Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing

When visiting with a local rabbi this past week, I mentioned one reason why I gained an inclusive religious view as a child was that my father worked for Rabbi Maurice Hirschberg, the owner of Camp Horse Shoe, a Jewish boys’ camp. The Rabbi I was talking with was a bit older than I was and said he knew of the camp and had worked as a counselor at several other Jewish camps for boys in Wisconsin. As we talked, I related a story that my mother had told me. When she worked as the cook in a restaurant at a resort in Northern Wisconsin during the 1930’s, she was told that she should not serve any Jews. She asked the owner how she would know if someone was a Jew and was told, “You’ll know.” She ignored the order. In the 1930’s, probably no person of color, black, brown or other would have even tried to be served at that resort.

The rabbi then told me that when came to Trenton twenty-five years ago to serve his synagogue, Jews could not be members of the Trenton Country Club. That was probably true for other Country Clubs in the area too. A few years later, they invited him to speak to a group that met at the country club. He declined. Times and our cultural prejudices can and do change but it takes time. By the 1960’s the resort my mother had cooked for was sold and, fittingly, it became a Jewish girls’ camp.

Twenty-five years is not that long ago. Twenty-five years ago, a person of color could not have been elected to the presidency of the U.S.A. Last year we elected biracial Barack Obama as our President.

So, has this first year of his presidency demonstrated that we have arrived at a post racial society? Of course not, and yet we have moved from the outright racism of fifty years ago, and twenty-five years ago, and even ten years ago. We are moving – ever so slowly – toward becoming a post racial society.

In March of 1965, Dr. King led several marches in Alabama, attempting to walk from Selma to Montgomery. The police blocked the marchers from crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Dr. King and the other civil rights workers could not cross the bridge. Shortly after the initial march, Dr. King led a symbolic march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Included in that march with Dr. King were a number of ministers from around the country who had come to stand on the side of love along with him. Segregationists badly beat three of the ministers. The public hospital in Selma refused to provide treatment. One of those ministers was Unitarian Universalist minister, Reverend James Reeb from Boston. They had to transport Reverend Reeb to Birmingham, a two-hour trip, so he could receive treatment. Unfortunately, he died two days later from the injuries inflicted at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Reverend Reeb officiated at the wedding of two of our members, Janet and Paul Tuerff several years earlier when he served in Washington, D.C.

Later that month on March 25, 1965, King finally completed his march from Selma to Montgomery. As he stood on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol, looking out on those gathered around him, he realized the cost of the Civil Rights Movement especially during that bloody month and Dr. King said, “I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’…. I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you shall reap what you sow… How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Let us remember today, forty-five years later, as we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. weekend that “…the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Interesting, Dr. King borrowed that phrase from a 19th Century Boston Unitarian Minister, a personal hero of mine, the Reverend Theodore Parker. In an 1853 sermon about justice and conscience, Parker said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

Theodore Parker’s grandfather commanded the Minute Men at the Battle of Lexington and fired the shot that started the revolutionary war. Parker was an ardent abolitionist who sheltered runaway slaves and secretly raised money for John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry. There were times when Reverend Parker wrote sermons with a loaded pistol on his desk, kept there to protect the fugitives in his protection. Parker was “Standing on the Side of Love.”

Where does that leave our society today concerning racism? Thankfully, racism is not as bad as it was in the 1960’s. In addition, I do believe that it is a bit better now than it was even a decade ago. However, it is clear from what Senator Harry Reid said in 2008 that we have not arrived at a post racial society. Reid’s remarks have come back to embarrass him and cause some political turmoil. Nevertheless, it seems to me that if you really listen to Reid’s words, it is mostly embarrassing to whites. What Senator Reid said revealed much more about our white culture than it revealed about candidate Obama or even Senator Reid, himself. Skin color as well as the way we speak may still be standing in the way, blocking “white” Americans from voting for someone of color.

Gloria Steinem was correct when she said, “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn. We are filled with the popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up.”

There are lessons that our society has learned, popular wisdom if you will, that even though false, continues to remain firmly part of our cultural make up and our unconscious minds. We have not left the racism of centuries in the past. Elements are so deeply imbedded within our mental make up – such that we may not even realize that they are there.

Candidate for the presidency Senator Barack Obama, talking about racism in a speech in March of 2008, in nearby Philadelphia, Pennsylvania said, “… I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy.” He knew it would take a long time to get beyond racial divisions. “But,” he said, “I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.”

If I had any doubt about the presence of racism in our culture, it was erased for me when President Obama, while addressing a joint session of Congress, had a congressman from South Carolina shout out calling him a liar. Then, during the health reform debate, people who opposed his policies felt the authority to call him socialist, Nazi, bigot and murderer. Even closer to home, was it just last year that children of color were denied access to a pool not so far from here?

So no, we have not become a post racial society. In a post racial society race would no longer be significant or important. I do think that race is becoming less important, but it is still far too important.

Professor Harris-Lacewell, Princeton University, spoke at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly last year. She received her Ph.D. from Duke University, but the Unitarian Universalist Meadville Lombard Theological School also gave her an honorary doctorate. Recently she wrote, “This is the racism that should worry us: millions of black American children attend and graduate from public schools that leave them utterly unqualified for public office for their entire lives. As adults, these children will always be second-class citizens, unable to participate as rule makers rather than simply rule followers in their own country. Not only does this deprive the whole group from full participation in government, it also deprives our country of the skills, talents, and ideas that these citizens might have offered, had we not initially deprived them of the capacity to communicate their ideas effectively in the public realm.”

In describing fighting racism and dismantling white supremacy, Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell wrote about “the deep and enduring damage that racism, segregation, and inequality does to the hearts and minds of human persons.” She quoted W.E.B. Du Bois who “called the work of healing America’s racism ‘our spiritual striving.’” Standing On the Side of Love, in the face of oppression is a spiritual practice.

In April of 2008 on the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, candidate Obama said, “Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: (and this is crucially important) it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hands on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice….”

Putting our hands on that arc and bending it in the direction of justice needs to be an important part of our spirituality. We are called to help reshape our society so that it is no longer tied to the discrimination of past centuries. It is possible for our country to change. What gives me hope that our country can create a new tomorrow where race will continue to play a smaller and smaller role are the words Martin Luther King spoke 45 years ago, “I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’…I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you shall reap what you sow… How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Like Theodore Parker, James Reeb, Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others, let us stand on the side of love and lend our hands to that force that generation after generation bends the arc of the moral universe closer and closer towards justice.