HEROES HAVE DREAMS
Jan. 20, 2008 Summit UU Fellowship
Rev. Kathleen A. Green
Tomorrow is a day when this nation will acknowledge a hero: Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s a day when we remember and celebrate the life of a man whose dream continues to inspire and challenge. He was not a Unitarian Universalist, though there are meaningful connections between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Unitarian Universalism. We know about King’s dream. The dream of a hero.
But there are other dreams from other heroes. We’ve spent the past two Sundays exploring the lives of heroes – women and men - from our rich religious history. Today is the last Sunday of my heroes series and today I’d like to introduce you to some contemporary heroes. 20th century hero: Rev. James Reeb, whose life was deeply interconnected with Dr. King’s.
James Reeb would have turned 81 on Jan. 1. He was born in Kansas, and spent his childhood in Casper, Wyoming. He grew up with religiously devout parents in a kind of rural poverty. Jim planned to pursue ministry in the Presbyterian Church. While at Princeton Theological Seminary, a field trip to Harlem in New York City sparked something within him. Jim was appalled by the conditions he saw men, women and children living in. This was a different kind of poverty than he had grown up with.
He did chaplaincy work at Philadelphia General Hospital – the hospital of the city’s poor, especially its African American poor. Growing up in Wyoming, Jim had never had direct contact with people who lived constantly with the challenges of urban poverty and racial discrimination.
These experiences furthered a crisis of faith (growing religious doubts) that had started several years prior. Though Jim was ordained into ministry at the First Presbyterian Church in Casper, during this time of internal struggle, somebody gave Jim a copy of the book Today’s Children and Yesterday’s Heritage by the Unitarian religious educator Sophia Lyons Fahs. After reading it, Jim thought to himself, “If this is how the Unitarians approach religion, I guess I must be a Unitarian.” He began the process of seeking fellowship as a UU minister, and within 2 years, James Reeb began work as the assistant minister at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington DC. He left that post after 5 years, to work as a community organizer in a very poor, predominantly African American neighborhood outside of Boston. That was when Martin Luther King, Jr. issued his call for clergy to join him in Selma, Alabama, to peacefully protest that state’s denial of civil rights to its African American citizens. On Sunday, March 7, 1965, King led a march that was to begin in the city of Selma and proceed to the state capitol of Montgomery. But on that afternoon, about 650 African Americans and a few whites began the march, but the marchers only got as far as the outskirts of the city where the Alabama State Troopers were armed with billy clubs, side arms, and gas masks. The state troopers viciously attacked the marchers.
The very next day, when King issued another call for the clergy of the nation to join him for another march in Selma, James Reeb struggled in deciding whether to answer that call. The UUA asked him if he would be interested in going. Jim and other clergy from all over the country assembled at Browns Chapel in Selma, including many Unitarian Universalists. The march was halted by Alabama state troopers just outside of Selma. But this time the marchers were allowed to turn back peacefully.
Jim decided to stay in Selma and participate in another march that was planned for later in the week. That evening as Jim and two other Unitarian Universalist ministers – Orloff Miller and Clark Olsen – were walking back to Browns Chapel from a nearby restaurant, tragedy struck. The three of them were walking down the sidewalk – Olsen on the inside, Miller in the middle, and Jim nearest the curb – when they became aware of four white local men on the other side of the street coming toward them. They attacked the ministers, hitting Jim in the head with a club - a blow that crushed the left side of his skull. Two days later Rev. James Reeb died.
President Lyndon Johnson called Jim’s family to express his personal condolences and there were protests in front of the White House, demanding federal intervention in Alabama. The Boston Symphony Orchestra played the “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” – the same selection they had played a year and a half before on the announcement of the assassination of President Kennedy. The following Monday, Pres. Johnson presented the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to a joint session of Congress. In his address to congress, Johnson mentioned Reeb. The president had asked Martin Luther King, Jr. to be present with him as he presented the Voting Rights Act to congress, but King declined so that he could speak at a memorial service for James Reeb at Brown’s Chapel in Selma.
James Reeb never set out to be a hero, certainly not a martyr, but his deep concern for the suffering of others, his deep sense of justice, his desire to go where he was needed most, and his profound desire to live his life to the fullest, led him to become one. James Reeb had a dream. In one of his first sermons at All Souls Unitarian Church, he asked, “Are there no dreams so important that we can risk our own destruction in order to make them come true?” James Reeb discovered the answer to that question himself. There is no doubt that faith, commitment, compassion, and courage were companions on James Reeb’s journey. But he also brought along integrity. A truth and veracity that under girded his faith and how he lived that faith in his daily life.
And then there are those heroes that aren’t exactly “unlikely”, but perhaps just unexpected. Born in the rural area of Learned, Mississippi, 84 years ago (a contemporary of James Reeb), Unitarian Universalist Norma Poinsett grew up in the segregated south in a family that strove to validate its inherent worth and dignity. Norma was exposed to the hypocrisy of separate and unequal education on all levels. There were no schools for blacks past the eighth grade. Norma says, “My parents, the country school teachers, and church leaders instilled in us the critical necessity of dignity and self-respect. I had joined the Baptist church at age 9 – mostly to satisfy my mother. I recall that one day I asked her if we could go fishing (of all 11 of us children, I was the one always put up to asking for such favors) and she said, “Girl, instead of asking to go fishing, you should be thinking about your soul with Revival Meeting in its last days.” To me, feeling a fish tug on my line and finding a guinea’s nest with 40 eggs in it gave me more joy and spiritual wonder than any revival meeting. I joined church that night to get Mama off my back. Church was a social outing for me. I could not believe in a Jesus who gave white children a school bus and an elementary school just a quarter of a mile from our house. To this day, I can still see that freshly painted school from our front porch. We passed that school daily on our way to ours, which was a mile and a half through a field of corn, cotton, ribbon cane, and sorghum.”
“The first time I attended a Unitarian church was in Urbana, IL, where I was attending graduate school. After moving to Chicago, I found the First Unitarian Church through a bridge-playing couple who invited my husband and I to give it a try.” She’s been a member now for nearly 50 years! That fact alone might qualify her as hero!
During the “Black Empowerment Controversy” of the 1960’s and 70’s, many African Americans left the Unitarian Universalist faith. But Norma Poinsett stayed. She has been a leader and worker for racial justice and change in the Unitarian Universalist Association for over 40 years. As UUA president, Bill Sinkford presented Norma the President’s Award for Volunteer Service in 2004, he said, “Norma has held this faith’s feet to the fire not just on issues of race, but far more broadly across the board as we have struggled to live up to the principles we affirm.”
Norma Poinsett is a hero with a dream. She has said, “I dream of a world where all of the UUA groups will look at their work through an anti-racist lens. So often we hear the statement “Education is a necessity in bringing racial and social justice to all people.” We who make up one of the most educated and intellectual groups in the world should meet the challenge to live the principles we mouth from the pews and pulpits.” When asked ‘why are you a UU?’ I explain. And if the questioner continues to question, I tell them that Unitarian Universalism is the only religion I can stand. That really seems to confuse them. Since it is the only religion I can stand:
To be present is to serve, To serve is to be an advocate,
In being an advocate of Unitarian Universalism I find an anchor,
A life line that gets me from Sunday to Sunday
And from January to January.”
We don’t often get the opportunity or have the privilege of knowing and spending time with our heroes. Perhaps in part because many of our heroes are those who have gone before – long before. The shoulders we stand upon. Most of the heroes I’ve spoken about over the past couple of weeks fall into that category.
I’ve been fortunate to have known and spent time with unexpected, ordinary heroes like Norma Poinsett and Cornelius Lockhart. Cornelius is a little different – not a Unitarian Universalist. Not an award winner, accomplished author, or recognized social activist. Just a young 20-something black man living on Chicago’s south side; working as a janitor at Meadville-Lombard Theological School (my alma mater). During my last 2 years of study at Meadville-Lombard, I spent plenty of time talking with Cornelius, laughing with Cornelius, appreciating his gentle strength, infectious smile, and incredible sensitivity to the world around him. Cornelius was always quick to offer words of encouragement to students preparing papers and search packets. He was sympathetic to Unitarian Universalism and liked to discuss what ministry in this faith would mean to the world.
I last saw Cornelius on graduation day, last June, and we said goodbye to each other. When my family and I were traveling across country to make a new home in east San Diego County, by the time we got to Phoenix, I couldn’t hold out on checking my email any longer! It was July 7th , and the first email I opened nearly knocked me out of my chair. Cornelius was gone. On July 3, he went into a convenience store on the south side, near his home, and there were 2 men engaging in an escalating argument. Cornelius was always the peacemaker, wherever he went. On this day, he did his part to diffuse the situation and stop the fight. One of the men left briefly only to return moments later with a knife. He stabbed Cornelius in the back, repeatedly.
Cornelius Lockhart had a dream. He wanted to make a better life for his mother and his girlfriend and 2-yr-old daughter. He wanted to defy the stereotype of young black men on the south side. Cornelius dreamed of furthering his education some day and ‘making a difference’, as he told me in one of our conversations in the seminary library.
I share with you the story and life of Cornelius Lockhart because he is a hero. An unexpected, ordinary, flesh and blood hero. And not because he died young and tragically. Though he did. Not because he accomplished any amazing social or political feats . He did not. He is included in the list of heroes because he journeyed through life with the companions faith, commitment, compassion, courage, and integrity, and his life positively impacted the lives of those around him in ways he probably never imagined.
We have dreams too, you and I. Summit UU Fellowship has a dream – a vision of this fellowship as a growing, caring, intergenerational congregation of diverse backgrounds, embracing the free and responsible search for truth and meaning – committed to promoting spiritual and personal growth, social justice environmental awareness and participation in the greater community.
The journey towards seeing that dream become reality won’t be without difficulty and disappointment, but we can choose those same journey companions that all of the heroes I’ve mentioned chose. We are called by our heroes – whether it be Jesus, or Jimmy Carter, or Jane Addams, or Gandhi - by their very lives and life’s work - to live our faith every day (not just on Sundays or when it’s convenient or easy), every day as best we can.
Like James Reeb, and Norma Poinsett, and Cornelius Lockhart, we don’t set out to be heroes. And yet we are the heroes of the future. We are the shoulders that future generations will stand upon. We are ordinary people, with stories, dreams, and lives of faith that have the capacity to positively impact others in ways we might never imagine.
May it be so.
