Although much remains to be done, much progress has been made in racial justice in the past 60 years. As we repent of our historic complicity in racial injustices, you are encouraged to read Martin Luther King, Junior’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” of April 16, 1963. King and 55 others had been jailed for “parading without a permit” during a march against segregation. They were charged with violating an injunction barring “racial protests” in the city. His letter was in response to a joint letter several white ministers had published in the local press that decried the march and civil rights activists’ methods. King addresses comments to “white moderates” who are much more devoted to “order” than to justice, and to the “white church” who may be “blemished and scarred …through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.” If there are ways that may still be true today, let us repent and commit to renewal. Click here to view a Racial Equity Fact Sheet.
Submitted by FELC Racial Justice Task Force: Barbara Schutz, Barbara Wiederaenders, Charlotte Gilman, Derek Bridges, Leigh Northcutt-Benson, Mari Ward, and Nancy & Randy Baden