A World Healed By Love: Racial Justice and Reconciliation

A World Healed by Love

Our Commitment

God is always calling us to mend our relationships through listening, learning, repentance, and acts of love—fulfilling our baptismal vow to “seek and serve Christ in all persons.” In Fall 2022, the Diocese of Central New York began a two-year journey to further our commitment to racial justice and reconciliation, pursuing our vision of “a world healed by love.”

Our journey will include listening, learning, journeying (physically and spiritually), and acting. Certainly our commitment to racial reconciliation will not end after two years. We trust that our journey with intentional learning, repenting, and rebuilding during this time will build a foundation for us to continue this healing work in perpetuity, until God’s world is healed indeed.

We embrace the idea of “faithful failing.” We won’t get everything right. We won’t move fast enough at times, while at others we will move too quickly. But we are committed to pursuing healing actions and avoiding harming actions. We are committed to learning and growing from our mistakes, recognizing that this work is not about the egos of individuals, churches, or a diocese, but about healing the harm of white supremacy in our selves, our parishes, our communities, our diocese, and our world. We believe that it is God’s will that the harm of systemic oppression and white supremacy be healed and we believe that God equips us for every good work God lays out for us toward that end.

Becoming Beloved Community

The Episcopal Church’s work toward racial reconciliation, healing and justice is guided by the long-term commitment to Becoming Beloved Community. We organize our ministries around the four quadrants of the labyrinth. Each quadrant represents a commitment that is vital to lasting change within us, our churches, our communities and society at large.

  • Truth-telling: Telling the Truth about Our Churches and Race
  • Proclamation: Proclaiming the Dream of Beloved Community
  • Formation: Practicing Jesus’ Way of Healing Love
  • Justice: Repairing the Breach in Society and Institutions
Sacred Ground

Sacred Ground is a film- and readings-based dialogue series on race, grounded in faith from The Episcopal Church.  Small groups are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race and racism, while weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity. The 11-part series is built around a powerful online curriculum of documentary films and readings that focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American histories as they intersect with European American histories.

Sacred Ground is part of Becoming Beloved Community, The Episcopal Church’s long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice in our personal lives, our ministries, and our society.  This series is open to all, and especially designed to help white people talk with other white people.  Participants are invited to peel away the layers that have contributed to the challenges and divides of the present day – all while grounded in our call to faith, hope and love.

Sacred Ground Pilgrimage 2023

A Journey for the Whole Diocese
Invitation

In February 2023, 30 pilgrims from the Diocese of Central New York will travel to Alabama. With humility, curiosity, and acceptance and a goal of contributing to racial healing, they will visit several sites that have been key to the Civil Rights Movement, as well as monuments to and museums featuring the brave humans who have faithfully labored for the rights, safety, and dignity of Black Americans and all people.

While they are in Alabama, the entire Diocese is invited to join in the pilgrimage through prayer and interactive online experiences. February 23 – 26, watch this space for daily updates of the pilgrimage agenda for the day to participate along with the pilgrims in Alabama in your own time and space. You can also follow along our Instagram and Facebook stories for live updates from the pilgrimage on the ground or on TikTok and YouTube for reactions from the pilgrims in Alabama.

We will go live on Facebook during the following (approximate and subject to change) times for worship and prayer and all are invited to join us. All times are listed in EST:

Read Bishop DeDe’s invitation to the pilgrimage here. 

Collect for our Pilgrimage

O God, the omnipotent and benevolent, who knows our hearts and intentions in ways we have yet to understand. Thank you for the gift of prosperity and diversity. We ask that you bless the minds and hearts of those who join this pilgrimage to Alabama. Let the adversity and injustice of our past, and present, stimulate our hearts and encourage us to action, so that we might advocate for and be messengers of social justice and love. Thank you for hearing our prayer, we pray these things in the name of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Day 1: Thursday, February 23, 2023

Our first day of the pilgrimage includes stops at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. We’ll end the day with dinner and Compline with the people of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. For a full digest of how you can be part of our Day 1 learning opportunities, read the Day 1 Digest here. 

Be sure to check our social media for updates throughout the day and archived stories of the pilgrimage: FacebookInstagramTikTok, and YouTube.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

About the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, part of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is a cultural and educational research center that promotes a comprehensive understanding for the significance of civil rights developments in Birmingham. The mission of the BCRI is to enlighten each generation about civil and human rights by exploring our common past and working together in the present to build a better future. (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims
  • Explore the BCRI Oral History Project: This project is an invaluable collection of more than 600 interviews with pivotal laborers in the Civil Rights Movement. Explore some of the many digitized interviews available to you on the website and hear from humans who moved the movement.
  • Foot Soldiers: Through this interactive online resource, you can trace the footsteps of brave people who stirred the conscience of a nation and influenced the course of the international struggle for human rights, all centered in Birmingham, Alabama.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

About the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

Organized in 1873 as the First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama, Sixteenth Street was the first Black church in Birmingham… Because of segregation, the church, and other Black churches in Birmingham, served many purposes. It functioned as a meeting place, social center and lecture hall for a variety of activities important to the lives of the city’s Black citizens… Due to Sixteenth Street’s prominence in the Black community, and its central location to downtown Birmingham, the church served as headquarters for the civil rights mass meetings and rallies in the early 1960’s. During this time of trial, turmoil and confrontation, the church provided strength and safety for Black men, women and children dedicated to breaking the bonds of segregation in Birmingham, a city that Black citizens believed to be the most racist in America… The mass meetings held in Sixteenth Street, and in many other churches in Birmingham in May of 1963, resulted in marches and demonstrations that produced police retaliation and brutality, still painful to the memory of all who lived in the city and millions who saw it reported on national TV newscasts. Most of the marchers were school children and several thousand were arrested. Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth provided inspirational leadership to the marchers during this chaotic time. The marches and demonstrations did break the bonds of public segregation in Birmingham.

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, at 10:22 a.m., the church became known around the world when a bomb exploded, killing four young girls attending Sunday School and injuring more than 20 other members of the congregation. Later that same evening, in different parts of town, a black youth was killed by police and one was murdered by a mob of white men. It was a shocking, terrifying day in the history of Birmingham and a day that forced white leaders to further come to grips with the city’s bitter racist reputation. (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims
  • Get to know the people of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church – This church is more than a historic reminder of hurt, it is a thriving community of love. Explore the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church website and get to know the people who continue its legacy of community and the love of God.
  • Learn more about the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing through this article and video from the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University.
  • Listen to a Survivor: The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing is not that far removed from our current day. Sarah Collins Rudolph is in early early seventies now, but in September 1963, she was only 12 years old. She stood next to her sister, 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins as the dynamite exploded, killing Addie Mae and three other girls and stealing the sight from Sarah’s right eye. In this 2020 video, Mrs. Collins Rudolph  has a conversation with Ebony Phillips, Vice President of the Greater Atlanta Black Prosecutors Association, and describes what it was like to grow up Black in Birmingham and her recollections from that tragic day.

Compline at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Birmingham Alabama

Join us live on Thursday, February 23, at approximately 6 p.m. EST. This post will be updated with a link to the recorded prayer service and worship program as they become available.

Day 2: Friday, February 24, 2023

Our second day of the pilgrimage includes a celebration of the Eucharist, a visit to the Jonathan Daniels Memorial Site, a tour of Selma and walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and a learning visit to the Rosa Parks Museum. We’ll end the day with Compline with the people of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. For a full digest of how you can be part of our Day 2 learning opportunities, read the Day 2 Digest here. 

Be sure to check our social media for updates throughout the day and archived stories of the pilgrimage: FacebookInstagramTikTok, and YouTube.

Our journey today begins with Eucharist at the Church of the Ascension in Montgomery. 

Tune in on Facebook around 9:45 a.m. EST to worship with us.

About Jonathan Daniels

Jonathan Daniels was an Episcopal priest who lived a life focused on securing justice and dignity for all humans. He is most remembered for the sacrificial and heroic way he died. 

“In August 1965 Daniels and 22 others were arrested for participating in a voter rights demonstration in Fort Deposit, Alabama, and transferred to the county jail in nearby Hayneville. Shortly after being released on August 20, Richard Morrisroe, a Catholic priest, and Daniels accompanied two black teenagers, Joyce Bailey and Ruby Sales, to a Hayneville store to buy a soda. They were met on the steps by Tom Coleman, a construction worker, and part-time deputy sheriff, who was carrying a shotgun. Coleman aimed his gun at sixteen year old Ruby Sales; Daniels pushed her to the ground in order to protect her, saving her life. The shotgun blast killed Daniels instantly; Morrisroe was seriously wounded. When he heard of the tragedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.” (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims

From there, we’ll travel to Selma. 

About Selma

“Selma, Alabama, captured the attention of the entire nation and became the center of a decisive shift in the American conscience. The nexus of the voting rights campaign of the 1960s, Selma was the starting point for three marches in support of African-Americans’ right to vote. These marches were crucial to the eventual passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The act prohibited racial discrimination in voting, protecting the right to vote for racial minorities in the U.S. and especially in the American South.” (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims
  • Explore Selma – the US Civil Rights Trail offers a rich and interactive site to learn more about Selma and the role the city and its people have played and have continued to play in the struggle for justice and dignity for all people. 

We’ll return to Montgomery to learn at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery on the campus of Troy University.

About Rosa Parks 

“Rosa Louise Parks was nationally recognized as the “mother of the modern day civil rights movement” in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history.” (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims
  • Explore Selma – the US Civil Rights Trail offers a rich and interactive site to learn more about Selma and the role the city and its people have played and have continued to play in the struggle for justice and dignity for all people. 

We’ll return to Montgomery to learn at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery on the campus of Troy University.

About Rosa Parks 

“Rosa Louise Parks was nationally recognized as the “mother of the modern day civil rights movement” in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history.” (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims
  • About Rosa L. Parks  – Read Mrs. Parks’s official biography from rosaparks.org. 
  • What if I don’t move to the back of the bus? – Framing Rosa Parks’s act of faithful defiance as an innovation that changed the course of history, this online exhibit from The Henry Ford Museum offers rich context about Mrs. Parks and the civil rights movement. 
  • The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks – Some people have mistakenly referred to Rosa Parks as an “accidental activist;” this name is a disservice to Mrs. Parks who had a lifelong commitment to justice and civil rights. This documentary available to Peacock subscribers tells her story with archival footage and her own words, showing her life to be one of dedication to activism and healing the world. 

We’ll end the day with Compline. 

Tune in on Facebook around 8:30 p.m. EST to pray with us. 

Day 3: Saturday, February 25, 2023

Our third day of the pilgrimage includes experiences at the Legacy Museum, the Freedom Riders Museum, the Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Compline. For a full digest of how you can participate, visit this post. 

Today, our first experience will be at the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. 

About the Legacy Museum

“The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is situated on a site in Montgomery where Black people were forced to labor in bondage. Blocks from one of the most prominent slave auction spaces in America, the Legacy Museum is steps away from the rail station where tens of thousands of Black people were trafficked during the 19th century.   

The Legacy Museum provides a comprehensive history of the United States with a focus on the legacy of slavery. From the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impact on the North and coastal communities across America through the Domestic Slave Trade and Reconstruction, the museum provides detailed interactive content and compelling narratives. Lynching, codified racial segregation, and the emergence of over-incarceration in the 20th century are examined in depth and brought to life through film, images, and first-person narratives.” (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims

Our next stop is the Freedom Riders Museum. 

About the Freedom Riders Museum

“In 1961 groups of volunteers made history by challenging the practice of segregated travel through the South. They called themselves Freedom Riders as they crossed racial barriers in depots and onboard buses. The 1961 Freedom Riders did not begin or end their journey in Montgomery, Alabama, but their arrival changed the city and our nation.

“Freedom Riders, black and white, male and female, none of them older than 22, stepped off a bus at the Montgomery Greyhound Station on May 20, 1961. They were prepared to meet mob violence with non-violence and courage. They prepared farewell letters and wills. Their goal was to help end racial segregation in public transportation. And they did.” (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims

From there, we’ll visit the Memorial for Peace and Justice.

About the Memorial for Justice and Peace

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened to the public on April 26, 2018, is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence. (Source)

Learning Together as Pilgrims

We’ll end the day with Compline. 

Tune in on Facebook around 8:30 p.m. EST to pray with us. 

Day 4: Sunday, February 26, 2023

Day four itinerary, prayers, and participation links will be made available by 10 a.m. EST on Sunday, February 26, 2023.

Learning Tools & Resources

Films

13th

The film poster for 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay13th, a documentary by Ava DuVernay, is named for the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that outlawed slavery. This documentary explores how systems of exploitation of African Americans continued after slavery was formally abolished, and examines the way systemic racism shaped mass incarceration.

13th is available on Netflix for those who have a subscription.  Given the cultural and historical importance of this documentary, Netflix has made it available for free on YouTube.

Selma

The film poster for Selma, directed by Ava DuVernaySelma is a film also directed by Ava DuVernay which looks at the voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. This film provides background to the specific places that the February 2023 pilgrimage will visit and issues which shaped the civil rights movement.

Selma is available on iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, and other streaming services.

Just Mercy

Film poster for Just MercyJust Mercy is a biographical film that features the work of young defense attorney, Bryan Stevenson, who represents poor people on death row in the South. Featured is his work with Walter McMillian, a Black man who had been wrongfully convicted of the murder of a young woman. This film, based on Stevenson’s memoirs, provides a gut-wrenching and unflinching view of the injustice of the justice program, especially for Black people in South.

Just Mercy is available with a premium subscription on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, SlingTv and other streaming services.

Articles – The Episcopal Church, White Supremacy, and Civil Rights

The Church Awakens: African Americans and the Struggle for Justice

A multi-media overview of the history of the Episcopal Church and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as its complicity in racial oppression throughout the years. 

Speaking of Freedom

A Letter to the Church on Breaking Free of White Supremacy — By Kelly Brown Douglas, Stephanie Spellers and Winnie Varghese

 

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