A lot happened in 1965. I was two years old. Millsaps formally opened its doors to integration, following a federal mandate that no school remaining segregated would receive federal funds. We used federal funds to build the Christian Center, among other things.
June fourth, 1965 The Clarion-Ledger publishes an article from Bishop Pendergrass, delivered at Galloway, imploring all methodist congregations to stop employing ushers at the doors of the church, implying bouncers who kept negros out, but not mentioning it directly. Pendergrass said directly that the church in Mississippi must come into compliance with the national church's position on integration without ever using the word "integration."
On the same page, they had a much larger article with a photograph of the Gemini V capsule preparing for launch that week. Gemini V was the first space walk; For comments by the Methodist Bishop to take up as much space on the front page as the Gemini Launch meant something.
My Uncle Tom was the editor of the Clarion Ledger. I never discussed his feelings about integration or how the paper covered it. I don't know that he would have discussed it with me. He had a reputation. Sometimes, it was fair; sometimes, it wasn't. My grandmother, his sister-in-law, tried to explain it to me a few times, but for people of her generation, these things were difficult to speak plainly of.
One thing I'm getting from all this is a new respect and appreciation for our parents. Not just my parents but everybody's parents. There was just so much going on. There were missiles pointed at us, we were in Viet Nam, the Russians wanted to crush us (and said so), and here at home, everything was coming apart.
While I'm at rehab, upstairs from me are five people who were at Galloway in 1965. Two left the Methodist discipline altogether. Two stayed; one became an independent Methodist for a while but eventually reconciled with Galloway. Seeing them makes it all very real.
When I go to Sunday School, I try to sit near TW Lewis and Don Fortenberry. Ed King joins via Zoom. All pastors fully engaged in what happened in 1965. William Faulkner said of Mississippi, "The past is never dead. It's not even past"
What started me down this rabbit hole, partially, is this is was a part of my life that had huge implications in my life, but I was too little to understand it, and for a long time, not many people would discuss it. My sister wasn't even alive yet. My brothers were mostly concerned about baseball and tree houses. Most of what I knew about the schism at Galloway came from my grandfather, who used it to frame the story of his childhood church in Hesterville, Mississippi, which chose to leave the larger Methodist church and go it on its own. That was very painful for him. His father built that church after the first church burned down. His father and mother, and brother were buried there. Since he moved to Jackson, he had no say in what happened there, even though his brother's estate was paying for the upkeep of the cemetery. Granddaddy decided he wouldn't die on either hill during the fight for integration. His task, as he saw it, was to employ as man negros as he could and see to it that some effort was made to educate them. He would and did break bread with any man, but he saw all this fight over race was painful. Necessary but painful.
Sixty is a nice round number. The church, my church, again finds itself on the rubicon of deciding whether or not to fully open our doors to people who are unlike us sixty years later. That decision is rending us into pieces, much like it did in 1965.
Reading "Agony at Galloway," written in 1980, I get some sense that Cunningham is trying to align himself with the winning side now that the conflict is over, but I do strongly believe he was in genuine Agony in 1965. Pastors tend to be more idealistic than practical. That's one of the reasons they become pastors. Having known some of the people he mentions later in life, I wonder if Cunninghman had taken a firmer stand on one side or the other if the situation would have escalated and truly ended Galloway.
As it stands, between 1960 and 1968, Galloway lost 18% of its enrolled members. That number was higher among those who actually sat in the pews every Sunday, but it was a survivable number. I had always believed it was much higher. It certainly could have been higher. Cunningham may have felt personally tortured, but he piloted the ship through the breakers, with some damage, but we were afloat. He didn't have the benefit of a crew with beeswax in their ears, but I do believe he was tied to the mast.
In today's conflict, Galloway, from what I have seen, is very unified, which is quite different from what happened in 1965. The rest of our conference, though, is not nearly as unified. There are painful days ahead. What I get from all this is that we survived it before. One product of the change in the sixties was the creation of the United Methodist Church. It's hard to imagine that, out of a time of such hurtful division, so much growth was the product.
I'm not a traditionally prayerful person. I say the Lord's Prayer as instructed to keep the communication between myself and God open, but I don't ever pray for specific things. I figure that any God capable of making all this is also capable of seeing what I need and what the people I love need--without me begging like he was Santa Claus.
What I write, either here or in my journals, is how I articulate the things I would pray for. Even that is unnecessary for an entity that knows the number of hairs on my head (that one's easy, it's zero), but writing it and articulating it in my own mind helps me see things more clearly. If that's praying, then I pray for my church nearly every day now. Not Galloway so much because we're pretty durable, but for the larger church. We're facing a crisis of conscious similar to that we faced in 1965, and we're getting beat up pretty good for it.
I have faith that we'll sail through these waters alive. I have faith because, even though I was very young, in my experience, that's what happened before. My current pastor, and the two before him, are all within four or five years of the same age as me. When the church last rented itself apart, all four of us were more concerned about what Captain Kangaroo had to say than Bishop Pendergrass.
I have no issue with following Cary Stockett wherever he leads us. I've listened to his sermons for a few years now, and we are of like mind on most of the important issues. His pastoral staff is vibrant and energetic and also of a similar mind and purpose to mine. I suspect Connie Shelton, of all of us, will take the greatest heat from all of this. It's already started. One man felt completely content to lie about her on his website. I sent him a letter but got no response. I'm not worried for Connie. She's pretty strong. I am sorry she has to go through this. She loves her church, and she loves us who are in it, and this has to be painful. In church affairs, the leaders of the battle and the front line are the same. When the arrows fly in anger, they will hit her before they hit me. I'm sorry for that, but I'm also appreciative of what she's doing for us. This is the way.
Christianity was born out of one man's agony on a Roman cross. In that, he prepares us for the far lesser agony that sometimes comes from following him. Just like in 1965, most of Southern Methodism is girding its loins to fight on one side or the other. I am, too, I suppose. My church won't be on the front lines like it was last time. I'm grateful for that. Our pastor seems to have the idea that we can become a sanctuary for the battle weary. Sanctuary, in the original sense, of a place free from attack, but also our architectural sanctuary. Safety, in the lee side of the tempest. I'm grateful for that too.
For thine is the kingdom. Kingdoms are born of suffering.
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