March 22, 2015 – Guest Preacher: Pastor Ken Kuhn on Remembering Selma
Guest Preacher: Pastor Ken Kuhn
Date March 22, 2015
Calendar: Fifth Sunday in Lent
Church: First Lutheran, Winnipeg
Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-12; Hebrews 5:5-10; John, 12:20-33
Remembering Selma
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)
An historic event: Selma-Montgomery Civil Rights March
Today I seek your indulgence as I remember a significant event in my life and in the life of North Americans and others who have a vision for racial fairness and justice. Thanks you, Pastor Michael, for responding affirmatively to my offer to preach today drawing on the Lenten practice of relating the message to a current film. Perhaps you saw the newspaper article last Saturday in the Free Press that related the experience of myself and another Winnipeg pastor who took part in the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965. And the CBC national news also picked this up and interviewed and filmed us at the Heather Curling Rink, just yesterday. This march took place 50 years ago almost to the day. I hope that you have seen the film Selma a fictional documentary of the leadership of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the many others who led the way in seeking voter’s rights for Negroes in Alabama and southern eastern states in the United States.
Christian witness
The march and the civil rights movement in the States was led by committed Christians. Martin Luther King Jr. was the most prominent leader, but many others also provided leadership. King was gifted and devoted Baptist minister who worked in Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia before speaking out to end the segregation that continued to marginalizeand discriminate against black people. While the American civil war brought an end to slavery now over 150 years ago, many means were used in the southern states to“keep the Negro in his place.” The faith of the Bible speaks plainly of the gift of freedom for all races. In the letter to the Ephesians we read: “For [Christ] is our peace; in his flesh he has ….broken down the dividing wall,that isthe hostility between us. (Eph. 2:14). In the book of Galatians is the promise that in Christ there are no barriers based upon race, gender or social class. So, my participation in the march was an expression of my relationship to Jesus. This morning as we hear from the gospel of John how Jesus has turned toward Jerusalem and the obstacles that he will face there leading to his death, we also hear that he will be “lifted up” from suffering to new life. We embrace the hope that as we enter into the human experiences of suffering and oppression, we also experience a lifting up into a new maturity in our faith. A relationship with God is not limited to those of a particular race or denomination. The movement for civil rights is based upon this belief in the intrinsic value of each person, that every individualis diminished when they are separated and restricted or the opportunity to vote is blocked.
The Context of the Civil Rights Movement
The historic civil rights movement in the States came to a head in the 1950s and 60s.
- It began with breaking down the barrier of racially segregated seating on public buses in the south. In Birmingham, Alabama a tired woman returning home from a hard day’s work refused to sit at the back of the bus as regulated at that time. Many of you use buses here in Winnipeg. What an injustice if any single group had to sit in the crowded back sections while there were empty seats at the front. Rosa Parks was courageous in standing up for her human rights and after a long boycott of the buses in Birmingham, the buses were desegregated.
- The movement then turned to segregation in public places like restaurants and hotels and schools. Even public washrooms and fountains were labelled white only. The strategy was not to boycott, but for protesters to sit in the restaurants seeking to be served. Many students took part in these sit-ins, some incurring severe beatings by others or by the police. The nation wept when churches were bombed and four little black Sunday School girls lost their lives when their church was burned by the Klu Klux Klan.
- In 1963 was the massive march on Washington when King delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech in which he envisioned black and white children playing together and blacks and whites working and living in harmony.
- In that same year, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated dashing the hopes of many who yearned for an America that reflected freedom and liberty and opportunity for all.
- Under President Lyndon Johnson, an historic civil rights bill was passed in 1964 making the segregation of public facilities illegal; but access to the vote was still blocked in many states in the south, including Alabama.
Voters Rights
The events in Selma and Montgomery were aimed at breaking down the restrictions imposed upon black people to prevent them from voting in civic, state and federal elections. The film about Selma depicts a respectable black woman played by Oprah Winfrey being refused to register as a voter due simply to her race. A push for voter registration became another goal of the civil rights movement. Demonstrations and voter registration projects spread across the south. And in March 1965, 50 years ago. A number of protest marches were organized to secure the vote for Negroes.
- The firstoccurred on March 7, 1965 in Selma. In that attempt, marchers were blocked by the police, state troopers and attacked with clubs and truncheons and tear gas as they left the town and went across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Due to the brutality which stopped this march, it has been called “Bloody Sunday.” Pictured on TV and the press, the nation was galvanized about the injustices which prevented blacks from exercising the vote. King and his organizers applied to the courts for permission to march again. While this was acknowledged by the White House, a court decision was delayed.
- A second march was organized for the Tuesday of that week. While the marchers were permitted to enter the bridge on the way out of Selma, King stopped the march and all knelt in prayer. He turned back the marchers, as they were not guaranteed that there would be no bloodshed and there were no federal or state troops protecting them. The film depicts how King appealed to President Johnson and public opinion began to side with the blacks after the atrocities of bloody Sunday. Overcoming his fearing of backlash from conservative southern Democrats that he relied upon, Johnson finally conceded and forwarded a Voters Rights bill to Congress that prohibited racial barriers to the vote in the southern states.
- The third march took place over five days between March 21 and March 25 when marchers paraded the fifty miles from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. It is this march that I took part in, as King invited people of good will to support the effort to win the vote for blacks, appealing particularly to white clergy and laypeople from the north to join in. So, indeed I heard this appeal and travelled from Chicago, where I was a theological student, and took part with 23,000 others on the last day of the march. The five of us from the Lutheran seminary marched close to the entertainer Harry Belafonte, a scene which is depicted in the film. We marched courageously and determinedly to enter Montgomery and assembled before the state house where to hear folk singers like Peter, Paul and Mary and Joan Baez lead the celebration.
And Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech How Long? Not Long. In this speech
- he outlined the roots of segregation and how in the civil rights movement “we are on the move to stop racism.”
- Let us continue our march so that all can achieve the American dream to end segregation, end poverty and open the ballot box for all voters.
- He spoke how God has broken down walls of exclusion and oppression throughout history. How the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down.
- He urged non-violent actions to achieve freedom.
- How long until justice and freedom are realized? “Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
The crowd had to disperse by midnight and we returned on thetrain from Montgomery to Chicago, exhausted yet excited that perhaps we had made a difference. President Lyndon Johnson’s voters’ rights bill was passed by Congress later that year. It has made a significant difference in the status of black people in the states, including the election of a black mayor in Selma and Montgomery, and the election of a black chief of police in Selma, and of course the election of the first black president in Washington.
A Personal decision
While this fiftieth anniversary of this historic event has been an occasion for me to put together in a more coherent way the events of those years, it also marked asignificant personal decision on my part that was not the easiest of decisions for me. I want to clarify that I am a Canadian, born in Winnipeg and raised in North Burnaby, British Columbia. I graduated from the University of British Columbia with an arts degree and married Marie before graduation. With a sense of call to enter the ministry, we had decided to go the Maywood campus of Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, a seminary with a fine reputation for scholarship and excellence. So in 1965 we found ourselves in Chicago when these events were occurring. I read about the bloody events of the first Selma march and heard the appeal of Martin Luther King. A classmate who was one of my best friends knocked on our apartment door and invited me to go along in response to King’s appeal. But, as a Canadian, I agonized whether this was a matter that I should be involved in. Yet my experience of the segregation in Chicago and the conviction that all races had a place in the kingdom of God, moved me to conclude that this was not only an American issue, but was an issue of human rights. Then I had to consider the matter of safety. We recognized that to go to Selma would expose us to the possibility of danger. Others who had participated had been beaten, some arrested and a number killed by police or vigilantes. I had a wife and young child only 18 months old. Was it right for me to take this risk and jeopardize the safety and security of my family? The film depicts how James Reeb, a minister from Boston who took part in the 2nd march, was beaten to death in Selma after eating a meal and turning the wrong way into the white section of town. But my conscience spoke to me clearly that I must take part. It was the right and Christian thing to do. This law was written on my heart.
We took part in a briefing session in Chicago that trained us in nonviolent means of defending ourselves if we were attacked. And then we boarded the train for an overnight trip to Montgomery, along with other students. We were bussed about ten miles out and then joined the marchers who were coming from Selma. We walked in solidarity for a number of hours praying and singing on the way. Fearful yet hopeful. There are times in life when our convictions demand that we take a stand. No doubt many here have faced these moments of decision and courage, sometimes in spite of opposition or risk. Yet we become more human and mature as we act on the basis of our deep values. As the baptized people of God we are committed to share in the good news of liberty for all persons. This is a central theme in the history of those who trust in God who is on the side of the poor, the hungry and the marginalized who yearn for justice. I am proud to be a member of this congregation that welcomes all people irrespective of their colour or culture.
Racial justice today
Yet the movement for racial justice and equality is not over. Although blacks have made great strides in the States since the 60s, there is still discrimination. We witness the shootings of black youth by police in a number of places in the states. A report on the events in Ferguson, Missouri spells out clearly the racism rife in the police department of this suburb of St. Louis. Each month there appear to be similar incidents. Racism is marked by attitudes that deem people of another race or religion as somehow defective, not as smart or capable or ambitious as others. And then these attitudes are expressed in the society as structured discrimination which bars certain groups from inclusion in the social and economic mainstream of society.
In Winnipeg, we continue to see the situation of aboriginal people in our province and nation. Many live in poverty, lack adequate educational and employment opportunities. The vast majority of those in our correctional facilities are of aboriginal heritage. How inspiring that a new generation of aboriginal leaders are leading the way to change and opportunity.
The March Goes On
So, as I have brought to your remembrance the struggles and successes of the civil rights movement and the march from Selma to Montgomery, God through the gospel continues to call us to be people of good will to share in the struggles of minority groups. We know that God is marching with us in this journey of hope and human fulfillment. Let us not grow weary but follow in trust where Jesus leads us. Martin Luther King’s inspired speech that day ended with words from the Negro spiritual: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Our God is marching on. Glory, Glory, hallelujah. Amen.
Let us now sing this hymn # 890 as our Hymn of the Day:
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
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