{"id":10505,"date":"2015-09-18T00:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T00:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.brethren.org\/news\/?p=10505"},"modified":"2018-11-07T19:41:26","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T19:41:26","slug":"dialogue-urges-intentional-work-at-race-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2015\/dialogue-urges-intentional-work-at-race-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Dialogue Urges Christians to Work Intentionally Across Racial Divides"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford<\/small>
Alexander Gee Jr. (left) and Jonathan Shively offer a dialogue on the need to intentionally develop relationships across racial divides in the Christian community<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A lot of well meaning people assume that the Civil Rights struggle is over and that we won, said Alexander Gee Jr., during an afternoon dialogue event at NOAC 2015. \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about it in seminary, in churches, or from the pulpit,\u201d he said. \u201cLike polio or tuberculosis, we say we\u2019ve solved it!\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Gee warned the NOAC audience of older adults: \u201cYou\u2019re the generation that watched the Civil Rights struggle, but for your children and your grandchildren this is ancient history. Honor your legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gee, who hails from Madison, Wis., is founder and president of the Nehemiah Urban Leadership Institute and senior pastor and founder of Fountain of Life Family Worship Center, and the leading Black clergy in Madison. But in the wake of a series of murders involving young black men, he wrote an op-ed piece for a Madison newspaper that attracted national attention and a firestorm of controversy.<\/p>\n

He suggested, out of bitter personal experience of incidents with local police, that much work remained to be done in the Civil Rights struggle. \u201cWe thought we solved that in the \u201960s,\u201d he said. \u201cIn my experience it\u2019s still going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one incident, police accosted him in the parking lot of his own church. \u201cThey told me I fit the profile of a drug dealer,\u201d he said, when he was pulled over for wearing a nice suit and driving a good car. Such personal experiences, he said, illustrate the discrepancies in life experience between white and Black.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was growing up they told me to go to university, get a job, and keep my nose clean,\u201d he said. But all of a person\u2019s achievements in education, experience, reputation, and status in the community goes out the window in a society where skin color affects every interaction, particularly with law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Dr. Gee appeared on the NOAC stage with Jonathan Shively, executive director of Congregational Life Ministries for the Church of the Brethren. The two became close friends after participating in a program that intentionally pairs individuals for a cross-cultural experience of visiting site iconic to the Civil Rights movement.<\/p>\n

He praised the NOAC audience for having been participants in the Civil Rights struggles of the \u201950s and \u201960s. He said that when he was criticized nationally for suggesting that a model community like Madison might be \u201cGround Zero of racial inequities,\u201d it was individuals in their 70s and 80s who came to his support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we have not finished this fight yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of well meaning people assume that the Civil Rights struggle is over and that we won, said Alexander Gee Jr., during an afternoon dialogue event at NOAC 2015. \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about it in seminary, in churches, or from the pulpit,\u201d he said. \u201cLike polio or tuberculosis, we say we\u2019ve solved it!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[806,1259,1256],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-10505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-congregational-life-ministries","tag-noac","tag-older-adults"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10505"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12819,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions\/12819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10505"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=10505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}