Diversity
American churches are still segregated, and it is the way most of us—regardless of our race—would like to keep it. At least, so suggests the recent online CNN article titled, “Why Americans Prefer Their Segregated Sundays." Curtiss DeYoung, professor of Reconciliation Studies at [...]
Jarrod McKenna's post on the 1968 Olympics witness/protest brought back memories of that event, and the impression it made on me. And there is a sequel to the story.
Jarrod McKenna's post on the 1968 Olympics witness/protest brought back memories of that event, and the impression it made on me. And there is a sequel to the story.
"God Is Love," inscribed on the tracksuit of the athlete who would become the second-fastest man alive, is what first caught the attention of Australian Olympic official Ray Weinberg in the early '60s.
I'm still "down under" -- wrapping up my book tour in Australia. The news from the U.S. reminds me of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s first act on the day after his swearing in as prime minister. In a moving speech, he delivered a speech of apology to the aboriginal people.
Tuesday, for the first [...]
It was almost 16 years ago that I sat in the debating chamber of Church House in Westminster and voted as a member of the House of Clergy to ordain women to the priesthood in the Church of England. At the time I was one of the youngest members of the House of Clergy, and I was in the first group of women ordained to the priesthood.
On Monday, July 7, the general synod meeting in York, England finished the job. At long [...]
It was almost 16 years ago that I sat in the debating chamber of Church House in Westminster and voted as a member of the House of Clergy to ordain women to the priesthood in the Church of England. At the time I was one of the youngest members of the House of Clergy, and I was in the first group of women ordained to the priesthood.
On Monday, July 7, the general synod meeting in York, England finished the job. At long [...]
It was almost 16 years ago that I sat in the debating chamber of Church House in Westminster and voted as a member of the House of Clergy to ordain women to the priesthood in the Church of England. At the time I was one of the youngest members of the House of Clergy, and I was in the first group of women ordained to the priesthood.
On Monday, July 7, the general synod meeting in York, England finished the job. At long [...]
The Fourth of July is always a weird holiday for me. It's not that I don't enjoy the nostalgia, picnics, barbeque, fireworks, and romanticizing of history--I do--yet as a student of history I can't help but be reminded of the July 5, 1852, speech of Frederick Douglass, given at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY. If you haven't, you should read it: "This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." This was a [...]
As a former North Carolinian, I have very mixed feelings regarding the death of Senator Jesse Helms. When my late grandfather Roy B. Clogston was the athletic director of NC State from 1948-69, he became good friends with Helms. At that time, Helms was the general manager of WRAL-TV in Raleigh, and they worked on the contracts to televise NC State basketball games. So, [...]
Slavery in the United States did not end in a night or even a year or decade. Even now, long past slavery's demise, the twin poisons of racism and class oppression echo as terrible reverberations from our forefathers' horrific acceptance and perpetuation of brutal violence against their fellow humans. The whips and chains are gone, but the hatred and violence too often well up while inequitable social policies ensure the longevity of poverty for certain classes of people. Even after 150 [...]
In the shadow of India's economic miracle lies a people often deemed untouchable, largely impoverished, and seemingly invisible. Bubbling beneath the shimmering image of a new India is a cauldron of inequality, caste-based subordination, and religious tension that could boil over into even greater civil strife and violence. At the center of these forces lies the Dalit struggle. While Dalit rights are often denied and hopes are crushed, growing political, economic, and spiritual empowerment [...]
The fact that an African American and a woman each ran so strongly in the long primary season of this election year speaks very well of the country. Having two "firsts" competing for the presidency, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, makes this a very historic political year. But it was perhaps unfortunate that the two firsts ended up running against each other. After a hard-fought campaign, there inevitably remain some hard feelings among the supporters of both candidates, but [...]
When the historic legislative milestone of the Voting Rights Act finally passed in 1965, I was still a young teenager. Until then, black people in America didn't have the right to vote. And until the Civil Rights Act passed the previous year in 1964, black Americans had to drink from separate drinking fountains, eat at separate lunch counters, ride at the back of buses, and watch movies only from the balconies of theaters. Then there was all the violence. I remember a civil rights worker [...]
When I first decided to spend this semester of my college career in
The following is an interview with Abigail Disney, producer of the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which recently won the award for best documentary feature at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
What sparked your interest in wanting to make a documentary about Liberia?
The fact that the newly [...]
Over the last several days, I watched Rev. Jeremiah Wright in discussions of faith, theology, history, and culture on television. The three-plus hours I devoted to PBS and CNN amounted to some of the most sophisticated and thoughtful programming on American culture and racial issues that any news station has offered in recent years. And, for those who really listened to Rev. Wright, he moved from [...]
It was only a short year ago that "shock jock" Don Imus chose to refer to the accomplished women playing in the NCAA Basketball Finals as "nappy-headed hoes," later billing the match-up for his listeners as the "jiggaboos" versus the "wannabes." Imus' disrespect came as little surprise. He had a long history of slur and slander against Blacks, Africans, Asians, Latinos, Jews, Arabs, women, homosexuals, the poor, and just about anyone he considered unlike himself. And he had been paid [...]
When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, he was trying to move the country to take on the moral issue of economic injustice. And, for the first time in many years, the remembrances of King's death (this one the 40th anniversary) urged the nation to do the same. Usually the nation's anniversary celebrations freeze-frame King as the nation's greatest civil rights leader whose famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was the extent of his message. Later calls for [...]
Read Taylor Branch's op-ed in yesterday's NYT Week in Review if you haven't already:
Civil rights, Vietnam, Dr. King, Memphis - these are historic landmarks. Even so, this [...]