Adventist Forum Civil Rights Journey, October 3–4, 2020
When Alisa Williams asked me to write about the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice (informally known as the National Lynching Memorial) for Spectrum, I did not expect that the experience would begin a process of unfolding awareness about structural injustices. This became the seed of an idea to invite the Adventist Forum Board to Alabama for one of our scheduled board meetings and take the extra time to reflect on recent history of racial injustice in the United States.
Adventist Peace Fellowship will collaborate, as we seek to broaden the reach of this Journey by inviting a limited number of our Forum family to join us. We have invited several distinguished Adventists to journey with us and share their stories. Dr. Walter B. T. Douglas, Professor of Church History and History of Religion, Emeritus at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University has expressed enthusiasm about the gathering. Also, we will be honored to have several faculty from Oakwood University with us on the journey.
Based in Birmingham, Alabama, the group will depart early Sabbath morning, October 3, 2020, via chartered bus to Montgomery to see the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice. After lunch in Montgomery, we will travel to Selma to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Saturday evening, we will have dinner together in Birmingham.
Sunday morning, October 4, we will gather at the 16th Street Baptist Church for services beginning at 11 a.m. Then, we will walk to lunch via the Historic Civil Rights Trail that begins at Kelly Ingram Park. Finally, we will tour the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute at 2 p.m.
I hope we can develop friendships and understand one another better when we reflect on what these memorials mean to us as a society and as a church. If you are interested, please contact me immediately via email at no.twaddle@gmail.com. I anticipate that we will have space for the first 25 people who respond. Pricing and hotel accommodations to be determined.
Here are some preparatory resources to add meaning to the Adventist Forum Civil Rights Journey:
The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Cone, James (2011)
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, DiAngelo, Robin (2018)
Black Like Me, Griffith, John Howard (1961)
The Children, Halberstam, David (1998)
Why We Can’t Wait, King, Martin Luther (1964)
Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, Lewis, John (1998)
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, McWhorter, Diane (2001)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Stevenson, Bryan (2014)
Also, these films:
Just Mercy (2020)
Selma (2014)
Carmen Lau is board chair of Adventist Forum, the organization that publishes Spectrum.
Photo courtesy of Outdoor Alabama on Flickr.
We invite you to join our community through conversation by commenting below. We ask that you engage in courteous and respectful discourse. You can view our full commenting policy by clicking here.
