10/27/63

Scripture: I John 4: 16-21.

Today is Reformation Sunday on the calendar of hosts of Protestant churches. It is a reminder of the occasion when Martin Luther’s offer to debate certain theses which he had posted on a church door opened wide the gate toward reclaiming and reforming the church of that day from its errors and corruptions. The reformation has been going on every since.

This year, we of this church turn our attention from that reformation, to a new crisis in the life of this nation. We have been marking the centennial of the war between the States in our country -- usually known as our nation’s Civil War. It was fought basically over the issue of human slavery. One of its results was the freeing of hosts of human beings from chattel slavery. Congregational churches had an important part in the resolving of that issue.

But the liberation of the Negroes of this country from slavery was only partially accomplished. There has grown up, or persisted, in the past century, a mass of restrictions and customs that have been borne by black folk with patience. Now they are no longer willing to be patient. Their longing, and determination, for freedom and dignity has become so acute that this nation is plunged into a crisis which becomes steadily more acute.

Our Congress has before it for consideration a decision on the improvement of federal laws pertaining to civil rights. There is danger that not enough will be attempted by the Congress on the issue of social justice.

The latest issue of the Christian Century magazine features an extremely sobering editorial on the subject which I commend to your attention. A 32-man commission of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in America has been studying the racial crisis in our nation. Members of the commission have found some aspects of it "frightening in the extreme." There are clear evidences of police brutality, extra-legal action, and outright intimidation being used on an alarming scale by those white elements that are determined to keep the Negro in his place of inferior status. None of us can any longer dodge the sober truth that we are all involved, directly or indirectly, in the situation. We are being forced by history to take a position.

A couple of years ago a young man from our state, who had been active in Pilgrim Fellowship, felt moved in conscience to take part in one of the so-called "freedom rides" into the South to promote non-segregation in public transportation. He was severely beaten for his peaceful participation in that ride.

This past summer, the Rev. Walter P. Frost, Minister of Education of First United Church of Christ in Akron, Ohio, traveled south to visit church colleges with four students. Three of the students were Africans. At Northport, Alabama, they were arrested and questioned in jail, apparently because one of the students had taken pictures of segregated rest rooms at a gas station. Finally, the police escorted their car to the outskirts of the town. And there, shortly after the police had left, the minister and students were set upon by a group of white men who severely beat them with pieces of chain, and with clubs.

One of the colleges in which Congregational folk have been interested for many years is Tougaloo Southern Christian College in Mississippi. A good many promising and capable Negro students are trained there. Early this past summer, some of those students and faculty members as well, sought service at a Woolworth store lunch counter. While sitting at the counter waiting to be served, they were dragged from their stools, thrown to the floor, kicked and beaten. Then they had salt and pepper and mustard poured into their wounds. When the college president, Dr. Beittel, a white man whom some of us here in Wisconsin Rapids know, arrived outside the store, he found at least a dozen policemen standing on the sidewalk outside the store watching the attack through the window. Dr. Beittel pleaded with the officers to intervene, only to be told that they could enter the store only with the permission of the management. When Dr. Beittel found the store manager, he was told that the manager could do nothing without the permission of his superior. Meanwhile, during the conversation, someone poured sugar over Dr. Beittel’s head.

We have become familiar with news notes and pictures showing the use of trained dogs to break up demonstrations by Negroes and white sympathizers. Only two months ago there was a tremendous March on Washington for freedom and jobs. Two hundred thousand Americans, black and white, assembled peaceably for a day of witness and testimony. The Rev. Stephen Evans, pastor of our Congregational Church in Park Falls (United Church of Christ) was one of those marchers. You can find his enthusiastic comment on page 14 of the current of Wisconsin United Church Life.

The move for fair and equal opportunity in today’s scene is not just a passing spasm. It is something that Negro folk are taking hold of in deadly earnest. And they will persist in it and intensify the effort, for they mean business. The nation may be grateful that, so far, the movement is led by church people, many of them ministers, who advocate peaceful, non-violent methods. There are those who openly advocate hate; who are ready to assert the superiority of the colored races, particularly of the black man, and the essential inferiority of the white race. If leadership of the movement for racial justice ever gets into those hands, our country will face some dark days indeed.

As we look at the situation let us take counsel from our own heritage. More than 100 years ago a company of our spiritual ancestors in the Congregational churches (then a small minority in the life of the Protestant churches) banded together to form the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Churches -- now of the United Church of Christ. Some of them had formerly participated in various anti-slavery activities, such as the "underground railway" to assist escaped slaves. They believed in the inherent capacity of their Negro fellows to assume their full and responsible role in the common life, given the opportunity for training. So the AMA established schools -- eventually more than 500 of them in the South -- primary and secondary schools, and the beginnings of a few colleges. Most of these schools were later presented to local boards of education, as communities began to recognize their responsibility for providing free schools for all of their people.

These schools had a distinctive character which came to full expression in the colleges. They were liberal arts colleges -- not just trade schools. They did not assume that Negroes were necessarily to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for ever. But they proceeded on the assumption that Negro men and women might enter upon any vocation they might choose, once they developed and trained their capacities. The task of education was to equip these young people as persons. There are ten of these colleges. Six of them are still closely related to the American Missionary Association, and through it to our Board for Homeland Ministries. They are excellent examples of Christian action. They have produced a vast amount of leadership, some of which is now pressing the cause of racial justice.

These colleges are, in most instances, the best institutions of higher education in their region. They have been integrated, by charter and by faculty, for a hundred years. During the next ten years, our Board intends to help each one to become the best institution in the entire South in some particular field -- so that white students attending another college in the South will know that they are getting an inferior education, and know that the so-called Negro college will do its part toward encouraging integration in the non-traditional direction.

These colleges are centers of understanding and communication. Tougaloo College, for example, is the one place in the entire state of Mississippi where Negroes and Caucasians meet as intellectual equals, where they address themselves together to issues that are fundamental to our civilization, where there is a chance to develop mutual understanding and respect. Talladega College -- not far from explosive, bomb-scarred Birmingham in Alabama -- is another such place. And we have had a stake in these institutions for a long time!

When the issue of fundamental justice is finally fought through, these colleges may well be a major hope for binding up the nation’s wounds. There will be need for respect and confidence, which they have won among thinking people of both races. For, let us make no mistake about it, this crisis is a major revolution in our nation’s history, and is recognized as such here and abroad.

In 1942 the Board of Home Missions of the Congregational Churches took an action directing the American Missionary Association to concentrate its efforts toward the improvement of race relations in pioneering situations. A Race Relations Department was organized, and directed first by Dr. Charles S. Johnson (later president of Fisk University) and then by Dr. Herman Long (now president-elect of Talladega College). Probably no other church denomination has done more in this field, and with such measurable results. Through his careful research, Dr. Long has provided much of the material that was incorporated in legal briefs resulting in the outlawing of racial restrictive real estate covenants and the desegregation of inter-state transportation in the South.

Tangible results of his work can be seen, for instance, in San Francisco, where the Negro population tripled in three years and has since doubled again. Integration has proceeded with such results as the employment of the first Negro school principal and of the first Negro school teachers in the public schools of the city. Negro social workers are included in their field. Negro housing areas are included in the better housing districts of the city.

Results of this Department of Race Relations influence are dramatic in Minneapolis where substantial numbers of Negroes are employed in clerical and sales positions in stores, Negro school teachers are employed, hospital segregation patterns are eliminated, the Real Estate Board used its influence to emphasize the principles of open housing for all.

Our Board has had a superior record of achievement in the field of shaping the secular society where the races meet. The Board sponsors the Race Relations Institute of Fisk University where the free exchange of opinions among public officials, newspaper editors, educators and people of every important kind of community leadership shape their own attitudes and develop community techniques for improved relationships. We have a record of constructive activity at a number of other points in the national life.

But it is still little enough. One of the most obvious needs, before the church can speak to secular society with moral force, is for all of our churches to carry out the general purpose held up at the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches at Grinnell in 1946 to work in this century for a "non-segregated church in a non-segregated society." Our words must be justified by our deeds.

At the meeting of the General Synod of the United Church of Christ in Denver in July of this year, opening business was put aside and deferred until the delegates heard an impassioned plea by the Rev. Ben Herbster, President of the Church. It was a call for Racial Justice Now. Let the church lead in uprooting intolerance, injustice, and warped prejudice. Let our church life be non-segregated and our church life -- even in the field of invested church funds -- be directed toward this end. Let our support of church-related institutions go to those that are open to all without reference to race. Let us mobilize resources and manpower for racial justice. Let us give and pray for good will and fair treatment. Let our financial help to new churches go to those where there is to be no racial segregation. Let some of the agencies we have supported be given only one more year to de-segregate or else forego our support.

Because of the emergency nature of the crisis, let our denomination raise a fund, through the individual giving of our Christian people, to be used for the promotion of Racial Justice Now. If we fail to act now, we shall still betray our Lord.

Delegates at our General Synod in Denver adopted, overwhelmingly, a comprehensive resolution dealing with this subject. They raised their own offering, on the spot, of over $7,000. The entire resolution is published in United Church Herald of August 22, 1963. A denominational committee for Racial Justice Now was set up and has already made a preliminary report in United Church Herald of October 17, 1963. The resolution recognizes that the church must be involved in, and committed to, the struggle of our fellow man:

1) to establish fair employment practices under Federal law and all other branches of government;

2) to work at jobs in all categories, top as well as bottom;

3) to get the job for which one is qualified rather than be told to "come back later;"

4) to live where he pleases without paying a double standard dollar;

5) to get the best schooling possible even if desegregation upsets educational traditions;

6) to gain acceptance as a person of worth;

7) to secure public accommodations freely and without insult;

8) to exercise the God-given right to protest injustice without suffering the intolerable penalties of which newspapers regularly inform us;

9) to gain a larger share in the ownership and use of capital;

10) to receive equal protection under law and equal justice in courts;

11) to register and vote for office without fear of retaliation, either overt or subtle;

12) to push for what is done now without heeding those who counsel indefinite patience and gradualism.

13) to obtain crash programs of special assistance in such critical areas as health, education, welfare, citizenship, housing, and employment, so that victims of racial discrimination may achieve equality-in-fact.

The program, involving our offerings, which the committee shall project, could include, but not be limited to:

1) Mobilizing the membership of the church to join, where possible, with Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish brethren on a community basis for racial justice.

2) Providing bail bonds for those arrested as they demand racial justice. (This is being handled with great caution and care by the committee).

3) Providing legal defense for such persons where needed.

4) Providing economic aid for those who lose their jobs because of participation in activities for racial justice.

5) Providing financial aid for institutions whose support is threatened by those opposing "open door" type of service.

6) Mobilizing United Church of Christ members and congregations and associations and conferences to press for adoption of proper legislation to guarantee civil rights.

7) Commending church members who successfully begin the integration of their own neighborhoods.

8) Extending the program of voter registration.

9) Urging Christians to give proper assistance to small businesses as they make the transition to non-segregation.

10) Providing aid in other emergency or long-term situations that may develop in the future.

The General Synod calls for offerings by our people, at least this year and next, and commits the responsibility to each congregation and each member, under the direction of the Stewardship Council. The Council calls upon our church members to pray that justice and good will shall prevail, and then to work for the fulfillment of that prayer.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, October 27, 1963.