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Sacred Ground
Remembering Martin Luther King on his birthday, Jan 15
It was 55 years ago. Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old.
In the months before his assassination, Martin Luther King became increasingly concerned with the problem of economic inequality in America. He organized a Poor People’s Campaign to focus on the issue, including an interracial poor people’s march on Washington, and in March 1968 traveled to Memphis in support of poorly treated African-American sanitation workers. On March 28, a workers’ protest march led by King ended in violence and the death of an African-American teenager. King left the city but vowed to return in early April to lead another demonstration.
On April 3, back in Memphis, King gave his last sermon, saying, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”
King was no stranger to controversy. Though he had little experience in activism, King with a doctorate in theology was known for his speaches. In 1955, community leaders recruited him to be the spokesperson for the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the first major protests of the civil rights era. The boycott lasted for more than a year and resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court declaring racial segregation on public buses unconstitutional.
King’s role in that boycott transformed him into a national figure. In 1957, he co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to help encourage other communities to take up the crusade for civil rights.
5 years before his asssassination, he was focusing on desegregation before the landmark 1964 Civil Rights act. He was in Birmingham on a campaign of coordinated marches and sit-ins against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama.
At the time, in parts of the country—especially in the South—blacks couldn’t eat at certain restaurants, continued to attend segregated schools (though the practice had been outlawed years earlier), and were unemployed at a rate nearly twice that of whites.
The non-violent campaign was coordinated by Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. On April 10, a blanket injunction was issued against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing”. Leaders of the campaign announced they would disobey the ruling. On Good Friday, April 12, King was roughly arrested with others.
King was not always popular with clergy due to his tactics. The day of his arrest, eight Birmingham clergy members wrote a criticism of the campaign that was published in the Birmingham News, calling its direct action strategy “unwise and untimely.”
LINKS
1 King wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail in response. King’s Letter has been called one of the most significant works of the Civil Right movement. The Letter
3 Forum in Feb., 1964 on the letter
4 King and the Book of Amos as reflected in the letter. King used the book of Amos throughout his career.
5 King’s Philosophy of Non-Violence
What is Juneteenth and Why Do We Celebrate on June 19?
Because the Southern Confederacy viewed themselves as an independent nation, the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free all of the enslaved population because the Rebel governments would not enforce Lincoln’s proclamation. Texas became a stronghold of Confederate influence in the latter years of the Civil War as the slaveholding population ‘refugeed’ their slave property by migrating to Texas.
Consequently, more than 50,000 enslaved individuals were relocated to Texas, effectively prolonging slavery in a region far from the Civil War’s bloodshed, and out of the reach of freedom—the United States Army. Only after the Union army forced the surrender of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith at Galveston on June 2, 1865, would the emancipation of slaves in Texas be addressed and freedom granted. On June 19, 250,000 enslaved people were freed.
The issuing of General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865, marked an official date of emancipation for the enslaved population. Nonetheless, those affected faced numerous barriers to their freedoms. General Order No. 3 stipulated that former slaves remain at their present homes, were barred from joining the military, and would not be supported in ‘idleness.’ Essentially, the formerly enslaved were granted nothing beyond the title of emancipation. The official end of slavery in the United States came with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
After becoming emancipated, many former slaves left Texas in great numbers. Most members of this exodus had the goal of reuniting with lost family members and paving a path to success in postbellum America. This widespread migration of former slaves after June 19 became known as ‘the Scatter.’
Because the Southern Confederacy viewed themselves as an independent nation, the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free all of the enslaved population because the Rebel governments would not enforce Lincoln’s proclamation. Texas became a stronghold of Confederate influence in the latter years of the Civil War as the slaveholding population ‘refugeed’ their slave property by migrating to Texas. Consequently, more than 50,000 enslaved individuals were relocated to Texas, effectively prolonging slavery in a region far from the Civil War’s bloodshed, and out of the reach of freedom—the United States Army. Only after the Union army forced the surrender of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith at Galveston on June 2, 1865, would the emancipation of slaves in Texas be addressed and freedom granted. On June 19, 250,000 enslaved people were freed.
The issuing of General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865, marked an official date of emancipation for the enslaved population. Nonetheless, those affected faced numerous barriers to their freedoms. General Order No. 3 stipulated that former slaves remain at their present homes, were barred from joining the military, and would not be supported in ‘idleness.’ Essentially, the formerly enslaved were granted nothing beyond the title of emancipation. The official end of slavery in the United States came with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
After becoming emancipated, many former slaves left Texas in great numbers. Most members of this exodus had the goal of reuniting with lost family members and paving a path to success in postbellum America. This widespread migration of former slaves after June 19 became known as ‘the Scatter.’
Sacred Ground milestone reached.
On Monday May 16, 2022, Andrea Pogue (left) and Johnny Davis (right) from the Sacred Ground group presented two $2,000 scholarships to Kaya Green and Alanna Gray. These Caroline High Schools graduates will be attending Germanna Community College in the fall. Elizabeth Heimbach, Cookie Davis and Catherine from the Sacred Ground group also attended the event. This was the culmination of study, discussion involving historic systematic racism and then a desire to make a contribution to toward combatting the effects of racism.
The group asked the Vestry to provide $500 to establish a scholarship allowing a Caroline County minority student to pay for education after high school. The $500 grew to $10,100 this year due to the donations of generous parishioners. The group then decided to distribute two scholarships and retain funds for the future .
Afro-American Histories
Traversing five centuries, multiple continents, and over 130 artworks, the remarkable exhibit reexamines the historical and cultural experiences of Black and African people as told through the histories of the African Diaspora and the transatlantic slave trade.
The exhibit travels through time and across the thematic narratives of maps, enslavements, everyday lives, music, portraits, and resistance, to reveal the lasting legacies of Afro-Atlantic histories and experiences/
5 Fascinating Works from the exhibit
https://news.churchsp.org/sites/default/files/5FascinatingWorksAfro-Atlantic Historiesexhibit.pdf
Sacred Ground Scholarships
The Sacred Ground group was formed in 2020 to watch and discuss Sacred Ground: A Film Based Dialogue Series on Race and Faith in 2020. The 10 week study session was created by the Episcopal Church to explore the roots of racial conflict in the United States through the effects of race and racism throughout American history. It also explored the impact of economic class, family background, and racial identity on different communities.
Before each meeting, the group watched videos online and read assignments from several books including White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, Waking Up White by Debby Irving, and Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. Catherine led our group, which included people from St. Peter’s, as well as several from neighboring churches. Members of the group shared their own experiences, and we all learned a lot.
In 2021 the group continued learning by reading Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How we Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGee, and All that She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, by Tiya Miles.
We have been talking recently about ways that St. Peter’s can become part of what Bishop Curry calls the Beloved Community. The group asked the Vestry to provide $500 to establish a scholarship allowing a Caroline County minority student to pay for education after high school. The $500 grew to $10,100 this year due to the donations of generous parishioners. The group then decided to distribute two scholarships and retain funds for the future .
Thanks to all of contributors who with the members of Sacred Ground made the scholarships a reality.