Building a Monument to Dr. King in Mayberry
April 4, 1968. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Tomorrow we mark the 40th anniversary. Have we made any progress?
Jesus said, “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed” (Luke 11:47 NRSV). Could he be talking about me?
In April 1968 I was two months shy of my 20th birthday, living at home, finishing my junior year in University of Texas at El Paso and pastoring a small Baptist church on the far east side of El Paso, a horseshoe around the base of the Franklin Mountains, twin sister to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, south of the Rio Grande River.
My grandfather Frank Chandler Hamilton, an engineer, explored northern Mexico for copper and married Dolores Mercado. In the early 1900s grandpa brought the family, now including several children and a deaf mute aunt, across the open border into El Paso. They settled under the mountain in a house which had no plumbing on Sacramento Street. Later a bath on the back porch was added.
Because the family name was Hamilton and the light-skinned children spoke good English, no one realized they spoke Spanish at home. But Pepe, as Dad was known, heard the slurs and jokes about Mexicans that dominated Anglo society of El Paso. Dad married a descendent of English and Irish immigrants, served in World War II, and did not allow us kids to learn Spanish. We heard the slurs and laughed at our share of jokes, however.
El Paso was a military town, with Ft. Bliss Army Base and Biggs Air Force Base there during my childhood. (Biggs closed some years ago.) The desegregated military influenced the El Paso schools I attended and school desegregation during the 50s and 60s was a fact. I considered myself a “good white” person, who believed in the equality of the races.
Yet the Mexican slums of South El Paso belonged in a galaxy far, far away from me. The place I lived in was as white and English-only speaking as Mayberry.
I hardly noticed the 60s, watched on TV the civil rights marches and anti-war protests. Church was about people accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior. Nothing else. My Dad said, everyone could sympathize with King about race but getting involved with the sanitation workers was a mistake; they were communist-inspired. I had no opinion.
In 1969 my wife Sandy served as a summer missionary in a black Baptist church in San Antonio. Today she teaches pastoral care at the School of Theology, Virginia Union University in Richmond, VA, an historically black school. Our neighbors are African American.
During my residency in pastoral counseling I volunteered with Richmond AIDS Ministry, becoming friend of a young HIV+ recovering African American. He was bright, funny, had lived on the street. I learned a ton from him.
For a decade I pastured the small rural church from which Southern Baptists sent forth their first missionary in 1845, Samuel Clopton. I tried to link the then Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) to my church in some way. Never could. Only later I realized why: Samuel Clopton was a slave holder, a fact present-day Baptists don’t care to call attention to. In the last few months I was there someone burned a cross on private property in the county. The sheriff’s department was on high alert.
During my residency I also counseled gay and lesbian clients. I faced my own homophobia. I discovered how nice people in church legitimize the anti-gay hate crimes in much the same way nice people legitimize hate crimes motivated by race. We just look the other way.
I could try to justify myself, talk about how I’m not prejudiced. I’ve read W.E.B. Dubois, Biko, The Autobiography of Malcomb X. I’ve treated everyone equally to the best of my ability. But the truth is, I’ve benefited from white privilege all my days.
I suppose building a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. in Mayberry is a start. But it’s not nearly enough.
Mayberry doesn’t exist. It’s time I moved away.
Tags: Martin Luther King
April 8th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Apr. 28, 1968 I was in Toyko, visiting my parents who were on a business trip. My husband, infant son, and I lived on an Air Force base in the south of Japan. We were from Georgia, and began our education at the University of Georgia in 1964, shortly after integration began with the admissions of two very brave people, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter. I played chess with Hamilton at the Canterbury Club, the campus Episcopal center.
I was more proud of my open-mindedness than I was interested in finding out who Hamilton was; or, to be fair, I didn’t really know how to connect with anyone else, let alone someone whose background was so different from mine, I assumed.
I don’t know if we– as a nation– have made much progress since 1968. I live in the opposite part of the country, in a very white area, with its (almost) only color coming from the migrant population. If our attitude toward persons of color demonstrated here is indicative of the progress we have made as a nation, it’s pretty sad.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I agree with you, Wren. My wife has learned so much from teaching in an African American University and supervisaing AA students. She’s a pastoral counselor. When I worked in a Retirement community, AA folk did most of the hands-on care. Ladies got off work at 11 pm and walked across the street to catch the bus home. I wonder how we’ll make progress as a nation. jlh
April 17th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Thank you for your honesty in this. I wish I lived closer to you. Love to sit with a beer sometime.