Two days ago, John Lewis, an American congressman from Georgia was interviewed on CBC radio here in Canada. Listening to him brought my mind back to an event in August, 1965 which occurred in Americus, Georgia.
A group of six of us, John Lewis, two black friends, a Jewish woman, with my wife and I, tried to enter an all white Baptist church to worship. We were stopped at the door by a group of church deacons and leaders. John Lewis had some words with them.
Then, as a recent seminary graduate of Baptist persuasion, I remember saying, “Paul said in the New testament, ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus’, so surely we should be allowed to enter your church to worship”.
The church leader then replied, “I don’t care what Paul said. The federal government has not put one nickel into this building, and they are not going to tell us who can enter here.”
At about that time, the police appeared and we were all arrested and put in jail for three days and two nights. The charges against us were:
1) Disturbing divine worship
2) Trespassing on private property.
As a footnote,
- I was not imprisoned in the same cell as John Lewis. Even the prison was segregated by race.
- Forty miles down the road in the Plains Baptist church where Jimmy Carter was a member, people of all races freely worshiped together.
During his recent radio interview, John Lewis, who is now a very influential US Congressman, feared that there would be revival of racial tensions under the Trump administration. He has not lost his activist edge. He plans to be active in the United Sates to organize popular resistance to the Trump agenda.
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