I was thrilled when I discovered an old family Bible at my parents’ house. It was in terrible condition. No front cover. Missing and tattered pages. Mildew and the accompanying smell of age. The Bible belonged to my 2nd great grandparents, who lived during the Civil War. Within the pages, I found a feather, an embroidered paper bookmark, a lock of blonde hair exactly the same color as mine as a young girl. Between the Old and New Testaments were pages where births, marriages, and deaths had been recorded. I spent a lot of time with this musty old Bible, holding it in my hands and letting it speak to me about my ancestors who had also held this Bible, underlined words, saved a lock of hair, and recorded joys and deep sorrows. I will never see a photograph of these great-great-grandparents or hear their voices, but holding that Bible connects me to people with whom I share DNA and history.
In October, I took a Civil Rights pilgrimage – a road trip that included stops in Jackson, Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham, and Memphis - with Cathy Stone. We drove across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on a sunny day, visited the National Parks Service Interpretive Center where we watched videos and heard recordings of people who crossed the bridge on Bloody Sunday and participated in the March to Montgomery.
Then we walked across the bridge.
I don’t like heights and positioned myself in the center of the walkway, so as not to be too close to the railing on my left or the traffic on my right. The view of the river was picturesque and I stopped to take a couple of photos.
On our return walk across the bridge, I knew that I would not fully experience a connection to this place unless I touched the bridge. As I put my hands on the railing and the beams, I let my mind and body connect with those who had bravely walked that bridge in March of 1965. I found myself quietly repeating, “Thank you, God, for the saints who walked here,” each time my hand came in contact with another part of the bridge. Who had held this railing, walking with energy and determination at the outset? Had someone clung to this beam, making their way home after being bloodied with a billy club? Were people walking hand in hand? Was an injured person carried here? What did it feel like to return to the bridge after Bloody Sunday to make the march to Montgomery?
At the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, dirt collected from lynching sites all across the country is displayed in glass jars and line shelf after shelf, as shared in this video:
― Bryan Stevenson
Equal Justice Initiative (2:26 minutes)
My Civil Rights pilgrimage was profound and enlightening and an experience I recommend to you, but it is not necessary to travel out of state, or even out of Austin to have a similar experience. Where might we stand, touch, remember, lift a prayer, and connect with the DNA of our racial history here in our community? What if we engage in learning the racial history of Austin? Of our congregation? What soil needs to be resurrected? How does this history live on in the DNA of our city and in our congregational family? How might this knowledge push us to disrupt what is and has been and to create something new?
