Skin Color Struggles

For some unknown reason, I’ve always been fascinated by the civil rights movement in America.

Go figure.

I’m a white boy born and raised in central Illinois. There were no blacks in my elementary school; none in my high school. Rural and white.

I didn’t have any appreciable contact with people of color until I attended junior college (in the city, of course). I had many more black students when I moved away to finish my degree at a four year college, Southern Illinois University. (Go Salukis!)

Of course, skin color comes to mind this week as America inaugurated the first African-American President of the United States.

Whether you like or loathe the politics of Barack Obama, it is nonetheless a noteworthy milestone in our country’s rich and varied history.

President Obama himself has struggled with his own identity as it relates to race. He’s written about that struggle in his first book.

A dark skinned father from Kenya, Africa. A lily white mother from Kansas. He attended school in Hawaii, spent much time overseas in Indonesia, and was Ivy Leage educated at Harvard.

The other civil rights related event this week was the annual commemoration of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. To see the enormous crowd on the Washington mall this week was surely a realization of at least part of that dream that Dr. King so eloquently spoke of several decades ago.

King spoke of a time when people would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I wish President Obama well. His challenges are enormous and daunting.

I sense that while he certainly realizes the significance of his election based solely on others viewing him through the prism of skin color; I also think he understands that it is his character and competence that will have the final say in judging our 44th President.

I was reminded of the civil rights struggle this week by the story of a 14 year old from Chicago nicknamed Bo.

Bo boarded a train in the windy city, bound for the steamy delta of Mississippi.  At the train station, his mother, Mamie, gave him his deceased father’s class ring as a reminder of responsibility and upholding the family name.

The excited teen was headed for a visit with his great uncle, Moses, who worked as a preacher and share cropper.

Neither Bo nor his mother realized that train station farewell would be the final time she would see her beloved son alive.

Bo and his cousins in Mississippi bought some candy and bubble gum from Bryant’s grocery in downtown Money, Mississippi.  Unknowingly, the lanky youth from up north signed his own death warrant by what happened next.  Bo, whose given name was Emmett Till, whistled at the white woman store clerk.

You see, that seemingly harmless act was apparently enough to get a black boy killed in 1955 in the delta of Mississippi.  Two men came looking for young Emmett Till early the next morning.  He was dragged out of his uncle’s house, thrown in the back of a truck and driven away.  Later, he was badly beaten for hours on end.

After dawn, his abductors stole a cotton gin fan from a nearby farm. The bloody, beaten teenager was then shot, his body tied to the cotton gin fan and dumped in the river.

It took an all white, all male jury about an hour to find the pair not guilty.  One juror remarked it wouldn’t have taken that long, had they not taken time for a soft drink.

The two murderers later confessed their crime in an interview with “Look” magazine. They were paid four thousand dollars for the story.

Mamie Till, the mother of the slain teen, had to fight even to have her son’s body returned to Chicago.  Authorities in Mississippi wanted to bury it there.

Finally, with a court order, she prevailed.  The son she received back at that train station was virtually unrecognizable.  Oh, it was her Bo to be sure, but the extent of his injuries was far too disturbing for most to even look at, let alone a grief stricken mother.

Still, Mamie Till not only stared at her son’s broken body, she also demanded an open casket funeral.  Everyone will see what they did to my baby, she reasoned.

During a three day funeral, 50,000 people did view the badly disfigured face of Emmett Till, photos of which were then nationally distributed in Jet magazine.

His death would become a flash point and story of significance for the burgeoning civil rights movement.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not slamming Mississippi, the place I love and choose to make my home.  You see, in my 50 years on this earth, I’ve lived half in Illinois and half in the deep south (Mississippi plus northern Florida) I can tell you from personal experience that the South never had the market cornered on racism and prejudice.  You’ll find it anywhere there are people of differing colors, beliefs, or cultures.

Pure prejudice against skin color begat evil in that delta town in 1955.  And we know how to battle evil.  It’s right there in the instruction book.  I think Paul has some pointers. Remember putting on the “full armor of God”.

I’m certain Jesus had a skin much darker than my own.

Forgive me, Lord, for those times that stereotypes or notions about skin color prompted unfair judgements or hurtful attitudes in my own heart.

I pray that all of us will forever judge another not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Would Jesus ask anything less of us?

-STEVE

About

Welcome, and thanks for dragging yourself over to Live|Bold! My name is Greg Arnold and I am pumped to see you here. This interactive online community is here to point every man toward the cross. Whether you have been a follower of Christ for ages, or you are just stumbling into this strange new world of faith, we have something of value to offer you. This online e-zine is a cross between a blog, a social network, a resource center, and a pulpit. My hope is to inspire you to live your faith on the outside and be a real man for God. We need you in the fight.