Understand Yesterday To Understand Today

If there is a serious interest in understanding May 26, 2020 George Floyd, you really need to return to August 16, 1619. What happened in 1619? The slave ship San Juan Buatista bound for Veracruz was attacked by another ship named White Lion. The White Lion landed at Jamestown with the very first slaves in the New World. This is where the story begins for Americans.

My personal story began as a young white, naïve Anglo-Saxon Junior High School student who just wanted to play basketball during the Martin Luther King era. To my parents’ credit they never allowed offensive language to be spoken about any ethnic people group in our home. 

Consequently, my best friends were black. We just wanted to play basketball! I was invited to eat an evening meal at their home, and we invited them into our home for a meal. Race or color was never a topic of discussion in either home. Honestly, as young teenage boys we were confused by the riots of that day, and honestly we never really understood what racism and rioting all was about. It was not until I attended Fort Wayne Bible College and prepared my first College level research paper that I chose to write a comparison paper of Dr. King and Nelson Mandela.

As a white Anglo I walk through our neighborhood and never worry about being profiled. I confess that I do not understand being looked at with suspicion in the marketplace. I have never experienced the humiliation of drinking from “colored only” fountains, riding in the back of the bus, or lynching’s. So where are we to begin working through a biblical response. Ezekiel 9, God calls us to lament and grieve over the abominations and injustices in the land. A clear abomination began in 1619 with the first slaves arriving at Jamestown. Ultimately, the story of Civil Rights is not just a black issue – it is a national issue that we should all own.

There are two resources that have been an influence upon my thinking. The first was wrote in 2001, Letters Across The Divide and secondly, The God Impulse: The Power of Mercy In An Unmerciful World – 2018. Also, in 2019 there was a joint research project by the Reimagine Group and Barna Research Group, entitled, Where Do We Go From Here. This research outlines the journey of Mercy and its function in the hearts of individuals moving out to ultimately touch a world. In the coming blog articles, I will write about what I have learned. Believe me, I have so much more to learn on this topic.