On The Bus, a Journey of Truth and Justice

Last week I traveled with a group of clergy from Northern Virginia on a racial healing bus tour of our state.  The newly formed group is called CURE, Clergy Uniting for Racial Empathy. The tour was made up of 23 clergy and included two Rabbis, an Imam and 20 Christian ministers.  We traveled to locations in Charlottesville, Danville, Drake’s Branch and Richmond.  It was a powerful, uneasy and uncomfortable experience that exposed me to the often-silent history of our state and some of the reasons race is still a troubling issue for our Commonwealth.  The trip also gave me hope!  Hope, because some stories are finally being heard. Hope formed from new relationships with others seeking to lead the way to justice.  Some may be wondering, why a clergy bus tour around Virginia? Why take the time and what good could it possibly do?  Here’s why going was important to me.

The events in Charlottesville in 2017 and the recent news that our Governor and Attorney General once dressed in black face reveal to us that we still have a major problem with race.   We want to believe we have moved beyond the troubles of race but we haven’t.  Charlottesville proves that there are people still burning with dangerous hate.  The behavior of our elected officials shows how deeply embedded racial practices are in our culture.  With the Governor and Attorney General we are not talking about conservative Republicans.  We are talking about progressive Democrats who grew up in a culture that says it’s okay to wear black face.  We simply cannot ignore the problem of race.  We are not over it and never have been!  It also becomes clear to me that a quick fix will not solve the problem. Certainly, a three day Bus Tour won’t solve it either but it’s a start.  It’s a start that leads to a longer process of understanding our true history. The tour is a start to listening and learning from those who have fought the fight before us. The tour is a way to build lasting relationships with fellow clergy who share the burden of leading the way.

A second reason for going on the bus tour for racial healing is that we haven’t dealt truthfully with our history and it is time for me to hear some of the untold and under told stories of Virginia’s past. There is a troubling truth to our history that we haven’t owned up to.   Christy Coleman, the CEO of The American Civil War Museum says, “We will never get right with each other until we get the history right.” The right history of Virginia is that the Confederacy was not a “lost cause” but an empire planning to extend slavery into central and South America. The truth of our Commonwealth is that the University of Virginia was built to hide enslaved people from view.   Out of sight, these slaves were abused physically and sexually by the wealthy white men permitted to be students there.   The history of Virginia is that fire hoses were used in Danville too and Danville was known by Civil rights leaders to be the worst police force in the country when it came to segregation.  Virginia’s soil is full of blood.  Yes, the blood shed in the Civil War over enslavement but also the blood of nearly silent tragedies such as  Drakes Branch and Lumpkin's Jail. Places, I am ashamed to say, I have only heard about because of the tour.   There are voices of our past longing to be heard and truths that need to be told. The systems and institutions of our day are built from and influenced by the dark hidden past of white supremacy.  It is time to tell the truth!

A third reason for me to go is that Clergy are the ones who need to lead when it comes to racial justice.  In order for us to lead the way we need each other. Rabbi Holtzman, one of the Rabbi’s on the trip, shared with us that political leaders in Washington are asking for and are in desperate need of clergy to lead the way when it comes to race.  We listened to clergy in Charlottesville tell us that people were waiting to see what the clergy would do when the unite the right rally came to their town. The people were willing to follow but only where the clergy would lead.  In such times Virginia needs leadership from its clergy and to effectively lead, the clergy need each other! One of the reason’s the Clergy Collective in Charlottesville was able to mount a counter demonstration to the unite the right rally is because they already had a relationship with each other. They knew each other, they had worked together before and they trusted one another.  What better way to build a stronger connection than a multi-day bus tour.  Through hearing difficult truths, discovering hard to handle history and the bus breaking down in the middle of the road,  we truly grew together! Now that the tour is over there is still work to be done and I’m committed to the long hard work of justice! Stay tuned.

A tree at Drakes Branch similar to the one used to lynch
Richard Walker