My March For Reconciliation

When I was ten, 1968, we lived in Louisville KY.  My dad was in the seminary.  It was during the Civil Rights movement and there where riots in Louisville.  My dad drove us down to see it.  He talked to us about Jesus.  When I was 12, 1970, we moved to where my dad was called to pastor a church.  I was bused across town to an all-black school.  I knew nothing about it, it was just part of my life.  My dad talked to us about Jesus.  Later I was at Hardee’s where my older brother worked.  Two of his friends were there and I called them Negros, how I was taught.  One of them kindly corrected me saying, “I am not a negro I am a black man.”  I stood corrected.  My dad began to visit the black community and that year we had record attendance in Vacation Bible School, about half of us were black.  They took a picture.  The church soon met in a crowded Wednesday night business meeting and kicked my father out of the church.  My mother was carried out in weeping sadness.  My dad talked to us about Jesus.  In 1972, when I was 14, my dad was called to a church in a largely segregated part of the south.  Before he met with the deacon search committee, I asked him what he was going to do.  We all waited in the car.  When he came out, I asked him, “What did they say about the blacks?”  He said they said they were alright in their place.  He talked to us about Jesus.  In 1978 I was in the Navy.  A racial riot broke out on our ship.  I tried to break it up and was beaten to a pulp.  Thirty plus sailors where charged, tried and convicted at Captain’s Mast where I received a Captain’s Accommodation.  I lived in fear for my life and ran away from the Navy.  My dad talked to me about Jesus and sent me back.  I was sentenced to hard labor.  I eventually earned an Honorably Discharged.  In 2008 our wayward daughter, out on the road who knows where, called us in the middle of the night to tell us she was unmarried and pregnant with our second grandchild, a biracial granddaughter.  Betty and I crawled out of bed and got on our knees and cried out to our God.  We were broken asunder.  I told my dad.  He talked to me about Jesus.  Our granddaughter is named after his mother.  In 2011 I began work on The Seven Pillars, a sculpture to tell the story of the Black’s Contribution to the success of our community.  In 2020, this past Wednesday, our granddaughter helped us set the seven stones for the piece.  I talked to her about Jesus.  I feel like I have marched all my life, right behind my dad.  I wish my dad was here to talk to me.  I need a good father-son talk.  If you march you should march behind someone who is going to talk to you about Jesus.  I read Luke’s account of the Christmas Story.  He talked to me about Jesus.    

My Dad bottom right, my mom third up on left. "You Shoulda Seen It In Color"