A few weeks ago the hashtag #IstandwithAhmed didn’t even exist. Now it is the latest viral hashtag to take twitter by storm. The incident in Irving, Texas has drawn attention around the world. Prominent names from a wide range of…
The power of a pamphlet
By Elijah Zehyoue Recently, I was in Colonial Williamsburg with the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty Inaugural Fellows Program. As a BJC Fellow, we got to spend the week learning about early America, religious liberty and, of course, Baptist…
Five grieving mothers & the problem of race
I’m finishing a fine novel called All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr in which one of the characters repeats this mantra: Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever. I feel…
Belonging: Maybe fences don’t make good neighbors
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” –Mother Teresa It is Friday night, and 125 friends, new and old, crowd the yard at QC Family Tree. We are gathered to…
‘Straight Outta Compton’ reveals plight of African-American men in U.S.
All musical bio-movies seem to follow the same script. A group or an individual rises from poverty to the heights of fame. Along the way they get taken advantage of by a manager and end up casting said manager aside….
Centennial of the lynching of Leo Frank . . . and the struggle over the meaning of freedom
In August 1913 the body of 14-year-old laborer Mary Phagan was found in the basement of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta. The company’s Jewish-American superintendent, Leo Frank, was eventually convicted of the crime and sentenced to death by hanging….
Fear, racism, and new knives
Two weeks ago, Samuel DuBose, a black man stopped for not having a front license plate, was shot and killed two minutes later by Raymond Tensing, a 25-year-old University of Cincinnati campus police officer. The event, recorded by the officer’s…
Letter from a Birmingham intersection
**The author has been participating with QC Family Tree in tracing the steps of the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement. Learn more about the trip here and here. Remembering that it happened once, We cannot turn away the thought,…
Bringing Scout out of the shadows of Atticus’s “selfie”
By now Harper Lee’s novel, Go Set a Watchman, released less than a month ago and the controversy surrounding it’s publication has become old news. However, I wanted to read the novel for myself before weighing in or making any…
Confederate flags left at MLK’s home church
By Bob Allen The pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church called Thursday’s placement of four Confederate flags on the campus of the home church of Martin Luther King an act of hate and terrorism. “It is the kind of…
A necessary heretic
Last week, the long-awaited new book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates finally hit shelves. Its release was moved up from October to July in light of recent events yet again raising the ongoing concerns of race in…
Rights and offenses: The Confederate flag
On Friday, July 10, at the South Carolina Capitol, the Confederate flag was removed. On Sunday, July 12, at my church, the Confederate flag was prominently displayed. I saw the oversized flag attached to the back, right-side of an oversized…