Reconciliation Revolution | Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil

Looking Backward to Move Forward III

saltermcneil — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 06:49:27 +0000

You never know what will hit most, when all the facts you learned in life become an experience. Attending the memorial service for Coretta Scott King was probably one of the most surreal moments of my life; walking hand in hand across the Edmund Pettus Bridge was eerie and powerful; and I’ll never forget the hollow in my stomach as I walked through the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. But, my epiphany came when I met Sandra. From her, I became more aware of the fact that history was being made all along and children were a significant part of making history, like she did when she walked with Dr. King. I know now that I never want to miss any part of history again.

Looking Backward to Move Forward II

saltermcneil — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 06:47:09 +0000

From there, things really got interesting for me. Throughout my journey I found that I was most struck with the number of young people – children really – who were a part of the Civil Rights Movement: such as Sandra, who I met on our next stop in Smithville, GA. When Sandra was 11-years-old, she marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, was arrested and remained in jail for 45 days – and nobody notified her mother. She just woke up one day and wanted to be a part of the securing her own rights, and she was willing to face the consequences – even death – to do so. As I talked to her, I began to wonder – What was I doing when she was fighting for her rights (our rights) in 1968? That year, I was 13-years-old. If she was being arrested at 11, what was I doing at 13? I felt like I had missed a whole part of a history of which I should have been a part. Maybe it was because I was born in the north and not the south; nevertheless, I was not a part of something that should have been important to me.
From Smithville our journey took us to Atlanta. GA where we found ourselves at The King Center the very week that Coretta Scott King died. In fact, we had the opportunity to attend one of the small memorial services held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. King was once pastor. I was so filled with awe at the opportuninity to participate in that part of history, that with tears streaming down my face, I grabbed my cell phone and called my husband. I remember saying to him:

“For most of my life, history was made and I did not participate, but for this, if people ask me where I was when Coretta Scott King died, I can say I was there.”

Looking Backward to Move Forward

saltermcneil — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 06:45:55 +0000

People are changed more by experience than by fact. I’ve always thought that to be true, but I believed it even more so recently while I was on a historical voyage.

Last month I had the opportunity to participate in a Sankofa Journey. Sankofa is a West African word that means, “looking backward to move forward.” The 72-hour bus journeys are used as a tool to teach the history of racism in the United States in the same way. On these journeys, people from two churches – usual one African American and one Caucasian – are paired as traveling partners. I was among 50 women who started on our journey from the city of Chicago, IL.

We plunged right into experiential learning the moment we boarded the bus. On the first night, we were inundated with videos that addressed topics of race and racism – from Amos and Andy (1993) to intense documentaries, such as the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, which resulted in the deaths of four young girls. The videos continued through the night and when we woke up the next morning, much to our surprise, we found ourselves right in front the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church as the first stop in our journey. We were overcome with emotion. Just hours after learning the horrid details of the atrocity that took place in that very church, we found ourselves walking through the very rooms where those four young girls walked and died.

As compelling as that was, our trip only got progressively more intense from there. Our next stop took us to Selma, AL in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The Bridge was intended to be the site of a peaceful and symbolic march for voting rights and partially in honor of Jimmy Lee Jackson. Jackson was a civil rights demonstrator who was fatally shot by a state trooper in 1965 for trying to rescue his mother and grandfather from being clubbed to death at their hands. The march became known as “Bloody Sunday”. That day, realizing halfway through their journey that they would be beaten-up by police and white people who disagreed with their protest, those marchers chose to see there journey through to the end. Just like the freedom fighters and demonstrators did 40 years ago, we walked in pairs across the bridge, Unlike those marchers however, we did not have to face the dreadful circumstances that they faced upon reaching the other side.