Looking to the past
Working for an organization that works on political and policy issues, I try to stay rooted in the present and always try to think to the future. But there’s definitely something to be said for looking back to the past sometimes.
This week, I’m grateful to Ta-Nehisi Coates over at The Atlantic for bringing my attention to a powerful story from America’s past, which reminded me of the power of faith in fighting for justice.
In response to Rand Paul’s comments that he would’ve been with the Freedom Riders, TNC posted this arresting photo– a mugshot– of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, a white, 19-year-old Freedom Rider from Arlington, VA, who in 1963, as a freshman student at Duke University, went to Mississippi to fight against segregation:
She is also pictured in the iconic photo of the May 1963 sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi.
Coates , who’s also been posting images and stories of other civil rights champions (like Hank Thomas, a young black Howard University student who risked his life by joining the Freedom Riders), sums up my reaction well:
“…No way can I imagine being white, nineteen, violating the law, and being sent off to jail. In Mississippi.”
Since reading about Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, I can’t get her out of my mind… her courage and bravery is astonishing and inspiring. And what is most powerful to me is how her faith was what drove her tireless fight for racial equality:
“…The church I went to, Little Falls United Presbyterian, taught that we were all equal in the eyes of God. I just felt that if we were going to teach this and say it, we should mean it. I was a member of the youth group at the church. Apparently, through the black YMCA, some of the black high school kids would come to our youth meetings. We were told by the minister to keep it secret because at that time it could cause anything from the church being firebombed to the church taking some kind of action against it. It was pretty daring at the time. This made an impression on me. I think this made me sort of ready when the chance came to do something. That chance came when I was a student in Durham.”
It really is powerful how faith can inspire such prophetic action. And as a Presbyterian myself, it especially struck me that Mulholland went to a Presbyterian church… while the media doesn’t always pay close attention to the important advocacy and organizing efforts of mainline Protestants today, the leadership of mainliners in the Civil Rights movement is hard to overstate.
I think it is amazing all the good that has come from people working through or because of the Christian church all over the world. Sometimes this huge contribution gets overlooked when we are angered by those in the church who cause so much harm. The service of those inspired by the life of Jesus is inspiring. Thank you for this post.