Black and White: A Way Forward?

            There has been much in the news recently about race relations in our community and our country.   I don’t need to recount the particulars of officer-involved shootings, community protests, and the loss of lives.  Other media can recount the details for you.   All of this has me thinking back to a movie that was released in 2000 and my own high school days. 

              The movie I have been thinking of is “Remember the Titans”  starring Denzel Washington that tells the story of a football team in northern Virginia in the early 1970’s.   Black and white were integrated into T.W. Williams High School and its football team and a black man took the position of  coach of the high school football  team.   What stood out in the movie for me was not just the fact that the football team won the state football championship, but how the attitudes of black and white changed toward each other as they got to know each other. 

            Our high school went through racial tensions and unrest during my days there.    I did not attend  T.W. Williams High School in northern Virginia, but Walter Williams High School in Burlington, NC.   Around 1969, our high school football coach was fired and was replaced by a black man named Jerome Evans as our high school was integrating with the predominately black high school in town.  In the aftermath of that,  there was lootings, riots, curfews, and the National Guard in my hometown.  Unfortunately, one young black man lost his life. 

            One of the things that happened in the aftermath of the racial tension in Burlington is that a student exchange took place between Williams High School (where I attended)  and Jordan Sellers High School (the predominately black high school that was being closed.)    I was elected by my fellow class members in my homeroom to spend a day in class at Jordan Sellers High School and to get to know the students there.   Sitting in class with those students and sharing time with them changed me and how I viewed blacks. .   

            The racial issues in our country are complicated and complex, and not easily fixed.   Perhaps my experience in my high school days at Jordan Sellars High School and the movie “Remember the Titans”  offers an idea worth considering and it is to simply try to be with and talk to each other. Notice I said talk to each other instead of talk at each other.     If we can spend time with a fellow human no matter their color and see them as a person that God has created,  then I believe Christ Jesus is in that moment .  Have a joy-filled week.-    Pastor Randy Wall  

Prayer:  Lord and God,  you have made each and everyone of us.   Help us when we look in the face of each other to see you;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.