3:00 P.M. August 17, 2012
The Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell (right) stands with the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. (left) and the Rev. Virgil Wood on the roof of a Boston public
school in 1965. Photo courtesy of the Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell.
The United Methodist Church ought not and cannot be silent about race and racism.
The Historical Statement in the United Methodist Book of Discipline provides a history of Methodism's response to race/racism.
Sojourners magazine has described racism as America's "original sin."
We read: "John Wesley was an ardent opponent of slavery. Many of the leaders of early American Methodism shared his hatred of human bondage."
But we also read of the "separation" over slave ownership in 1844
that created the Methodist Church South. That separation ended in 1939
in a "Unification Conference” establishing the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction as a compromise for those who were willing to exchange their pro-slavery attitudes for pro-racial segregation practice.
Our Methodist history cannot avoid the fact that because of racially insensitive attitudes, black Methodists formed the African Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal Zion denominations.
Living the experience
I cannot be "silent" about my personal experiences of Methodism and
race. My preacher father attended the Unification Conference that
established the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction in 1939. When I
became old enough to talk with him about Methodism, he expressed how
hurt and wounded he and other black delegates to that conference were
by the establishment of the Central Jurisdiction.
While in college in Greensboro, N.C., I lived with my grandfather
who was born near the end of slavery. He shared with me his memories of
the slave owners whose name, Caldwell, became our family name. Some of
them were Methodists, and my grandfather became an active Methodist,
serving as treasurer of St. Matthews Church in Greensboro.
While I lived with him and attended college in Greensboro, I became active in the North Carolina Methodist Student Movement.
There were few white churches at that time willing to host meetings of
this student movement because of the presence of black persons like
myself.
The Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell answers questions during a panel discussion
in Fort Worth, Texas, during the 2008 United Methodist General
Conference. A UMNS file photo by Maile Bradfield.
View in Photo Gallery
Whenever I told my grandfather that one of my white colleagues in
the student movement was going to come by our house to give me a ride, I
could tell there was a bit of unease, even fear, in him because his
black grandson was going to be riding with a white person, particularly
when that white person was female. He knew what had sometimes happened
to black persons who were in cars with white persons.
The Methodist Student Movement met regularly at the Methodist Mecca at Lake Junaluska.
The other black students and I who attended the meetings were expected
to abide by Junaluska's policies of racial segregation: no swimming,
segregated housing, etc.
All of the above came to a dramatic conclusion for me when my application to Duke Divinity School was rejected in 1954 because at that time Duke’s policy denied admission to Negroes,
as we called ourselves. The rejection letter read: "We hope you will
find a Seminary to meet your needs.” That seminary became Boston University School of Theology.
I share the less-than-positives of Methodist history along with my
personal history, not to "accentuate the negative," but in my belief
that we cannot celebrate racial progress if we remain silent about the attitudes and actions that precipitated the need for progress.
I contend that our Methodist/United Methodist history — debates
about slavery, division because of those debates, a race-compromised
Methodist unification through the creation of a segregated all-black
Central Jurisdiction in 1939, the emergence of a racially integrated
United Methodist Church in 1968 — make for a United Methodist story
worth "telling the nation."
We have a story to tell
"We've a
story to tell to the nations, that shall turn their hearts to the
right, a story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light, a story
of peace and light." — United Methodist Hymnal, #569
What is it about race in 2012 that cries out for a "word" from The United Methodist Church?
Donald E. Collins concludes his book — “When the Church Bell Rang
Racist, The Methodist Church and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama,”
Mercer University Press, 1998 — with these words from a written
interview with the Rev. Tom Butts, now pastor emeritus of First United Methodist Church of Monroeville, Ala.
Butts says, "We are about as racist as we have ever been, but we are
more sophisticated about it, which makes the whole thing more
insidious."
The election of our first African-American president
has been celebrated as an historic first, but some of the responses to
him and his family have gone beyond the traditional political
disagreements and critiques that are part and parcel of American
politics. As we read, hear and see,
some of the racist-tinged expressions that claim to depict President
Obama, I resort to the oft-used cliché, "The more things change, the
more they remain the same."
Some of the responses to those who immigrate to the United States from south of the U.S. border give little evidence that those who demean the new would-be immigrants remember our national immigrant history.
Imagine a scenario that has the indigenous people who were already here when Europeans and others arrived on these shores
saying to them, "Show us your papers." I know they do not intend to do
so, but those who seem most upset by undocumented immigrants from
Mexico seem to be endorsing through their anti-immigrant fervor these
words I first heard many years ago: "If you are white, you are all
right; if you are brown, stick around; if you are black, stand back."
The rapidly changing racial demographics of our nation are to be celebrated, not regretted.
America has never been "white America" as some wanted it to be.
Today, more than ever, we are "rainbow America" and we know we are
better when we rejoice in that reality.
What does the Lord require?
"What doth the Lord require of [The United Methodist Church] in such a time as this?"
The United Methodist Church can publicly speak of our own history
regarding slavery as a way to respond to the unawareness, amnesia,
revisionism and distortions too often reflected with respect to slavery
in our nation.
First, slavery is, the elephant in the living rooms of most Americans that we are afraid to talk about.
But, some recent writings of historians and journalists have identified the fact our first lady, Michelle Obama,
has ancestral linkages not only to slaves but also to former slave
owners. Because of slavery, some of her distant relatives are white.
The United Methodist Church can enable new understanding of why we in
the African-American community are so distinctively different in our
facial features, our hair texture and in our skin colors. We are living
reminders of our national slave history that some would deny.
Second, The United Methodist Church, because of our racial history
and our racial present, can explore within the denomination and beyond,
how we develop the capacity to determine if negative attitudes and
actions are reflective of racism because the participants are of
different races. Attitudes and actions may be reflective of racial and
cultural differences and nothing more. When something is deemed racist
or race-related, is it simply an expression of human and not racial
differences? Declaring "racism" when in fact it is not racism is
dangerous. But, declaring "no racism" when there is racism is also
dangerous.
“It
is essential that we who are United Methodists remember our histories
as a way of not treating others in the negative ways our ancestors once
were treated.”
Third, if we use the word "exceptionalism" for both the United
States and The United Methodist Church, it is important to understand
that to be exceptional is not to have arrived on some pure and perfect
mountaintop, but rather to be bold and brave and honest about our
history with its regressions and progressions.
Exceptionalism ought be descriptive of our journey and not our
arrival. The United Methodist Church in 2012 is not one of the historic
"Peace Churches" with regard to war. But, we can be for all to see a
"Racial Justice / Racially / Culturally Diverse Church" that takes a
lead in healing the divisions of these moments.
The United Methodist Church in the United States is made up of
people who have an indigenous history (native-born), immigrant history
(migrated from elsewhere) and an imported history (brought by others to
the country). Our histories — as different as they may be — are
intertwined because they overlap.
Regardless of our resident status in the United States, it is
essential that we who are United Methodists remember our histories as a
way of not treating others in the negative ways our ancestors once
were treated.
We as a denomination cannot be silent about racism. Regardless of
whether it is subtle or not-so-subtle, sophisticated or not, it is
"insidious." The United Methodist Church has a "story" that can be
shared, and, because of our racial history, a ministry opportunity "for
such a time as this."
*Caldwell is a retired elder and member of the Rocky Mountain
Conference and a member of the board of the African-American Methodist
Heritage Center. He now lives in Asbury Park, N.J. Caldwell is a
co-creator of Truth in Progress,
a project designed to engage people of different races and sexual
orientations in a deeper dialogue about issues of race, sexual
orientation, and religion. He also is the author of "What Mean These
Stones? Lessons of Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, The Million Man March, The
Millions More Movement."
News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5473 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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