wfn.org | Moderator to Convene Conference

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

5-April-1997 
97176 
 
                 Moderator to Convene Conference 
               on Racial Justice And Reconciliation 
 
                         by Julian Shipp 
 
CHARLOTTE, N.C.--Consistent with his emphasis on issues of racial justice 
and reconciliation, the Rev. John M. Buchanan, General Assembly moderator, 
will convene a conference here June 6-7 to reaffirm the denomination's 
historical commitment to these issues. 
 
     The convocation, which will include elected church leaders from across 
the country, will begin with a service of recommitment at Matthews-Murkland 
Presbyterian Church on June 6 -- the first anniversary of the burning of 
the former sanctuary of the historic African-American church. The call to 
worship and litany of recommitment to be used during the service will be 
used by Presbyterian churches nationwide June 8, making the conference a 
denomination-wide event. 
 
      On the night of June 6, 1996, Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church 
was destroyed by  arson -- one of  a series of church burnings that 
occurred nationally during the past three years at mostly Southern black 
churches. The Matthews-Murkland blaze was discovered to have been set by a 
disturbed white teenage girl. 
 
     The burning of Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church drew the 
attention of President Bill Clinton, who tentatively planned to visit the 
church, but went to help rebuild a burned church in South Carolina 
instead. The burning of the church also galvanized thousands of 
Presbyterians nationally to respond to the spate of fires with gifts 
totaling more than $800,000 to date, according to Presbyterian Disaster 
Assistance officials.  
 
     The Rev. Curtis A. Kearns Jr., National Ministries Division director, 
said Buchanan challenged the division's Racial Ethnic Program Area to come 
up with a way of highlighting the issue of racial justice and 
reconciliation.   
 
     "After much thought, we concluded that this was the type of event 
which should truly be churchwide in nature, and a good way of doing that 
would be to involve the elected leadership of the church to share in a 
recommitment to racial justice and reconciliation," Kearns told the 
Presbyterian News Service. "Moderators from governing bodies across the 
country were thus invited to join with the moderator of the General 
Assembly in this occasion for recommitment." 
 
      And while the fire at Matthews-Murkland may not have been exclusively 
racially motivated, Kearns said, it symbolized the need in this country for 
a continuing emphasis on racial reconciliation.  In many ways, he said, the 
fire at Matthews-Murkland helped bring the issue of black church burnings 
into public view and became a vital part of rebuilding and reconciliation 
efforts nationally. 
 
     "[Buchanan] has been involved in the conversation from the beginning," 
Kearns explained. "In fact, the seeds of this idea were planted when the 
moderator first visited Matthews-Murkland last summer. The experience of 
being there among the ashes was so powerful  he committed himself to 
working with the church to establish a way of turning this tragedy into a 
source of good." 
 
     According to Buchanan, the June 7 portion of the conference, which 
will be held at the Sheraton Airport Plaza Hotel here, is designed to equip 
participants with ideas and resources that will be useful in helping them 
continue the work of racial justice and reconciliation once they return 
home. 
 
     He said the conference will feature a resource fair in which 
participants will have the opportunity to examine resources related to 
racism and racial violence, hate crimes, public policy advocacy of the 
Presbyterian Washington Office, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and 
more. 
 
     "Let us pray for God's guidance and blessings in making this a most 
sacred and impactive event," Buchanan wrote in an April 7 letter to 
conference participants. "[Presbyterians'] responsiveness in answering the 
call to stand up for peace and reconciliation in a time when both seemed 
strained ...  speak forcefully to our church's strong belief in the healing 
ministry of Christ both personally and socially." 
 
                America's ongoing problem of racism 
 
     The conference is predicated on the fact that every day America loses 
in dismantling racism comes at a tremendous cost to the nation's moral 
character, national budget and the millions of lives negatively affected by 
it. 
 
     And while some modest or superficial changes in America's institutions 
have been made over the last three decades, the U.S. has failed to 
understand and focus on the core problems out of which the whole issue of 
race emerges. 
 
     The struggle for racial justice in America has resulted in the 
improving economic status of a limited number of people of color, but has 
had very little impact on the structural dilemma that blacks and other 
racial-ethnic people face in this country as a whole. 
 
     "To use a paradigm, putting color TVs and carpeting in a jail cell 
makes you more comfortable in jail, but it doesn't address the fact that 
you're still incarcerated," said the Rev. Otis Turner, the NMD's associate 
for racial justice. "So what we have done is comparable to making 
racial-ethnic persons more comfortable in a state of oppression and not 
getting at the structural issues themselves. The nation's institutions were 
structured to serve white interests. This is what  keeps people of color 
from rising. From birth, the impact of institutionalized racism insures 
that people of color will remain disadvantaged." 
 
     Although racial segregation has diminished significantly in America, 
no examination of racism would be complete without mentioning the issue of 
internalized oppression, i.e., the adverse effect of adaptive relationships 
that people of color have made in response to racism.  
 
     Turner explains it this way:  "The emergence and development of black 
institutions is one of many adaptive responses to the experience of 
racism," he said. "However, the African-American community as a whole has 
not clearly understood how the adaptive mechanisms have become part of the 
structures of oppression. Consequently, when windows of opportunity open, 
we are unable to see and take full advantage of them.  
 
     "For example, black folks spend $4 billion a year on conventions and 
meetings," Turner said.  "Yet nearly all of  the major hotel chains are 
owned by whites. In 1997, only one of the major hotel chains in this 
country has a black franchisee. Can you imagine what $4 billion could do 
for a hotel chain that [African Americans] owned and patronized? This is 
why the issue of internalized oppression is so important in the struggle 
for racial justice." 
 
     As the nation moves into the next century, Turner said, he hopes the 
PC(USA) will look critically at its history of racial justice and 
reconciliation and position itself to deal with the undergirding structural 
issues of institutionalized racism that were not dealt with during the 
1950s and 1960s. If the denomination does this, he said, it can build on 
its achievements of the past. 
 
     Indeed, the denomination's process of adopting an "antiracism posture" 
has already begun. In February, the entire General Assembly Council 
underwent an introduction to antiracism training by the Rev. Joseph Barndt, 
director of the Crossroads interfaith ministry, as part of the church's 
long-range objective to dismantle institutional racism and build 
antiracist, multicultural diversity. 
 
     In July and August, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program is sponsoring 
two conferences titled "Facing Racism: In Search of the Beloved Community." 
The meetings are designed to help participants understand racism and how to 
dismantle it. According to Ervin Bullock,  Presbyterian Peacemaking Program 
associate for conferences, more than 20 presbyteries have announced they 
plan to bring a racially diverse team to one of the conferences. 
 
     "If it takes the leadership role in antiracism training, comparable to 
some of the leading roles that it has played in the past, the PC(USA) could 
have a significant impact on race relations in this country," Turner said. 
"The Racism and Racial Violence Initiative Team will play a major role in 
helping the church achieve this goal." 
 
      A new endowment for racial justice and reconciliation 
 
     Presbyterians have the opportunity to assume that lead through the 
establishment of  "The Eugene Carson Blake Fund For Racial Justice and 
Reconciliation," a unique, new $1 million permanent endowment to be 
formally announced during the racial justice and reconciliation conference. 
 
     Under the terms of the endowment, which is managed by the Presbyterian 
Church (U.S.A.) Foundation, once the total principal and interest of the 
endowment has reached $1 million, 90 percent of the income will be paid to 
the Racial Justice Program Area of the National Ministries Division or its 
successor and the remaining 10 percent will be reinvested in perpetuity. 
 
     The NMD's Racial Justice Program Area will use the income from the 
fund to support programs of racial justice, reconciliation and healing in 
the church and society. The ministry shall include, but is not limited to, 
such programs as antiracism training, resource development, policy 
development, community organizing, cultural exchanges, institutional 
transformation, conflict resolution and other programs of  racial justice 
and reconciliation. 
 
     "The idea here is to institutionalize the moderator's emphasis on 
racial justice and reconciliation through an endowment fund that will 
continue this emphasis and in the long run create a financial vehicle that 
will not be susceptible to budget fluctuations," Turner said. "It will be a 
significant symbol that this church cares enough about this issue to make 
it a permanent institutional fixture and not something that we do until the 
next budget cut comes along." 
 
     In addition to Buchanan, Kearns and Turner, the endowment founders 
include the Rev. Helen Locklear, NMD associate for racial ethnic 
leadership; Sara Lisherness, associate for the Presbyterian Peacemaking 
Program in the Congregational Ministries Division; and the Rev. Jovelino P. 
Ramos, NMD associate director.  
 
     Tom Drake,  associate for gift compliance for the Presbyterian 
Foundation, said the endowment was established April 10 and as of April 24 
$650 had been placed in the fund. He said Presbyterians wanting to give to 
the endowment can mail their gift to: The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 
Foundation, 200 E. Twelfth Street, Jeffersonville, IN 47130. The account 
number for the endowment is 58409.   
 
     A noted Presbyterian ecumenist who championed peace and civil rights, 
Eugene Carson Blake, for whom the fund is named, died in 1985. He  was 
stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America (UPCUSA) and later secretary general of the World Council of 
Churches.  Blake was a leading Presbyterian in the civil rights struggles 
of the 1950s and 1960s.  

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