One of the adults passed the paper to me. I watched as a paper was passed hand to hand among our small congregation that Wednesday night prayer meeting. The action was unusual in itself. The only times we typically brought stuff from home were potluck meals and baby showers. I was sitting where most teenagers sit in the church sanctuary, toward the back. Except for a short-lived trend, encouraged by deacons who viewed with (probably appropriate) skepticism the recent popularity of young men from Cannon AF Base, of seating all the teenagers and single "base apes" on the front pews, I chose the back. The better to observe all the nuisances, expressions, murmurings, snoring, and nose-picking in the crowd of worshippers. This time I was surprised to be included in whatever secretive thing that gave rise to at least one Hah ! or Hmm! but, I don't recall a I wonder about this. Didn't I hear repeated often from pulpit and deacon bench Don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see ?
The picture: Martin Luther King Jr's hand is outstretched to a small group of white men; one of whom has a paper in his hand. The paper is outlandishly large in size to be a bank check, as the picture's description declares it to be. In the one-paragraph description below the picture, we are told that the men offering money to the negro civil rights' leader are from the USSR. (In 1968, black men were still called negro men, usually capitalized in the newspapers.) Implication: Reverend King was a communist and the USSR funded the USA's civil rights' movement and no true patriot should appreciate either the Christianity or the humanity of Reverend King.
I had by that time heard most of this. Clovis, New Mexico was a growing city in what is known as Little Texas. In 1968, its inhabitants were more diverse than now, if in diversity we include a wide range of political and social opinions and opportunities to express them. Back then, television and radio and rapid growth were the diversifying factors. Now, even though CAFB remains there to bring in military from other states, the special forces are mainly white people who self-identify with the mainly white evangelical churches that influence its city council, school board, business associations, Pioneer/Rodeo Days, and realtors. Clovis is one of the small towns of America that successfully homogenized itself into boredom, exclusion, cynicism, and decline. This is now. In 1968 Clovis thrived. But I was a teenager in a (solid) white nary a piece of literature, independent of ecumenical associations, old-time religion, Bible says it so I believe church. We learned white supremacy.
To this day, I have not been able to find the picture. I subscribe to Newspaper.com and have not found it there yet. Therefore, I have questions about the picture's origin, and my memory is not perfect. Was the picture that I saw cut from a newspaper or was it a mimeograph copy? I've no doubts about the picture's content and accompanying words. But I cannot locate its source to verify how I came to see the image that planted seeds of doubt in my young mind.
And the doubts were most certainly not what I was meant in that prayer meeting to take away from the adults' lesson. From that day I began to question my elders. I began to wonder whether Westbrook Baptist Church was honest. I began doubting the supremacy of people who blamed the victims of their supremacy for all the nation's ills, the wisdom of using time for worship as time to incite resentment and hatred. But make no mistake in thinking that I left that prayer meeting with resolve to end racism and poverty. I needed decades more of experiences and education, of meeting new people and rejecting the toxicity of others, of living a life of both joy and suffering, of teaching classrooms full of diverse students who trusted me to be kind and helpful. Unlearning the fixed mindset of a white supremacist and the absolutism of religious fundamentalism takes time. But unlearn I did!
As we celebrate another Martin Luther King Jr holiday this weekend and take time to digest the importance of his life and work, we should celebrate those whose courageous activism and votes helped our nation avoid the takeover of a fascist authoritarian regime. Black women made all the difference in the national election, voting out the white supremacist in chief, Donald J Trump, and making sure that the Democratic party has majority in the Senate. Black women did this. We owe them a debt of gratitude.
Until I took university classes in the 1980s, I had never had a Black teacher. Until I started teaching public school in the 1990s, I had never taught Black children. But I had since 1971 lived in cities across the nation from Alaska to Delaware and Missouri in between. Exposures and experiences would guide me toward understanding, empathy, growth, and sincere appreciation. I truly like the person I am becoming.