Christian Church of Mid-America Civil Rights Pilgrimage

Pitts Chapel in Springfield, MO
Greenwood District in Tulsa, OK
Cherokee Nation capitol in Tahlequah, OK
Central High School in Little Rock, AR

RACIAL JUSTICE IN CONTEXT (reflections from some participants)

On our Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Tulsa, OK and Little Rock, AR there were 43 travelers and our beloved bus driver. We were all one big happy family. Of the 43 there were 6 travelers plus our driver that were African/American. As one of the African/American it was a very painful and eye-opening experience. As we stopped at the historic sites there were so many signs of racial hatred. Pitts Chapel United Methodist Church in Springfield, MO is renovating and trying to keep and share their heritage. Tulsa, OK -Greenwood District/Black Wall Street, an all Black/African/American committee was BOMBED -- HATRED!!! It’s rebuilding. And walking the halls of Central High School Little Rock, AR where 9 black students were tortured. You could just feel the pain. Growing up in Columbia, MO during integration I experienced some of this prejudice. And still today African/Americans are followed around in stores etc. We have come a long way but there is still a long way to go. I pray for reconciliation. I pray for us all to Love one another as God has loved us.

Lillie Gardner, Fifth Street Christian Church in Columbia, MO

Our pilgrimage to Tulsa and Little Rock and points in between brought me many new perspectives on racial justice in the United States and put into context my experience in Columbia. I had the privilege of working with many other folks in Columbia through the Community Remembrance Project (CRP) of Boone County to organize over several months a rededication of the James T. Scott plaque on the MKT Trail and a soil collection. I was shocked and angered when the plaque was vandalized just a few days later. To put such matters in perspective, the congregation of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church raised nearly $50,000 over ten years prior to 1921 and took out a $50,000 mortgage to build a beautiful church in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Within 40 days of its completion a white mob using Molotov cocktails thrown from airplanes burned the church to the ground and in the process scorched 40 square blocks of black homes and businesses and killed over 300 men, women and children. Not one white person was indicted for arson or murder and not one insurance claim was honored Also, at Little Rock Central High School 10 brave black students walked into this all- white high school escorted by none other than the 101st Airborne Division, dispatched by President Eisenhower in 1957. What those brave students had to endure from racial hatred inside and outside that school was and is hard to imagine. Today that school is fully integrated and considered one of the best high schools in Arkansas. There are challenges in Columbia, MO to attain racial justice, but after seeing what others have gone through on this pilgrimage it would seem to be attainable here.

Ken Butler, Broadway Christian Church in Columbia, MO

*A remaining wall from a bombed-out church is now a center of prayer for Reconciliation 100 years later.*

I joined the pilgrimage and hoped to provide spiritual guidance and support for the pilgrims. At the onset, each person selected a seashell, which is a universal symbol for those on a spiritual journey, and was told to keep it with them all along the way. Prayers were led by every clergy person attending at each departure. Clearly this was not a "tour" but walking sacred pathways.

Each stop of the pilgrimage lent wisdom that remains. At Pitts Chapel United Methodist Church, which is the oldest African-American congregation in Springfield, MO and founded by a freedman in 1865, Rev. Tracey Woolf shared how she researched Green Book locations in Springfield, Lebanon, Cape Girardeau and other mid-size Missouri cities. Few to no traces of the safe harbors can be found; even some street names are no more. In many cases, it wasn't mobs but Urban Renewal that destroyed neighborhoods.

In Tulsa, Rev. Dr. Ron Richard Allen Turner of Vernon AME Church shared how before 9/11 in 2001, before Pearl Harbor in 1941, the first aerial attack on U.S. citizens on American soil happened in Tulsa in 1921. Municipal authorities ordered an oil company plane to drop turpentine incendiary devises or bombs on several buildings including Mt. Zion Baptist Church because “munitions were believed to be stored in the basement” and Vernon Chapel AME, where people were taking shelter. Both were rebuilt purely by donations because insurance companies would not honor policies with the massacre being officially termed a "race riot," which clearly it was not. Insurance policies still use this language today.

Pathways to reconciliation were shared as well. “Reconciliation occurs only when we remember that every person has a family,” Vanessa Adams Harris of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation responds when people feel led to disparage her multi-ethnic heritage. "Tell me, who in my family am I supposed to hate?" She remembers that mob members had parents and children too.

At Central High School in Little Rock, the NPS Ranger took the pilgrim group to a lower-level restroom. Why here? He said, "Students at Central High School knew the places soldiers were not protecting while desegregation was being enforced - albeit briefly. In this girls’ room, hate was inflicted to young women of the Little Rock 9 causing body trauma that has lasted ever since – and among the do-nothing bystanders too." He shared how 40 years later, a white woman fell to her knees with uncontrollable sobs upon seeing the girls' room while on a similar tour. For decades she had hidden the grief and pain of being in the restroom when torture was occurring - and doing nothing to stop it..." Resmaa Menakem’s book, My Grandmother’s Hands, explains adeptly how body trauma is a potent and perpetuating force leading to racism and injustice to this day – for Black, Brown, White and “Blue” bodies.

Mid-America Regional Minister Rev. Dr. Paul Koch

*Citizens of Greenwood “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” in 1921.*

On Thursday, July 15th a group met in the parking lot at Broadway Christian Church(DOC) to journey south on a pilgrimage. Some in the group were strangers. What we didn’t know as our journey started was we would all become friends. Our first stop on our Civil Rights Pilgrimage was in Springfield, MO. We visited Pitts Chapel and met their new Pastor Tracey Wolff, Christie Love a young woman in charge of The Connecting Grounds [Mid-America Disciples newest church start], and Dr. Shurita Tate a school board member and a leader in the local NAACP. These three dynamic women shared what life is like today in Springfield for the African/American population. The picture they painted was very heart breaking. We think we have made progress until we hear the very real voices of these ladies dealing with life in Southwest Missouri.

Jan Holden, Broadway Christian Church

This was the second pilgrimage of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Mid-America. In 2019, Pilgrims traveled to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, TN. The next day it was on to Selma, AL to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and to learn for local people who remember details clearly. We joined the Jonathan Myrick Daniels Martyrs of Alabama March in Lowndes County, AL then visited several heart-pounding places in Montgomery and Birmingham. We look forward to announcing plans for our next pilgrimage, possibly next year. PK

Thank you to Lillie Gardner for compiling this information.

A remaining wall from a bombed-out church is now a center of prayer for Reconciliation 100 years later.

A snap shot of the TRAILS of Tears

Citizens of Greenwood “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” in 1921.