News

CCRJ learns lessons on racism from Civil Rights Movement

May 24, 2005

The Churches' Commission for Racial Justice (CCRJ) has led a visit to America of British and Irish Church leaders, racial justice officers, and anti-racism activists. The delegation followed in the steps of the Civil Rights Movement, to the deep South, meeting some who sheltered Martin Luther King from the Ku Klux Klan. But as well as hearing encouraging stories of reconciliation, they found disturbing levels of racism at all levels in society.

During the two-week fact-finding and education visit to the USA, the team met clergy in Alabama who organized services with congregations of over 1,500 worshippers, offering repentance and forgiveness for slavery and its legacies.

But they also met overwhelming levels of segregation and racism, both in the North and in the South where racism goes hand in hand with extreme poverty. And for some of the team, what they saw in America made them relive their own painful experiences of institutional racism in their homelands.

Their message to the British and Irish Churches is that their role in fighting racism is absolutely essential.  'The Civil Rights Movement was principally led by the Churches which brought about significant change, not least voting rights for African Americans. We would want to emulate their achievements,' said The Revd Arlington Trotman, secretary of CCRJ, a commission of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

Moderator of CCRJ, the Revd Myra Blyth said the team went to see and hear directly about the important work being done by American Churches to tackle injustice and marginalization of minority communities. They hoped to gain much from the American Churches' vast knowledge and experience as a consequence of the Civil Rights struggle. 'We went thinking that the US had made more progress because the Civil Rights Movement has been fighting racism for so long. Now we can see the Churches here will have to maintain their struggle for racial justice.'

'The Churches in Britain and Ireland have to provide neutral spaces where people can come and find help,' said Mr Trotman. 'The government is shifting its language to what it calls community cohesion, while it is the Churches' responsibility to maintain the focus on seeing all God's people as of equal intrinsic value, in terms of humanity and how we share resources.'

The group of twelve, including commissioners from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, planned to meet church delegations, community activists, black empowerment organizations, and educational institutions in the racial justice struggle in Washington DC, Alabama, Atlanta, Chicago and New York. The Revd Jesse Jackson welcomed them to  the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters in Chicago.

The group encountered people with a range of perceptions on racism. 'People in the North would tell us that it doesn't happen there. But with visitors' eyes, we could see more acutely that racism is still deeply rooted in the everyday life. 'The Civil Rights Movement has transformed the physical signs of segregation, but the mental and institutional segregation is still a reality,' said Mr Trotman.

Most painfully the team discovered that Martin Luther King's saying '11am on a Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week' is still true today.

Moderator of CCRJ, the Revd Myra Blyth said: 'We are excited about this trip because it offers the possibility of seeing and hearing directly about the important work being done by American Churches to tackle injustice and marginalization of minority communities. We hope to gain much from their vast knowledge and experience as a consequence of the Civil Rights struggle.'

The delegation met Teressa Burrows, a 68 year old Civil rights campaigner. She movingly told the story of how in 1965 Dr Martin Luther King was protected in her parents' home in Greensboro, Alabama from the Ku Klux Klan who wer determined to kill him. Their house is now a Civil Rights Museum, known as the Safe House, in poverty-stricken Alabama to which Teressa is curator.

The delegation will now reflect and make a full report back to CCRJ commissioners and to CTBI's trustees.