Editor’s note: This story was edited after posting to clarify information in the second paragraph. By Ken Camp Business took a backseat to worship and fellowship at this year’s Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting. More than 4,000 Texas…
New strides toward freedom
By Bill Leonard With the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case and the storm of Internet racism it unleashed, I can’t get Sojourner Truth out of my head. Freed in 1827, the ex-slave woman spent her life demanding an end…
Jury selection helped Zimmerman
By Alan Bean A jury comprised of five white women and one Latina has acquitted George Zimmerman on all charges. This outcome was largely determined by the way we select juries in America. Imagine that two women who looked like…
Celebrating the Ninth of July
By Leroy Seat Yesterday was Independence Day in the United States, but the Fourth of July is not one of my favorite holidays — for various reasons — but partly because the original Declaration of Independence, ratified on July 4,…
‘New Jim Crow’ turns back civil rights
By Bob Allen Four decades of America’s “war on drugs” has brought on a “New Jim Crow,” creating “a growing under-caste” primarily of people of color, and turned back many of the hard-won advances of the Civil Rights Movement, an…
The freedom of Will
By Bill Leonard Will Campbell — preacher, writer, lecturer, farmer, raconteur, soulful iconoclast and equal-opportunity prophet — died in Nashville on Monday, June 3. He was a month this side of 89 and had spent more than two years in…
Slavery’s blot still stains city, panel says
By Robert Dilday Like many American cities, Richmond, Va., has reduced the more visible signs of rancor among different races, but racial reconciliation remains elusive, said a panel of activists and observers of Virginia’s capital. The panelists shared their views…
Scholar says faith prompted Emancipation
By Robert Dilday A “profound spiritual odyssey” prompted Abraham Lincoln’s forging of the Emancipation Proclamation, one of “the most revolutionary documents ever signed by an American president,” a prominent religious historian told a conference on racial reconciliation. “Not much attention…
White Baptist led slave church in antebellum South
By Robert Dilday The responses of Christians in the American South toward the institution of slavery and those it enslaved were inconsistent and complex — bequeathing a legacy which continues to complicate racial reconciliation 150 years after emancipation, said the…
Jackie Robinson’s lesson for the church
By Amy Butler Last weekend I saw “42,” the new film about the life of baseball legend Jackie Robinson. This fact is notable, as I don’t often get to the movies in general and also I am not a big…
Running the race on the first saturday of May
Reflections from Saturday May 4th I’m pondering the significance of this day–the first Saturday of May in 2013. Traditionally in my place of residence, Columbia, S.C., it marks the beginning of the transition from spring to summer. Temperatures typically start…
I do not identify with race
As American Christians, we say that we are ambassadors of Christ, yet we are unable to reconcile with others because of race. We allow our racial identity to dictate what part of Christ’s calling we will fulfill. We have more faith…