2/10/63

Scripture: Acts 17: 22-28.

Text: Acts 17: 26a; "He made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth ..."

I have a warm spot in my heart for Boy Scouting and for Scouts and Cubs. I have never been a Scout, myself. But I have been a Scouter for more than 28 years. During my first pastorate in Hawaii, I was a committee member, and finally troop committee chairman of a community troop. One of my treasures is the bronze Scout statuette which the Scoutmaster and Scouts of Ehukai Troop 9 presented to me when I left Kahului. I was next pastor of a church in Honolulu which sponsored a Cub Pack, a Scout troop, and a Sea Scout Ship. While living here in Wisconsin Rapids, I have been registered with the Scout Troop or Cub pack 172 as committeeman or Institutional Representative for the entire length of my pastorate in this church. I am proud of the fact that the scout troop sponsored by this church, when Guy Nash became the Scoutmaster, was the very first troop started in this neighborhood, possibly the first in this state, and certainly one of the first in the nation. Another of the treasures which I possess is a bronze Scout Statuette which was presented to me in 1956 by officers of the Ahdawagam District.

My four sons were all Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. All four became Life Scouts; two became Eagle Scouts and one received the God and Country Award. Two of them attended National Jamborees at Valley Forge. I myself visited a National Jamboree at Colorado Springs for a few hours one afternoon. One of the valuable bits of experience at a Jamboree is the exchange of friendship between Scouts who come from many places in this nation and abroad; who come from great cities; smaller towns and from rural areas all over the nation; who speak several languages other than English; who are descended from people of a variety of races. Caucasian boys, of the white race, meet Scouts of American Indian tribes; of Negro and Oriental and Polynesian ancestry; boys who hail from North and South, from Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii. And they know that they are all Scouts -- all pledged, on their honor, to do their best to do their duty to God an country; to keep themselves physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

When my youngest son attended a National Jamboree at Valley Forge, he took the time and trouble to cross those tremendous grounds to look up the delegation from Hawaii. He had never been there, for he was born here in Wisconsin Rapids. But he knew I had been there, and there might be a chance that he would find someone who knew his Dad. Sure enough, the Scoutmaster of the Kahului troop was there with a delegation from Maui. When Hiroshi Hirozawa heard the name, "Kingdon," he greeted Arthur with a smile as broad as the Pacific Ocean, took him around to meet other Scouts from Hawaii, gave him "trading goods" from the Islands, and an impromptu gift for his parents, and sent him back to his unit with real "Aloha."

A lot of Scouts have learned that a Scout is a Scout, whether he is Caucasian or Oriental; whether he had brown, black, white, red or yellow skin; whether he speaks the English, Spanish, Hawaiian, Winnebago, Tagalog or Japanese or Chinese tongues. Every generation of people needs to learn a similar lesson. As we become mature people, we need to know that people, including ourselves, are to be judged, and accepted for individual, personal worth; and are not to be classified solely by the color of their skin, the country of their origin, the accent of their tongue. It was a young fellow from Hawaii, himself of Japanese ancestry, who said something that reminded me of this truth (He had been one of the first young persons with whom I associated in my first parish.) He visited us here in Wisconsin Rapids while he was attending a University here on the United States mainland. He said: "I have to watch myself, so that I do not classify people by the group to which they seem to belong; so that I learn to value each person I meet for what he is as an individual person." I hope I shall always remember what he said.

Now this is not only "Boy Scout Sunday." It is also observed all over the United States, in a multitude of churches, as "Race Relations Sunday." And one reason for observance of a Race Relations Sunday is that a lot of us still have a great deal to learn about getting along with each other. When I say "each other," I mean ourselves in this church and community and also ourselves in the broad humanity of the earth.

Let us think back for a moment to a verse of the Scripture lesson to which we gave attention this morning. Paul, after his conversion from a persecutor of Christians to an outright advocate of the Christ, went about over a good deal of the world of his day preaching his new faith courageously, patiently, skillfully and persistently. When he arrived in Athens, he made a bid for the attention of the Greek citizens, and then he proclaimed: God "made from every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth." The earlier translation of the Bible reads "made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth."

This is a conviction that needs to be repeated by whoever dares to be a prophet in every age from Paul’s time to our own age. We are prone to forget it; we are tempted to nurse the notion that some people are better than others because of their race or nationality or class or caste. And we sometimes learn, only by the hard way, that an individual is to be judged chiefly by his own personal ability and performance. For me to judge of him solely by his caste or class or race is to do an injustice both to him and to myself.

Here is a university student from a far eastern country who comes of a highly privileged class. He is there because he has the funds to keep him there and he seeks the prestige of the university’s degree. But he proves himself a poor student; he would prefer that others carry his books and even do his studying. He passes his course only because the faculty feel it might be politically undiplomatic to flunk so prominent a fellow from a nation whose favor is needed by our own.

Here is another student who comes from the same country, but from the very lowest class or caste in that nation. He is alert and eager, a serious student with marked capabilities. He works effectively and with growing understanding. His high marks attest the faculty’s satisfaction in teaching so capable a student. Is he to be judged by his caste or by his personal record?

One of the great sore spots in this nation of ours is the relationship between Caucasian and Negro -- white race and black race. Because there are no glib or easy answers to our problem it is one to cause us great despair, or great hope, depending on how we regard it and address ourselves to its solution.

Ancestors of most of the Negro people in our country came to these shores in the holds of slave ships. They were uprooted from their villages and families in various parts of Africa. They became the chattel property of those who bought them. They had little training for anything except physical labor. They had little opportunity to establish anything stable in the way of family life for they could be separated -- husband from wife; parent from child -- by sale to another owner. Often their lot was reduced to that of livestock -- both as to breeding and as to distribution.

Among the white population controversy raged for a long time over the alleged right or wrong of owning slaves. The youthful Abraham Lincoln, himself a product of the back woods, but at least white, saw the wretchedness of slavery, especially at the auction block. And he vowed that he would hit that thing and hit it hard, when he might have the opportunity to do so. The opportunity came while he was President, and when the nation was in life or death struggle to save the Union. As a war measure, but a measure with tremendous ethical significance, President Lincoln demanded and received Congressional power to emancipate the slaves. And so he proclaimed their freedom.

For approximately a century now, there has been no legal chattel slavery in the United States of America. But the nation’s troubles did not end. New problems have continue to rise. Many of them have been met by adroit maneuvering. But this is seldom aught but a temporary solution. No permanent solution is going to be found until both white and black folk find a way to live as neighbors who respect each other’s rights and abilities and merits.

Separation, or segregation, of the white and black races has long been held to be a workable solution to our problem of getting along, not only in the South, but to a considerable extent in the North as well. But no matter how high-sounding a theory it has been, it has been proven indefensible. It works out to a clear advantage for white and a clear disadvantage for black people. Such security as the Caucasian has does not meet the approval of the world at large, and does not meet the requirements of our own way of life as defined in our national constitution. Such security as the Negro has in a segregated society does not satisfy his need for fair play and recognition of his own merits. And we are all under vigorous and telling attack from the propaganda machines of our enemies as well as criticism of our friends until we find a better solution to our problem. A decision of our own courts that the kind of segregation our country has practiced is not consistent with our own law has had far-reaching effect. The people of the South, both white and black, are suffering in soul as they struggle with the issue.

I have never seen quite the same kind of suffering of soul that I sense in some of the sermons prepared by conscientious white ministers of the South for preaching to congregations that may often disagree violently. We have not often seen such determined willingness on the part of black folk to suffer, if necessary, for the principle of equal opportunity. And the problem is by no means limited to the South. It has become acute in Northern cities like Chicago, New York, Detroit and Milwaukee, Cleveland and Los Angeles, because of the steady transfer of Negro folk from the South and from rural areas to urban centers.

Here in Wisconsin Rapids we do not wrestle with the problem in the same way that people in mixed areas must wrestle. But we must keep a lively and sympathetic understanding of those who do more struggling and suffering over it than we now do. We may not be forever immune to the experience!

Negroes know their disadvantages. Caucasians had better know, too. In the world of specialized skills, Negroes have more and more trouble finding and holding jobs. The unemployment rate among Negroes is more than twice that among white men. In some cities one Negro man out of every three is out of work. Dr. James B. Conant found that 70% of the Negro young men who had left school in one city slum area were out of work.

To be even eligible for jobs, Negro youth need more education than many of them have. But his lack of opportunity gives the Negro boy little incentive to study. And so many Negro children are satisfied that there is no point in trying. They become disciplinary problems and often almost impossible to teach. The Negro community has a tremendous job to be done at this point. Much of it can be done only by the all too few Negro leaders who are dedicated and who need all of the encouragement and opportunity anyone can offer them.

Negro communities are going to have to develop self-help institutions, more philanthropy, more pride of ability and accomplishment. Certain Negro leaders are aware of this and are at work upon it in their communities. A growing number of them are encouraging Negro people to assume more responsibility for their own fate. Carl Rowan, now a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public affairs, has written: "It is not enough to blame every Negro misdeed on segregation, or to pretend that integration will be a cure-all for every social problem in sight." And the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has said: "We have become so involved in trying to wipe out the institution of segregation, which certainly is a major cause of social problems among Negroes, that we have neglected to push programs to raise the moral and cultural climate in our Negro neighborhoods." In Dr. King’s view, Negroes must learn to strive for excellence in every field of endeavor -- "not excellence as a Negro doctor or lawyer or a Negro craftsman, but excellence per se."

Men like that need the spiritual encouragement and approval of all sorts of people, you and me among them. Where we can find an opening to encourage self help and self respect and self confidence in the great cooperative framework of society, let us stand ready to give it.

A southern minister, born and bred in the South, trying to be Christian above all else, disagreed with another loyal Southerner, who also claimed to be Christian, and who said heatedly, "What we need is get a few of the black so-and-so’s out and shoot them in the street." That minister who disagreed is fighting for his professional life, and possible even his physical life, as well as the health and safety of his family. We need to take sides on that kind of stand. I doubt that we can do much good by marching down there as Northerners to try to straighten the South out. The South will have to do the job with such encouragement as it can get. But we Northerners have a job of our own to do! The beginning of it all is to remind ourselves of the truth inherent in Paul’s words to those Athenians: We are all of one blood -- to put it both spiritually and biologically. We have got to act like brothers and be like brothers.

Last spring, the House and Senate of the State of Mississippi passed a resolution instructing their state Department of Education to see that Mississippi students be taught that Negroes are biologically inferior to whites. This is precisely what happened in Nazi Germany when Hitler’s government declared that some races were superior and some races were inferior, and that the Aryan race was the master race. Biological research and science, of course, teaches the reverse of this. There are no basic biological differences other than skin color and some bone structure. There are some cultural or ethnic differences due to environment; but change the environment and these differences change too. There are only individual differences. And religion teaches that God "made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth."

Every man on earth is a brother to every other man in a profound spiritual sense. And the world has been shrinking swiftly to a small neighborhood. It is our God-given task to make the neighborhood a brotherhood. What can you and I do about it?

1) First, we must purge ourselves of all race hate and prejudice. We do well to discipline ourselves in the practice of the Golden Rule in attitude and conduct. We might very well pray with the Sioux Indian: "Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked for two miles in his moccasins."

2) Second, we can do all in our power to make our local churches more and more Christian in this area. No matter who may appear for worship with us, now or at some future date, let him find the welcome of Christian fellowship.

Shortly after the close of the Civil War, a poorly dressed Negro man entered a fashionable church in Richmond, Virginia. When the time came for communion to be served in that church where the worshippers came forward and kneeled to receive it, the Negro went forward and knelt at the altar. A rustle of shock and anger swept through the congregation. A distinguished looking layman immediately stood up, stepped forward to the altar, and knelt beside the colored brother to receive communion with him. Captured by his spirit, the congregation followed in due course. The layman who set that good example was named Robert E. Lee.

The worship of God in a church is a good place to witness to the fact that this is God’s world, and that under Him we are brothers.

3) Third, we must combine our witness with that of others in the community and in the world for better race relations. In a fashionable part of Boston, a Negro speaker said to a church congregation of white folk, "Your ancestors came over in the Mayflower; mine came over in a slave ship. But we are all in the same boat now." This is one world. Under God we must recognize our stewardship and sonship. We must learn to get along with some people -- with all people. For in Christ there is "One great fellowship of love, Throughout the whole wide earth."

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, February 10, 1963.

Also at Waioli Hui’ia Church, February 6, 1972.