Jim Bullock, one of the students to be turned away from Second Presbyterian Church fifty years ago, and one of the speakers at the 50th anniversary commemoration service on March 22nd, has written this article about the event for the Presbyterian News Service:
http://www.pcusa.org/news/2014/3/27/repentance-and-reconciliation/
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
Reflections on the Fiftieth Anniversary Commemoration of the Memphis Kneel-Ins
March 22, 2014 is a day I shall not soon forget. When I woke up my stomach was already churning. The rainy weather seemed to bode ill. I made my customary stop at Starbuck's where I had my customary grande chai latte. But I could not get my stomach to settle down. Hope and fear were churning away in my gut and the words of a colleague --"you know, this thing could go really badly"--echoed in my ears.
I arrived half-an-hour early at the location where the day's events were to take place (typically, I'm at least five minutes late everywhere I go). I walked inside the church and looked around until I found the room where I was to meet several other men for a time of prayer. The prayer time had been my idea, and I was glad I had suggested it. Inside the room were representatives of three local churches--Idlewild, Second and Independent--which have little in common beyond the name "Presbyterian." In fact, the churches represent different denominations that define themselves largely in opposition to one another. But there we were, praying for reconciliation--among us, and among the people who would come to Second Presbyterian Church that morning to commemorate the traumatic events that had split the church fifty years earlier.
As the prayer time went on, I found myself crying tears of joy. A day we had hoped for, imagined, and dreamed of was finally here. The Spirit seemed to be honoring our vision of a service of truth-telling and reconciliation at the site of one of the South's most notorious acts of racial exclusion.
My role in the commemoration was one I had performed many times. Using slides I had prepared over the course of several years, I would document the Memphis "kneel-ins" that began at Second Presbyterian on March 22, 1964 and the repercussions these visits had for the excluded visitors, the church, and the city. But today I was making this presentation just a few dozen feet from the spot where the kneel-ins had taken place. As I climbed the steps at the front of the sanctuary, I thought of those who had tried week after week to climb the steps of the church entrance half a century before, only to be blocked by church leaders.
Fifty years earlier to the day two young men--Joe Purdy and Jim Bullock--had visited Second Presbyterian together as part of a church visit campaign planned by members of the intercollegiate NAACP group and inspired by their mentors in non-violence, Maxine Smith and James Lawson. Before the young men could reach the entrance, a church representative asked Joe "are you African?" When he said "no, I'm American," he and his white friend were refused entrance. They returned the following Sunday (and the six Sundays after that) with a growing number of friends of both races who stood outside the church in silent protest of the church's refusal to welcome them. Though few knew it at the time, the men responsible for repelling the visitors were enforcing an explicit policy of segregation adopted by the church's session in 1957.
As I prepared to tell the story of the Memphis kneel-ins, I could not help but comment on the "awesomeness" (words completely failed me) of the moment. Being asked to give this presentation in this place, and to do so in the service of reconciliation was truly humbling. My audience included members and pastors of Second Presbyterian, members of pastors of Independent Presbyterian (which had been formed as a protest to Second's ultimate decision to integrate in 1965), students who had stood outside the church week after week in the spring of 1964 hoping for entrance, and the siblings, children and grandchildren of "protestors" who were now deceased.
Following my presentation--quite sobering in its portrayal of the extent to which white Christians were willing to go to prevent racially mixed groups of students from entering their sanctuary--I introduced Jim Bullock. Jim is now in his early 70s, but one could still see a strong resemblance to the young man in the college yearbook photo I had just shown. Now a retired Presbyterian pastor and a tireless advocate for at-risk children, Jim spoke humbly and powerfully about what had led him to bring his black friend to this white church fifty years earlier. He spoke of attending NAACP meetings at Lemoyne College (a historically black institution in Memphis); he spoke of participating in non-violence workshops in Jim Lawson's study; and he spoke of the example set by his father--a pastor in Jackson, Tennessee, who in the late 1950s had invited an integrated group to worship at his church. When the church's session voted to exclude black visitors, Rev. Bullock registered his dissent and then, as Jim put it, "spent the next seventeen years loving those people to a place of openness." It was a riveting testimony, and particularly salient for an audience that had just heard how this young man and his colleagues had been portrayed as atheists, communists, and NAACP dupes with no "spiritual motivation."
Jim was followed to the lectern by Carolyn Purdy McGhee, sister of Joe Purdy, who died before his time in 2001. When I had asked Carolyn to speak at the event, she was not sure she had anything of relevance to say. But when her time came, she confidently approached the lectern, leading us as she did in singing "We Shall Overcome," the song synonymous with the civil rights struggle. Realizing perhaps that most of us white folks did not know the words, she had them projected on the screen. I doubt if that song has ever been sung in that sanctuary; I am quite sure it has never been sung with such emotion. Carolyn then spoke about her brother--his activism, his career as the first black regional manager for Pepsi, his deep spirituality, and the legacy of which his family is so proud. She then taught us a new song, one she had composed using Joe's last words--"honor God." We sang "We Will Honor God Every Day," again to the tune of "We Shall Overcome." I don't believe there was a dry eye in the house. I know mine were not.
After presentations on the progress that Second and Independent churches have made in the area of race relations over the past fifty years, we repaired to the church's Fellowship Hall for lunch. As Second's senior pastor Sandy Willson put it, "let's have some family time." And we did. The "family" gathered for this meal included former protesting students Jim Bullock, Howard Romaine, Robert Morris, Ervin Bullock, Coby Smith, Vivian Dillihunt and Lillian Brown, as well as relatives of Joe Purdy and Earl Stanback. It included at least one man who had stood at the church door in 1964 to keep them out. It included church members far too young to remember the kneel-ins, but aware that this day was not to be missed. And it included a group of scholars and pastors--the Ecclesial Repentance working group--that had convened to witness this event and help plan others like it.
Others who were present will be posting their reflections on this event on this blog, which will be a place to document and discuss the ongoing work of those committed to truth-telling and reconciliation in the places where unresolved racial trauma continues to affect the Church of Jesus Christ.
I arrived half-an-hour early at the location where the day's events were to take place (typically, I'm at least five minutes late everywhere I go). I walked inside the church and looked around until I found the room where I was to meet several other men for a time of prayer. The prayer time had been my idea, and I was glad I had suggested it. Inside the room were representatives of three local churches--Idlewild, Second and Independent--which have little in common beyond the name "Presbyterian." In fact, the churches represent different denominations that define themselves largely in opposition to one another. But there we were, praying for reconciliation--among us, and among the people who would come to Second Presbyterian Church that morning to commemorate the traumatic events that had split the church fifty years earlier.
As the prayer time went on, I found myself crying tears of joy. A day we had hoped for, imagined, and dreamed of was finally here. The Spirit seemed to be honoring our vision of a service of truth-telling and reconciliation at the site of one of the South's most notorious acts of racial exclusion.
My role in the commemoration was one I had performed many times. Using slides I had prepared over the course of several years, I would document the Memphis "kneel-ins" that began at Second Presbyterian on March 22, 1964 and the repercussions these visits had for the excluded visitors, the church, and the city. But today I was making this presentation just a few dozen feet from the spot where the kneel-ins had taken place. As I climbed the steps at the front of the sanctuary, I thought of those who had tried week after week to climb the steps of the church entrance half a century before, only to be blocked by church leaders.
Fifty years earlier to the day two young men--Joe Purdy and Jim Bullock--had visited Second Presbyterian together as part of a church visit campaign planned by members of the intercollegiate NAACP group and inspired by their mentors in non-violence, Maxine Smith and James Lawson. Before the young men could reach the entrance, a church representative asked Joe "are you African?" When he said "no, I'm American," he and his white friend were refused entrance. They returned the following Sunday (and the six Sundays after that) with a growing number of friends of both races who stood outside the church in silent protest of the church's refusal to welcome them. Though few knew it at the time, the men responsible for repelling the visitors were enforcing an explicit policy of segregation adopted by the church's session in 1957.
As I prepared to tell the story of the Memphis kneel-ins, I could not help but comment on the "awesomeness" (words completely failed me) of the moment. Being asked to give this presentation in this place, and to do so in the service of reconciliation was truly humbling. My audience included members and pastors of Second Presbyterian, members of pastors of Independent Presbyterian (which had been formed as a protest to Second's ultimate decision to integrate in 1965), students who had stood outside the church week after week in the spring of 1964 hoping for entrance, and the siblings, children and grandchildren of "protestors" who were now deceased.
Following my presentation--quite sobering in its portrayal of the extent to which white Christians were willing to go to prevent racially mixed groups of students from entering their sanctuary--I introduced Jim Bullock. Jim is now in his early 70s, but one could still see a strong resemblance to the young man in the college yearbook photo I had just shown. Now a retired Presbyterian pastor and a tireless advocate for at-risk children, Jim spoke humbly and powerfully about what had led him to bring his black friend to this white church fifty years earlier. He spoke of attending NAACP meetings at Lemoyne College (a historically black institution in Memphis); he spoke of participating in non-violence workshops in Jim Lawson's study; and he spoke of the example set by his father--a pastor in Jackson, Tennessee, who in the late 1950s had invited an integrated group to worship at his church. When the church's session voted to exclude black visitors, Rev. Bullock registered his dissent and then, as Jim put it, "spent the next seventeen years loving those people to a place of openness." It was a riveting testimony, and particularly salient for an audience that had just heard how this young man and his colleagues had been portrayed as atheists, communists, and NAACP dupes with no "spiritual motivation."
Jim was followed to the lectern by Carolyn Purdy McGhee, sister of Joe Purdy, who died before his time in 2001. When I had asked Carolyn to speak at the event, she was not sure she had anything of relevance to say. But when her time came, she confidently approached the lectern, leading us as she did in singing "We Shall Overcome," the song synonymous with the civil rights struggle. Realizing perhaps that most of us white folks did not know the words, she had them projected on the screen. I doubt if that song has ever been sung in that sanctuary; I am quite sure it has never been sung with such emotion. Carolyn then spoke about her brother--his activism, his career as the first black regional manager for Pepsi, his deep spirituality, and the legacy of which his family is so proud. She then taught us a new song, one she had composed using Joe's last words--"honor God." We sang "We Will Honor God Every Day," again to the tune of "We Shall Overcome." I don't believe there was a dry eye in the house. I know mine were not.
After presentations on the progress that Second and Independent churches have made in the area of race relations over the past fifty years, we repaired to the church's Fellowship Hall for lunch. As Second's senior pastor Sandy Willson put it, "let's have some family time." And we did. The "family" gathered for this meal included former protesting students Jim Bullock, Howard Romaine, Robert Morris, Ervin Bullock, Coby Smith, Vivian Dillihunt and Lillian Brown, as well as relatives of Joe Purdy and Earl Stanback. It included at least one man who had stood at the church door in 1964 to keep them out. It included church members far too young to remember the kneel-ins, but aware that this day was not to be missed. And it included a group of scholars and pastors--the Ecclesial Repentance working group--that had convened to witness this event and help plan others like it.
Others who were present will be posting their reflections on this event on this blog, which will be a place to document and discuss the ongoing work of those committed to truth-telling and reconciliation in the places where unresolved racial trauma continues to affect the Church of Jesus Christ.
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