastor and college professor, and his book introduced above is a good and helpful one. Last month, several of us read his book and gathered to discuss it a few days before he preached at Rainbow Mennonite Church.

Hart is an associate professor at the predominately white Messiah College (in Penn.), his alma mater. In many ways, he is a black man who has “made it” in the predominant white culture—but he is painfully aware of the racism and the injustice that still a part of that culture.

What he says about racism must be taken seriously, and what I say next about becoming bicultural does not downplay the persistent problem of injustice or the pressing need to be aware of and to combat racism in American society today.

Still, I got the impression from reading Hart’s book that he thought he largely had to give up his African-American identity to fit in with the dominant (white) culture. That is when I realized that deliberately seeking to be bicultural could be a possible solution to his, and other African-Americans’, unease at living in the majority culture.

For those within minority cultures, becoming bicultural and being able to function well in the dominant culture need not lessen their identification with or appreciation of their primary culture. 

For people born into a minority culture, becoming/being bicultural is certainly a possibility that promises many positive benefits.

Monumental Decisions

“A 121-year-old Confederate monument came down. This Kentucky town put it back up.” That was the title of the top story on the front page of the Aug. 21 Washington Post. I read that article with great interest, for I used to live near that Kentucky town.

Controversy over Confederate Monuments

The violent incidents in Charlottesville, Vir., on Aug. 11-12 at the Unite the Right rally have greatly heightened the debate concerning Confederate monuments and statues in the U.S.

That rally, as most of you know, was held in opposition to the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. It was erected in 1924 in a Charlottesville city park, which was subsequently named Lee Park.

In the first week of June this year, Lee Park’s name was changed to Emancipation Park. The rally in Charlottesville was in protest against the announced plan to remove the statue of Lee from the park.

The drama in that Virginia city is linked to the strong movement across the U.S. to remove Confederate flags, statues, and monuments from public places. That movement gained considerable strength following the tragic June 2015 shooting in the African-American church in Charleston, S.C.

Moving the Louisville Monument

The Confederate Monument in Louisville was a 70-foot-tall monument that was erected in 1895 on the campus of the University of Louisville. It was designed to commemorate the sacrifice of Confederate veterans who died in the Civil War.

During the last two months of 2016, the Louisville monument was moved to Brandenburg, Ky., an Ohio River town about 45 miles west of Louisville. Some 400 people attended the rededication ceremony, held on Memorial Day this year.

Brandenburg is the seat of Meade County, a small county of just over 28,000 people, predominantly white. Slightly over 4% were African-American according to the 2010 census. Meade Co. is also Trump country: nearly 71% voted for him in 2016.

The Monument at Brandenburg

From 1959 to 1963 June and I, along with our small children, lived in Ekron, a very small town less than seven miles from Brandenburg. We fairly often had picnics on the bank of the Ohio River, not far from where the Confederate monument is now located.

That was long before the bridge was built across the river, which you can see in the lower right corner of the following picture of the relocated monument. 

Debra Masterson, an assistant at the Meade County Chamber of Commerce, was one who worked to get the monument moved to Brandenburg. When her “boss” began to express misgivings, Masterson said. “You’re thinking, ‘What if people are talking about Brandenburg as KKK, as racists?’ Well, I don’t know any racists!”

Well, I don’t know much about Meade County now and have little remaining contact with the dear people we were so close to 55 years ago. But I know there were racists in Meade County, and in Ekron Baptist Church of which I was pastor, back then.

In another article (see here) I have given specific examples regarding the racism I experienced there. Suffice it to say here that while the schools were integrated then, there was strong de facto segregation in the local communities and sometimes expressions overt racism, perhaps especially in the churches.

States, cities, schools, etc. now have monumental decisions to make about what to do with existing Confederate monuments and memorials of all sorts. 

Moving such monuments/statues from cities with a sizeable percentage of African-Americans (such as Louisville) to predominantly white towns (such as Brandenburg) is probably not a helpful solution to the problem.

Maybe the time has come just to make decisions that will rid our nation of monuments honoring the racism of the past.

Frederick Douglass: Getting Recognized More and More

This Black History Month article is about Frederick Douglass, the African-American man who now seems to be getting recognized more and more—partly because of DJT’s somewhat puzzling comment to that effect on Feb. 1.

HISTORIC SITE

Last Thursday I flew to Washington, D.C., where son Keith picked me up. At my request we went straight from the airport to the Frederick Douglass Historic Site in southeast D.C. It was a wonderful visit of the Cedar Hill residence that Douglass purchased in 1877 and lived in until his death in 1895.

Douglass was able to purchase the splendid house in Anacostia because of his appointment as Federal Marshal of Washington, D.C. Soon after President Hayes’s inauguration in March 1877, he named Douglass to that position, partly in appreciation for his support during the heated presidential campaign of 1876.

Here is a picture I took of his spacious Cedar Hill home: 

HISTORICAL SKETCH

Statue of Douglass in Visitors Center

It is not certain that Douglass was born in February, but his birthday was celebrated at the Historic Site this week on Monday. Most sources now say he was born in 1818, although Charles Chesnutt’s 1899 biography of Douglass gives his birth year as 1817. There were not good historical records kept on slaves—and Douglass’s mother was a slave in Maryland at the time of his birth.

When he was about twenty years old, in 1838 Douglass escaped from slavery, fleeing to New York. That same year he married Anna Murray, who became the mother of his five children and was his wife until her death in 1882.

In 1841 Douglass became widely known as a public speaker, delivering speeches for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Seven years later, he attended the first women’s rights convention and also became an advocate of suffrage for women.

Then in 1858 John Brown stayed in the Douglass home (in Rochester, N.Y.) for a month, but Douglass never condoned Brown’s plan for the Harpers Ferry attack. He did, however, later recruit Black soldiers to fight for the Union. He also served as an adviser to President Lincoln during the Civil War.

(This link to Douglass’s timeline gives much more historical information.)

Douglass died in his Cedar Ridge home on Feb. 20, 1895. Since he had been a lifelong Methodist, his elaborate funeral was held at a large AME Church in D.C.

HISTORIC CRITICISM

In the appendix of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), the first of his three autobiographies, Douglass explained what he had written about religion in his book:

What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest, possible difference--so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels.

Frederick Douglass was unquestionably a great man. I am glad his life and work, including this historic criticism of “slaveholding religion,” is now “getting recognized more and more.”