A Living Legacy—The Movement Continues

A Living Legacy—The Movement Continues

© Rev. Susan Karlson

November 25, 2012

Unitarian Church of Staten Island

LLP cover         This fall I participated in the 7^th Unitarian Universalist Living Legacy Pilgrimage to sites of importance in the Civil Rights Movement.  It was a transformative journey.  I ask you to reflect, deeply, on the Movement as I share with you words, images and poetry.

This church was founded by Abolitionists -- complex good-willed people who understood that slavery damaged all people of this nation.  The struggle against Racism continues.  It is the legacy of this church.

It did not end with the passage of the Civil Rights or the Voting Rights Acts.  Racism, injustice and inequality did not end with Barack Obama’s election or even his re-election.  Every manner of oppression in this country is interlocking and interconnected.  We cannot end injustice and inequality for women, Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender people, those living with disabilities, poverty or those who are immigrants without understanding the role of racism and white privilege in our society.  These remain not only in our institutions but also, if not closely examined, in our hearts.

Prayer and singing           Three ministers bow in prayer before participating in non-violent civil disobedience in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama.  The Civil Rights Movement started with faithful, committed people praying and singing before every action. 

          As we travelled and learned, we explored daily spiritual themes and corresponding reflection questions.   We sang Freedom songs and prayed or silently reflected.  Martin Luther King said, “The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”   How do our faith communities continue that transformation?

Dynamite in the basement         Dynamite placed under the stairs of the 16^th Street Baptist church in Birmingham took the lives of four little girls on September 14, 1963.   Two boys also died as the violence spread across town.  Let us pause now to honor those six children whose lives were taken. We remember their names—Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair, Johnny Robinson and Virgil Lamar Ware.

I Ain’t afraid of your jail         A girl and boy, part of the Children’s Non Violent Movement, are in jail.  They proudly proclaim,  “I Ain’t afraid of your jail”. Nearby the path is flanked by lunging dogs that were used in crowd control.   In the face of violence the children and young adults led the way with bravery.  Let us pause in gratitude for the young people who, then and now, live out their faith.

Jimmie Lee Jackson          Here are five veterans of Marion, Alabama present the night that Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed, a death that prompted the Marches that followed in Selma.

A Board of Elections worker told us that the hard-won right to vote is under threat today and that the young must understand how necessary it is to continue this Movement . 

Notice the bullet marks on Jimmie Lee Jackson’s headstone.  It has been necessary to fortify it against vandalism, which continues to this day though it is Holy Ground.

Rev. Clark Olsen and memorial for Rev. James Reeb

Three Civil Rights veterans who are Unitarian Universalist ministers went with us on the Pilgrimage.  The Rev. Clark Olsen told us all the story of how he came to Selma; how he, Revs. Orloff Miller and James Reeb left a small café in Selma and were followed and beaten; James Reeb beaten to death.  Clark remembers being with James as he slipped into unconsciousness and how his may have been the last words that Reeb heard. 

          The Alabama River at the Edmund Pettus Bridge is beautiful beyond belief yet was the scene of Bloody Sunday and then the ensuing Turnaround March and the beginning of the march from Selma to Montgomery.

These 12 stones        This marker commemorates the March from Selma.  The words are from Joshua Chapter 4:vs 21-22:  “When your children shall ask you in time to come saying, “What mean these 12 stones?  Then you shall tell them how you made it over.”   Imagine walking this bridge in silence, two by two, and cresting the hill to a sea of blue uniforms and tear gas, beatings and night-long violence, retreating to Brown AME Chapel chased by police on horses who beat people halfway up the steps.  Let us consider what we tell the children about courage and conviction.

Viola Liuzzo       This memorial for Unitarian Viola Liuzzo is on the road going from Selma to Montgomery where she was shot while driving a black man to a meeting.   The scene inspired this prayer in me.

“A field—a field I know that watched blood run.  But to look at this field populated with golden flowers you would not know the witness of the grasses and trees—the cars passing, gunning their engines.  Only the barbed wire tells of keeping something out or keeping something in.  May the fields we come across show us the twin sides of beautiful flowers and barbed wire fences.  They are both inside us after all.”

Pause

9 Rusted pump          This rusted water pump is hidden among the weeds surrounding Bryant’s Store where Emmett Louis Till, a fourteen year old black boy, spoke to a white woman.  For that he was taken from his grandfather’s house, tortured and killed.   

See what images come up for you as I read this poem:

“Half hidden by weeds,

This rusted water pump,

Nestles next to a tree,

Water wheel below—

What is the source from which your water sprang?

Why no more?

Was there a well of love and compassion once in a dried up heart?

Where did the streams of hate come from?

Long abandoned,

There you sit—reminders of lives that played their parts—

For good or ill—down by the water pump that is only a remnant of what it once was.  May my own hollowed, parched moments find soul quenching water that revives the Source of all that is and ever will be.

10 Lorraine Motel and Gandhi bust

Here in the Memphis sunshine,

The wreath circles the balcony where

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life ended.

Here on this balcony the shots rang out as

Other leaders tried to fathom what just took place.

Here in the Lorraine Motel, he stepped out

And received the fatal blows that took his life,

But not his spirit.

And here in the museum across the street,

Is the bust of a mentor of Martin’s,

Mahatma Gandhi, whose life was given

for the cause of freedom and non violence.

Here their two life stories intertwine—

Gandhi whose memorial I walked two years ago in Delhi,

When I stepped in the sandals that marked his last steps on earth.

Here in Memphis where I see the balcony where Martin died

While the Movement continues, always continues.

Justice Rolls        Outside the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, this memorial is dedicated to ending racism and chipping away at intolerance and bigotry through the legal system.

Here Amos’ famous words, echoed by Martin Luther King, “may justice roll down like waters” is carved on stone as the water cascades down its surface.  Here my fingers ran over the streams of water.  Here, the Living Legacy Pilgrimage that I want to share with you comes to an end—for it is in this place where we ran our fingers silently and singly over the waters pouring over 40 names of people who lost their lives in the Civil Rights Movement.

 Imagine if you will running your own fingers over those names; imagine the feeling of the generations all bound together in one “inescapable network of mutuality…”.  Imagine that you pick up this stone where Civil Rights marchers stood and that you know it has your name written on it—you are one of those stones who crossed over, you chose a stone like this one that reminds you every day  to speak up against injustice and racism. That you are part of the Movement that continues as long as injustice and racism exist.  Will you hear the call and will you answer it?