What does the Lord require of us?

In 2013 I had a wonderful experience of spending time at Fairview United Methodist Church in Mooresville North Carolina. It was part of an exchange program by the World Methodist Council. My colleague and now friend Rev Dr David Calhoun came to Swindon. I leave that there!

I was truly blessed. I learned so much and made some wonderful friends. If you look back through my blog, you’ll find lots more about my time in Mooresville.

During my time in North Carolina I visited the Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro. My son had read about it and thought we’d find it interesting. We certainly did.

The museum occupies a former Woolworth’s store. And the front of the museum is the frontage of that former shop. Why? I didn’t realise until we went to the museum.

In February 1960, four African American men entered the store and went into the cafeteria. They sat at the counter. So what? Well, at that time the cafeteria was segregated, and African Americans could only sit in designated seats. Over the period of many months the four men, in due course joined by many others, staged peaceful sit - ins at this store and others started the same protest at other stores in other cities. The protests continued for months until eventually in July 1960 the policy changed – after Woolworths had seen losses of $200,000 ($1.9m today). The full story can be found on the internet under "Greensboro sit ins".

It is fitting then that the International Civil Rights Museum is housed where it is.

On the day we visited we joined a guided tour of the many exhibits in the museum led by a young African American student. (We were the only white people in a group of around 20.) And the tour opened my eyes. Yes, I’d been aware of segregation. I’d seen footage of protests. I was aware of Rosa Parkes and Martin Luther King. But I’d hadn’t appreciated how it worked.

I have several abiding memories. One is of a reconstruction of a waiting room at a bus station. Or I should say two waiting rooms divided by a wall. Built into the wall on each side was a Coca - Cola dispensing machine. In the Whites' room it was 5 cents; in the African American side it was 10 cents.

Then further on was a display marking the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama in 1963 by white supremacists during which 4 children were killed. From memory the Museum has some fragments of a stained-glass window from the church. (A year or so ago, I learned of the wonderful story of how a Welsh newspaper - the Western Mail - launched a fundraising campaign to replace the window as an act of solidarity. The Wales window.)

Then a montage of people who had been arrested for joining in the civil rights protests including several Methodist ministers.

A few weeks later we were in Washington DC and at one of the museums there, there was a powerful exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream" speech given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

With the protests in the USA at present, following the death of George Floyd, my memories have come back. And I suppose I must ask. What’s changed?

It is a genuine question. I don’t know the answer. I don’t know if African Americans feel things are better now than 50 years ago.

Part of me thinks that as a non-American maybe I shouldn’t express an opinion. But then another part of me, the Christian minister, remembers that at my ordination I was told that among the various duties of a Methodist minister, is that in God’s name I am “to preach by word and deed the Gospel of God’s grace” and “to minister Christ’s love and compassion”. Methodist Worship Book P302 © 1999 TMCP

I don’t know how I can do that from 3,000 miles away and don’t know what I could do anyway even if I was living in the USA.

One thing I did this morning was pray. Along with 3 other ministers one of whom is American as it happens. In my prayer I prayed for peace and I prayed a verse of scripture that is always on my mind:

Micah 6:8 New International Version - UK (NIVUK)

8 And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu knows a few things about standing up for justice and standing out against segregation – although in South Africa it was called “apartheid”. Tutu once said

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you are on the side of the oppressor."

A couple of years ago an old school friend paid me a huge compliment after reading something I’d written (in a blog or a sermon) She said “Well said Dai. You were always the one at school that stood up against something that was unfair. Glad you’ve not changed”

40 years on from school I’ve mellowed in some respects. But I do have an innate sense of right and wrong, justice and mercy. God given perhaps.

Photographs my own.