It’s about to get exciting in Greensboro, NC.
In a few days, despite what else is happening on the planet, the eyes of the world will converge upon the Gate City for the grand opening of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum (ICRCM). Providentially, this occasion occurs 50 years to the day the last time “the eyes of the world” focused on Greensboro. By now, one would hope that every man, woman and child (at least in the Triad) would by keenly familiar with the A&T 4 and their “en-counter” at that infamous, downtown Greensboro’s Woolworths. Thanks to the the ICRCM, all of us can now become intimate with Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Jibreel Khazan (formerly Ezell Blair, Jr), and the late David Richmond, as well as the movement they sparked in in the heart of young men and women all over the South, and the rest of the world, as a result of their non-violent protest.
Their courage was demonstrated in a time when such acts could easily cost you your life, and, at the least, some jail-time. Many did pay the ultimate sacrifice, their lives honored as their mutilated bodies lay prostrate in a casket, at the alter, in the “church-house”. Others lived, and lamented their decisions, while suffering the battery and humiliation from “Bull Conner-types”, preparing to face the magistrate while sitting in the jail beneath the “court-house”.
The civil rights movement has had it’s share of heroes (and to be politically correct, heroines). Sadly, we are only familiar with those whose faces were beamed across a new phenomenon in the 1960s called television. However, they represent a small percentage of them. I believe that some of the most important contributions made in the “movement” were made by individuals whose faces fell flat on the floor of the church-house and rarely ever came up.
In the initial stages of the movement, people marched to the “church-house” and ignited non-violent protest on the alter of prayer. However, in the movement’s latter half, the church was regulated to just being a meeting place for people to assemble before marching to the courthouse. (Admittedly, I would have been one of the one’s ready to go downtown, although I don’t know if I would have qualified. Great strength was required to remain silent in the face of an angry, racist mob, and being silent is not one of my strongholds.) It’s an understandable progression, except for one unforgivable transgression. Ever so gradually, we, the people, began to petition politicians instead of the Lord God Himself. We (believers) grew weary in well doing, and began to seek God’s hand, and not His heart. We forgot that God doesn’t hate people, He hates sin. And racism is, in fact, sin.
I am forever grateful and humbled by the tremendous sacrifices made by men and women who selflessly gave their lives so that I, someone they never knew, could live in a society better than their own. I’ve even come to understand that some of it was necessary. But, I also want to thank those men, woman, and children, who continue to pray for God’s favor in the midst of our struggle to overcome our sin. I’ve heard it said before, “Wise men still seek Him”.
My prayer is that as we continue the movement, “Let us not forsake the Lord, Thy God”. Truth is, God has granted us unalienable rights, not man! And, I choose to be on the Lord’s side.
