Conversations and Community
The story of race in this country can be told on a national level and include the decisions leading to the establishment of slavery, the experiences of being bought and sold, the promise of freedom for slaves and the impact of Jim Crow Laws, the civil rights movement, and the struggle of the Caucasian society to adjust to a diverse and equal community. It can also be told from a personal level and include prejudice, fear of differences, sexual myths, and violence. A third possibility is to tell it from the perspective of community, in this case I share the story of church communities and the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The story can begin in any year and in any place in this country, but this story begins in 1992. It had been a difficult year with respect to race-relations both national and locally. Nationally the Rodney King decision exonerating the police officers that had been videoed beating an apparently defenseless Mr. King during the riots in Los Angeles had raised tensions all across the nation. Those tensions were exacerbated in Winston-Salem by three public incidents.
THE CONTEXT
An African American woman had been arrested on drug charges, handcuffed and gagged and thrown into a cell at the local jail. Whether she vomited with the gag on or for some other reason, the woman died while in the cell unattended. The second incident was the case of an African American transient whose body was discovered under a bridge. When he was examined, it was discovered that his genitals had been removed and stuffed in his mouth. Historically this was an act with specific racial connotations. The third incident involved some African American teenage boys in the city who discovered a road-grader with its keys in it and chose to take a joy ride. Exacerbating the incident, when they were confronted by a police officer, they chose to run over his car, crushing him to death.
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE
Whether you lived in Winston-Salem in 1992 or not, try to either recall or place yourself in the city at that time. If you as an individual citizen of this city was feeling the tension of these and other incidents, what could you do that might make a positive contribution to healing the tensions in your city?
That was the challenge that confronted three Presbyterian ministers, two African American and one Caucasian, who pastored churches within the city. None of them were native to the city. Carlton Eversley was a Baptist pastor but became Presbyterian so that he could accept the pastorate of Dellabrook Presbyterian Church. Stephen McCutchan, the Caucasian, had come from a pastorate in Pennsylvania in 1983 to become pastor of Highland Presbyterian Church. Samuel Stevenson, a second-career pastor, having left the field of mental health and went to seminary and was ordained. After some other churches, he became pastor at Grace Presbyterian Church.
As Presbyterians are inclined to do when deciding on important decisions, they chose to meet for lunch. They deliberately chose to meet in a down-town restaurant that was owned by an African American businessman. Being relatively recent to the city, they did not have any particular influence in the city structures. Like you as you consider what you would have done, so they were separated by the stain of racism, shaped by their own biographies, and shocked by the events that were troubling their adopted city.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CONNECTION
They knew each other as Presbyterian colleagues, but not with any depth that could remove the vague feelings of distrust that were natural to the association of races within the community. Later, when they became good friends, Sam would confess to his response when Steve had invited him to lunch when he first came to the city. You go to lunch with your white colleagues so that they can feel good about inviting you, but you don’t expect anything significant to come out of the relationship. Now they were again at lunch, this time including Carlton, and the issues before them would test the bonds of friendship.
What separated them was the stain of racism that shaped their respective histories. What connected them was that they were all three Presbyterian pastors. The question before them was whether their faith, which called them to be ambassadors of reconciliation, could transcend the divisions that plagued their society. Even more than whether they could rise above such divisions was the question of whether they could provide some leadership that would contribute to healing within Winston-Salem. If you had been one of them, what would you have done?
If you want to know how their story evolved, you can read Let’s Have Lunch which tells their story and the story of the healing of faith’s divisions.
