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May 16, 2019, Montgomery, Alabama – Eight representatives of the Adrian Dominican Congregation, along with a contingent from First Presbyterian Church in Tecumseh, Michigan, took a 15-hour bus ride to Montgomery, Alabama, to immerse themselves in the racist violence of the late 19th century to the civil rights efforts of the mid-20th century.
<< View a presentation about the trip at the bottom of this article. >>
The eight people representing the Adrian Dominican Sisters were Sisters Attracta Kelly, OP, Virginia (Ginny) King, OP, Carleen Maly, OP, Patricia McDonald, OP, Kathleen Nolan, OP, and Suzanne (Sue) Schreiber, OP; Associate Deb Carter; and Co-Worker Robyn Wellman, a nursing assistant. The First Presbyterian Church of Tecumseh had invited members of the Congregation to join them in the bus trip to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama.
“It really was like a religious experience every place we went,” said Sister Kathleen, Director of the Adrian Dominican Sisters Office of Peace, Justice and Integrity of Creation.
The April 26-28, 2019, tour included visits to the Selma Interpretive Center, the welcome center for the National Historic Trail: Selma to Montgomery, following the 54-mile route of the three civil rights marches that took place in 1965; the Edmund Pettus Bridge across the Alabama River in Selma, the site of the March 7 Bloody Sunday in which civil rights demonstrators were attacked by police; and the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the first church at which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. served.
The group also visited the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the National Memorial for Justice and Peace, which features about 800 monuments on which are engraved the names of the 4,400 people who were lynched in various counties in the South. Both the Museum and the Memorial were opened in April 2018 by Equal Justice Initiative, founded by attorney Bryan Stevenson, who focuses on “fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.”
Many of the participants were particularly moved by the display of coffin-sized monuments of the people who were lynched in each county. “The steel monuments for each county hung at eye level at first but progressively became higher and higher off the walking platform,” Sister Suzanne explained. “I felt the power of that design in space as we gradually walked under the steel panels that were lifted up, dramatizing the hangings.”
Sister Kathleen said it was difficult to fathom. “You’re looking at thousands of people who lost their lives, whole families.” She added that the National Museum for Justice and Peace also has duplicates of each memorial so that the counties involved can take their monument home and memorialize the people who were killed there.
Sister Ginny was shocked by the lynching of entire families. “I had no idea they grouped families and children,” she said. She was also saddened by the reasons given for the lynchings: as harmless as walking too closely behind a white woman.
Deb was surprised by photos she saw in the Legacy Museum of white people celebrating at lynchings, and the famous photo of Hazel Bryan Massey, then about 15 years old, screaming in anger as Elizabeth Eckford, a black student, walked into the Little Rock School after the Court had ordered it to be integrated.
Sister Attracta was also moved by the Legacy Museum and its history of racism in the United States – and the continuation of racism even today. “There’s a whole section on discrimination against people of color,” she said. But people of color “are still stopped and pulled over while driving with no reason other than their color. Young men are convicted of crimes and put in jail – and it goes on and on.”
The Civil Rights efforts, especially the Selma to Montgomery Marches and the Edmund Pettus Bridge were also highlights for many participants. “Walking across the bridge brought back the experience of Bloody Sunday – just being in that environment,” Sister Ginny recalled.
Sister Carleen was moved by an encounter at a park across the bridge with Charles, an African American veteran of the Korean War who had been on the front line during one of the marches and been struck on the head by police. “Charles showed a huge scar on his head,” she recalled. “He was surprised at how much hatred there was.” Sister Carleen also recalled Charles’ sense of urgency about speaking to younger people, making sure that they are aware of the bigotry in our nation’s history.
Overall, the participants were overwhelmed by the intense experience, and all the more determined to work for a world in which hatred no longer exists.
Sister Kathleen, who participated in the trip to Alabama after working with people seeking asylum in El Paso, Texas, drew connections between the bigotry and racial discrimination experienced in the South and continued instances of injustice and hatred.
“I couldn’t get [the experience in El Paso] out of my head,” she said. “A group of people is being terrorized and victimized because of the color of their skin, because of where they’re from, because they’re different. ... You’re confronted with the sin of racism.”
Sister Sue was inspired by the clear language used at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. “The words give us ways to think and talk about the horrors of that time, the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” For example, the National Memorial spoke of the discrimination as “reinforcement of racial dominance over political and economic resources.”
This clear language “helps us feel the stories of terror, name the injustices, and work toward awareness,” Sister Sue said. “I want to be part of that process, and visiting the Memorial helps me to internalize our history and see how it has affected our current social climate.”
Feature photo (top): Sister Patricia McDonald, OP, explores an exhibit at the interpretive center of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Photo by Sister Suzanne Schreiber, OP
Representatives of the Adrian Dominican Sisters and their hosts, members of the First Presbyterian Church of Tecumseh, pose in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the first church at which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. served.
May 2, 2018, Detroit – More than 100 Adrian Dominican Sisters, Associates, and special guests continued their study of racism and white privilege during a workshop April 28 that focused on the social effects of institutional racism.
The group gathered at Samaritan Center in Detroit for the Great Lakes Dominican Mission Chapter’s extraordinary Spring Assembly, “Continuing the Conversation on Institutional Racism and White Privilege.” The event was organized by the Leaven Mission Group to continue the discussion on racism begun at the Fall Assembly in November 2017.
The workshop focused largely on the social effects – especially on people of color – of institutional racism, which in many ways sets up the system to give advantages in almost every area of life to white people over people of color. The emphasis was on institutional racism rather than the prejudice of individuals against people of other races.
In her keynote address, long-time community activist Maureen Taylor noted her intention to make the connection between racism and poverty. “Poverty is the cruelest form of violence, and I don’t care what your face looks like,” she said. “I’ve seen veterans have their water cut off. [But] color always matters in America because it has been the most successful tool to allow people to be mistreated.”
Ms. Taylor, Chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization since 1993, stressed the need for advocates of various issues – rights for women, African Americans, Hispanics, and people with same-sex attraction, for example – to work together for economic rights for all people.
The fight for equality “cannot be from the top down,” Ms. Taylor said. “We have to be the ones [who struggle] from the bottom up. There are certain things we have to insist on. Everybody need to have something to eat, water, and homes. We have to bring these rules from the bottom up.”
A panel of activists spoke about particular issues related to institutional racism. “I grew up in a time when there were two separate educational systems,” said Sharon Mills, a member of the Escalating Economic Inequality Taskforce and a tutor at Siena Literacy Center in Detroit. “The great divide was color."
Ms. Mills, who grew up in an African American section of Dayton, noted the substandard education she received in her first three years in public school – before her parents pulled her out and sent her to a nearby white school. “There were not enough textbooks for children to take home,” she recalled. “Both the elementary school and the high school were in disrepair. The playground was always muddy and littered.” She noted that children who are educated in substandard school systems might come to believe that they, themselves, are “substandard.”
Ms. Mills noted that today – when separate education for African Americans and white people is not legally permitted – the separation continues because of the way public schools are funded – by local property taxes. “Local districts in rich areas can afford more for their public schools,” she said. “The system is rigged and it’s rigged against people in poor districts where property taxes are low. … The implications of this are grim for black and brown children in high-poverty areas.”
Ms. Mills described this system as self-perpetuating: the housing situation “disproportionally keeps families of color in poorer districts,” where they receive “inadequate and unequal education.” This leads to low-paying jobs or unemployment, which leads to poorer housing situations – and inadequate education.
“If we are truly interested in equity and social justice, the funding formulas for public school districts must be changed,” Ms. Mills asserted. “I urge you today to consider this and advocate for reform on this issue. Time is running out and the stakes couldn’t be higher.”
Kim Redigan, a teacher at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School, focused on the water shut-offs in Detroit – and her own experience of growing up in a poor area and being considered “white trash.” White people in poverty “were collateral damage,” she said. “The powers that be don’t mind throwing poor white people under the bus to keep black people off the bus.”
As a member of the Meta Peace Team, formerly the Michigan Peace Team, Ms. Redigan said she had spent time in Palestine. “When I was in Palestine, what I came to understand is water is used as a weapon – globally. Here in Detroit water is used as a weapon. People lose their water and then their homes.”
She tied the plight of the people in Detroit to institutional racism. “The issue is not that people don’t get along personally,” she said, adding the issue is institutional, with disparities in education, housing, water, and other areas. She encouraged people do to their own internal work – to get past their denial of racism – but also to become active in addressing institutional racism. “We need to lean into our Catholic social teaching at this moment,” she added. “It brings us some good guidance” in the areas of social justice.
Rev. Barry Randolph, an entrepreneur and Episcopalian priest, spoke of the various ministries in his parish, Church of the Messiah, that respond to the needs of the local community. The church manages 213 units of affordable housing; provides free Internet to low-income families and individuals; and maintains services such as an employment office, a computer lab, an urban farm, and a bicycle repair shop. In addition, Rev. Randolph and his congregation have created businesses to employ the people in the local community.
“If you have an asset that you can use to help people, use that,” he said. “Stop asking God to do what you can do. We don’t have to ask God to lift people out of poverty. We’re not waiting on God. God is waiting on us. Anybody here who’s a child of God, if you believe a virgin had a baby, you can eradicate [racism and poverty].”
In a wrap-up session after an afternoon of small group discussions, panelists continued with motivational talk. Asked how to move from complacency to action, Ms. Taylor said, “Find your niche and work it until it turns – and keep working it.”
“You’ve all done wonderful things all along,” Rev. Randolph said. “Keep going. Take courage. Keep going. …You can make a difference in whatever state you’re in.”
Feature photo: Michelle Baines, Music Director for Corpus Christi Parish in Detroit, leads her choir and the assembly in singing the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Singing along in the background, from left, are Sisters Adrienne Schaffer, OP, Susan Van Baalen, OP, Virginia (Ginny) King, OP, and Ellen Schmitz, OP.