A week after his cancerous right lung was removed, my father asked me over for an afternoon chat. That afternoon he told me his wishes regarding his funeral service. He never left anything to chance. Every action had a purpose and each sentence he spoke was planned to evoke a specific response.
He died two months later, after a four-year battle against colon cancer. His funeral wishes were simple. Someone of my mother’s choice would do the eulogy. A person of color would sing the hymn, “God Is.” Henry Webb, a co-worker at the Baptist Sunday School Board, would bring an evangelistic message and Olivia Cloud, a close friend and colleague, would end the service with prayer. His pallbearers must include three women and only two Anglos.
Dad’s life, as with his funeral service, reflected an unrelenting focus on inclusiveness and racial harmony and the basic thought that God is the reason for everything and everyone.
For Dad, racial reconciliation was biblical and multiculturalism was not just a catchword — it was who he was. He believed it was important to be multicultural simply because one could not successfully share the love of Christ with a person of another culture without first knowing a little about his/her history, customs, laws or language.
No matter a person’s skin color, Dad simply treated others as he wanted to be treated. He always seemed to be watching out for the oppressed and enjoyed playing advocate for the downtrodden. His heroes had names like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Caesar Chavez and Gandhi.
My sister and I became the direct beneficiaries of Dad’s relentless pursuit of a healthy cultural sensitivity. Our parents continuously exposed us to other cultures and beliefs outside our Anglo-European heritage. At times, Dad’s bent toward multiculturalism seemed almost obsessive, but he believed that if we learned a multicultural outlook as children, we would have no need for racial reconciliation later in our lives.
Whenever we were introduced to derogatory racial or gender-related stereotypes at school or in the media, our parents taught us the root of the stereotypes. Political and gender correctness were norms in our home for as long as I can remember. For instance, Pollock jokes and the use of racist words like blackmail, blacksheep, blackball or blacklist definitely were forbidden.
He had a knack for using everyday situations to teach us about racism and prejudice and the difference between the two. One such lesson came on a summer day, as I played baseball with other neighborhood children. We began choosing professional baseball players after whom we wanted to model our style of play. I chose my favorite, Willie McCovey, a strong, power-hitting, first-baseman for my hometown San Francisco Giants. I was quickly told that Willie McCovey was black and I couldn’t be him because I was white. I didn’t care that he was black; he was my favorite ballplayer. An argument ensued. Finally, insults were thrown and I was branded a “nigger-lover” and forced to pick a white player or not play at all. I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but I knew it wasn’t nice. So I picked up my Reggie Jackson bat and Willie Mays outfielders glove and went home.
That evening, I asked my father about the word I had heard. He told me the word was used mostly by Anglos as a derogatory term for anyone of dark skin. He explained to me the African etymology of the word and how it had been purposely distorted over the years to become an ugly racial slur.
Racism, a form of prejudice, was what my friends had shown toward Willie McCovey because of his skin color. Prejudice, on the other hand, was how my friends had treated me for my beliefs. I’ll always remember that talk because of what he told me at the end, “Son, it’s OK to be a nigger-lover.”
About the same time I was learning about prejudice on the baseball diamond, my family began visiting Emmanuel Baptist Church, a predominately black Southern Baptist church in San Jose, Calif. Visiting different churches each Sunday was not out of the ordinary for us since my father, as a home missionary, related to a large Southern Baptist constituency throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. On any given Sunday, Dad might be called upon to preach, share his testimony or conduct an evening Bible study.
However, Emmanuel was different. Soon our visits became regular and as a result of the friendliness and genuine Christian love we experienced, the church became our home.
For the next 11 years, Emmanuel played a vital role in my family. My father worked as a part-time minister of education and helped the church’s Sunday school grow into one of the state leaders in attendance. My mother taught Sunday school and my sister sang in the children’s choir. Church members also supported our family through prayer during my recovery from brain surgery in 1979. During our time at Emmanuel, we all developed strong friendships that last even today.
Because of the reputation he nurtured and earned while at Emmanuel, my father came to the Baptist Sunday School Board in 1987 to work in Black Church Development. At first Dad worked as a liaison between the section and Anglo leaders of state conventions. Soon he shifted his focus and began working directly with churches and pastors.
From the outset, many thought of Dad as the token white in a section dedicated solely to black church work. Some even questioned why he’d accept such a position. Wasn’t this a demotion? What were his qualifications? Did he actually think he could successfully work among African Americans, whose church style, culture and language were so different from mainstream Southern Baptists?
Many assumed his “calling” in life was to work with African Americans, just as a foreign missionary is called to work among non-Christians in far-off places like Africa, China and India. Some thought his job was to show black Southern Baptists how to “do” church the Southern Baptist way.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Really, we never discussed why he worked where he did. It was simply his job and what he loved to do. I know he felt comfortable in the black community and never found his skin color to be an obstacle.
Throughout his career, Dad constantly worked to broaden the racial sensitivity of others. Even while working at the Sunday School Board, he routinely confronted co-workers about their views of race in the workplace and in the Christian community. Although his entire career in Christian ministry seems dedicated to racial reconciliation, he had a somewhat critical view of the Racial Reconciliation Resolution adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention last June.
He thought, as do many black Southern Baptists who attended the SBC, that the resolution by itself will not change anything in the relationship between blacks and whites in the Southern Baptist Convention. Openness and a willingness to learn and understand — qualities my Dad’s life exemplified — will make a real difference.
He knew that racial reconciliation is more than just saying you’re sorry. It will come only when actions begin to speak louder than words.
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Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press