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The following sermon reflection was written by the Rev. Susan A. Henderson, Interim Senior Minister, and the Rev. Sandy Dodson, Associate Minister, Christ Congregational Church, Silver Spring, Maryland. It was preached on January 20, 2008, at CCC in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s prophetic ministry. Rev. Henderson’s voice is brown, Rev. Dodson’s blue and red indicates our voices together. Paper and electronic copies can be made with permission of the authors.

“I have a dream,” he said.  “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men—all people—were created equal.” The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. truly believed there would be a day when “on the hills of Georgia, the sons of slaves and the sons of former slave owners would be able to sit down at the same table” engaged in mutual dialogue about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that little black boys and black girls would one day be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers. He believed that one day, from every mountain side and every valley, together we would sing, “let freedom ring!”

In 1963, 850 miles away from this very spot in the small town of Galesburg, Illinois, in the home state of the one who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Sandy Dodson age 8, Susie Coleman, now Henderson, age 7, (and Ken Henderson age 11) lived in different neighborhoods, on opposite sides of town, unaware of Dr. King’s speech, yet fully aware of racial difference.  As we grew and developed our thinking and understanding of life, we unwittingly learned and absorbed the power of internalized racism.

While we grew up in the same town and walked the halls of the same high school, Sandy and I met for the first time here at Christ Congregational Church, Silver Spring, Maryland. Since our days in Galesburg, the world has become less fragmented and in a global sense, much smaller. So now it is possible to say, while miles apart, Sandy and I finally live in the same neighborhood.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black folk and white folk, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

I wasn’t born in Galesburg. Galesburg - the once community of underground railroads; where in the 1850’s opposition to slavery was a requirement for church membership. My big sister and I moved to this abolitionist town in 1960. I was getting ready for kindergarten. I was then where Jaime is now.

I have absolutely no memory of particular persons of color in my 5^th year of life. My neighborhood was working class white. Was my kindergarten class at the downtown Y also white? I have memories of the Y in my older grade school years being integrated – sort of. Black adolescent boys played pool and basketball. I don’t recall there ever being clusters of black and white kids laughing and hanging out together. We lived and played in different worlds.

Beginning in 1959, my family lived on the southwest end of Galesburg, in a neighborhood filled with Negroes, Mexicans and poor white people who did not fit into other white neighborhoods. We were cordial to all our neighbors, but the unspoken rule was to stick with your own. I did have Mexican and White playmates. We played on the schoolyard, not in each other’s homes. It was something we all understood.

In a peculiar way, my family lived within an air of status. My father was the only black police officer and my grandfather, a man who could pass as a white man, was the prominent black Baptist minister. In reality, their titles were the only real status. My father had the authority to enforce the law, but no power to make them or change them. My grandfather preached God’s law and instilled in us the power of God’s love, but he did not have the authority to create social systems that offered new life and sustained hope beyond the walls of his church. Their titles said they were important, however, when they came home, they were simply two black men struggling to be somebody in the eyes of those who held the power to define the status and value of one’s personhood. From them we learned there were places your voices mattered and places your voice mattered not at all.

The old Y was on the corner of Seminary and Ferris Streets, one block north of Main. The Y was run down and reflected the transition into the poorer side of town. I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it then but Main Street drew a line between race and economic status. My parents were vocal that they didn’t want “darkies” in our neighborhood. Why? I just figured that that was the way it was. Whites and persons of color were not to be neighbors. We were not the same. And yes, I felt an air of being better than “them.”  Blacks were janitors and ticket takers on the train. The lack of persons of color in everyday leadership, be it government or grocery stores, was confirmation that they were inferior to me.

While working on today’s reflection, I discovered this quote in a Galesburg early history book, “Negroes are not supposed to live north of Main Street or east of Cedar Street, but there is no legal restraint. It is a sort of colored ‘gentlemen’s agreement.’”

Sandy is correct; a “gentlemen’s agreement” defined who could live where, who could eat where, who could sit where. In the south, “Whites Only” signs and “Colored Only” signs provided guidance for this, in the north, there were no signs but everybody knew who belonged where—At the drive in, we parked in the back few rows, at the Orpheum theater downtown our seats were in the balcony, on the school bus, we sat at the back, pretending it was our choice because it was hip. There were no signs, but Jim Crow still ruled in Galesburg.

It was not until I was an adult that it dawned on me that my parents never took us on “vacations”.  Instead, we went on trips to visit family. We stayed in their homes not in hotels—we slept on their floors as there were often not enough beds. Only once do I remember stopping at a restaurant to eat, the rest of the time we ate in the car. Once when we went to Marshalltown, Iowa a tornado formed so we at a roadside café to eat and stayed until it passed by.  As we ate, I smiled on the inside. And, I kept looking to see what people thought of our being there.

I was baptized at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, one block from Second Baptist Church, Susan’s house of worship. I grew up never knowing that Susan Coleman’s faith community existed.  Within the gothic beauty of Corpus, I took in the silent sacred. I later played guitar at contemporary Masses. “To be alive, and feeling free, and to have everyone in our family to be alive, in every way, oh how great it is – to be alive!” For all I was learning about social justice and God’s love, I didn’t know the stories of my faith family a block away. We lived and worshipped in different worlds.

Corpus Christi was beautiful.  We loved watching the brides come down its long cement staircase in their beautiful white gowns with their long trains--wondering what it looked like on the inside.

Our small red-bricked Baptist church was a sanctuary, a shelter for us.  It was a place where we could freely express our faith and name our truths.  We did mission work, but we were not actively involved social justice movements. “Change will come in God’s time,” was constant the message—“I am ready for change now,” was the youth revolt.  From 1963 on, there was a growing restlessness in our neighborhoods. Tensions grew. Attendance in worship dropped off. On the church bus, the older teens talked about how they would riot downtown at O T Johnson’s and then in our schools—“then we would have our due,” they said. In the end, the violence did not work.  We went back to hoping—hoping the dream Dr. King spoke about might someday become a reality.  When Dr. King was assassinated, hope left my body—for a while.

When Dr. King was assassinated, my sister tells me that I wasn’t upset in an empathetic kind of way. When I saw her tears I asked, “Were you on his side?” At thirteen I had learned my parent’s lessons.

My grade school community was dominated by third generation Catholic European immigrant families. The Fineran’s, O’Connor’s, Podwojski’s, Mangeri’s, Mingari’s and Klovich’s made up my landscape. I grew up identifying with the underdog Irish, Polish and Italians. As Catholics, the KKK caught our attention. The men in white sheets hated us too. Being Catholic was a badge of honor and courage.

Catholicism is steeped in social justice. The Galesburg Catholic schools were, (unbeknownst to my parents), a breeding ground for social activists and persons of a gospel fueled faith. A few of my high school teachers, brothers and nuns, had marched in Selma. I learned that Rome and the Diocese were not in charge – God was. Jesus was the authority.

Costa closed after my sophomore year (inadequate funding). We all transferred to GHS, the one public high school, a little smaller than Blair. The landscape changed. Diversity and opportunity grew. To be a Costa kid brought new encounters with a few prejudiced Protestants. They were white Protestants.

The few interactions I had with persons of color were positive or at least uneventful. I sang alongside Susan’s brother, Greg, in choir! There was racial tension present at GHS to be sure. But my adult memory cannot access those times. When Susan asked me about the riots, I asked, “What riots?!” Those in places of power are so often clueless. We can afford to be.

I never visited an African American’s home, never invited an African American to mine. I never much thought about race on a personal level, like what was it like to be the only black kid in a sea of white. We lived and slept in different worlds.

Not until I moved to Silver Spring did I daily encounter African Americans in positions of authority and economic status. When I went to open a bank account, I was the only white girl in the place. I looked around and thought, “This is good. This is good for you, Sandy. This is wonderful for your beautiful, brown skinned daughter.”

Much has changed since Ken and I left Galesburg. Our children have obtained dreams our parents would not dare to hope. They can live where they choose, befriend whomever they want and someday marry the person they love; no matter their race, gender or sexual orientation. For them, for all our children, I weep with joy.  Yet, I am aware their living has been shaped by lessons of racism internalized passed down from me and Ken, lessons learned from society—lessons I continue to live out…

In 2008, when I enter a room, it is not uncommon for me to take inventory of who is there and wonder if the color of my skin will matter to them. When it takes a little longer to be seated at a restaurant or when it seems everyone is being served and I am not, I wonder if I should be offended. I get impatient, frustrated with the fact that English is the only language I speak—I want to understand and be understood—but I have not taken the opportunity to learn Spanish.  While I care greatly about the quality of work I produce, there is an underlying belief that as an African American woman, I must work harder.

In 2008, when I see an African American male pulled over by police and wonder about drugs as well as racial profiling; when I go to take a picture of whites and persons of color against a dark backdrop and it has to be called to my attention that my brown skinned friends will not show up; when I worry whether an African American attending CCC will forgive me when I inadvertently cross the race line – When these things happen, then I realize I have work to do.

Who knows for sure what is necessary to continue to believe or unlearn and what is not, after all, so much has evolved. What is certain, however, is that lessons of racism get into our souls and racism does not want to let go. 

We all come from somewhere and all of our living has been impacted by racism –learned and internalized—in ways we know and in ways we have yet to discover. We must continue to work towards the vision of Dr. King’s dream—in our families, in our communities and throughout our world.

How amazing it is that God has brought us here, all of us, to this area, to this church, at this time in history “that we might be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, if necessary to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing [that someday] all people will be free” 

“…one day we will be able to “hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope, and transform the jangling discord of our nation into a beautiful symphony of [humanity in harmony].”  Then, and only then, will we know the reality of Dr. King’s dream.  This is our hope… this is our faith…

Today, we still have work to do…  Amen and may it be so!

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