A CALL TO SOCIAL ACTION

On Saturday, June 6, 2020, members of St. Barnabas gathered on the lawn outside the church to register a peaceful protest of the murder of George Floyd. Following the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr., our gathering focused on Gospel values including justice, equality, and love of our neighbors. And as our baptismal covenant states, we “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” We were about Jesus, not politics.

Read one parishoner’s story…

Notes from a rookie protester by Doug Long, 6/6/2020

Last weekend, as I went down the depressing rabbit hole of news articles and posts about the horrific murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the others, I was wondering what I could do. Not that there wasn’t a lot of advice. Friends posted long lists of things white people should do –fund causes, read books, call public officials. All good advice, though some was contradictory –talk to your black friends about this; no, don’t bug your black friends about this.

And then this post came in my church bulletin: “A Protest for Racial Justice,” set for Saturday morning at the church. Participants would “gather on the lawn outside the church to peacefully protest the murder of George Floyd. Following the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr., our gathering will focus on Gospel values including justice, equality, and love of our neighbors. And as our baptismal covenant states, we ‘strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.’” The contact person was our priest, Father Bob, my friend and fellow bass in the choir when he’s not presiding.

I’d never protested before, but this seemed doable and low-risk. The post said to bring our face mask and our poster. What to put on a poster fora church-based social protest? I immediately thought of “God Is Love. Black Lives Matter.” To me, the two sentiments go together naturally. On Friday night, I started coloring a sign while Aretha Franklin’s greatest hits jammed in the CD drive of my new record player. After two hours of coloring, I was only half done, so I just printed out words on my computer and taped them over my original.

On Saturday morning, I flipped through my t-shirts trying to figure out what I had in the line of protest shirts. Multi-colored tie-dye? Maybe a little too much a “costume.” Motown? Too heavy-handed. I settled for a plain black t-shirt. Later my friend Lora said that with my black face mask, sunglasses & shirt, I looked like something out of The Matrix.

We gathered in the church parking lot, socially distanced, wearing face masks, and carrying freshly lettered protest signs. Father Bob had everyone introduce themselves and say why they were there. I confessed it was my first peaceful protest, feeling a little like someone attending their first AA meeting. Then we headed out to Butterfield Road, a busy street that runs through a lot of Chicago’s western suburbs.

I took a position on the front line by the road and it didn’t take long for drivers to respond to us. At least half of them honked and waved. If they fist pumped, I fist pumped back (Who AM I?) and some flashed the peace sign, a special pleasure since when I was a little kid in the late ‘60s & early ‘70s, that was the coolest thing you could do. The only negative response was one guy who gave us the finger, but out of more than 4000 cars in two hours, that’s not bad. It was a truly joyful event and even though I kept forgetting that the drivers couldn’t see it behind the mask, I smiled almost the whole time.

As a rookie, I learned that protesting is a more intimate form of communication than I’d realized. When I’ve driven by protests in the past, I didn’t know if they wanted me to honk or not (note: they do). But I would see people respond to my wave and I had some people, including a bicyclist, read my sign, look at me, and nod in assent. And even for those who just drove past, maybe our messages of love and unity planted a seed.

Doing this Saturday morning peaceful protest may not have changed the world in any big way. But maybe it nudged somebody toward creating a more equitable society for all Americans, no matter the race, ethnicity, or any other way. And it was inspiring to be doing with this with a group of like-minded Episcopalians –we had more than 60people, whichis more than we often have at church! For me it’s as simple –and yet still a national struggle ever since our country was founded amid the sin of slavery–as “God is love. Black lives matter.”