Back in the winter, I got a call one morning from a friend who works on the streets in Durham, connecting with homeless folks and exploring ways they might become part of church communities here in town. She was facing a crisis. Her friends were getting tickets under a new anti-begging ordiance in Durham and they didn’t know what to do. I called a lawyer friend, met with folks who’d gotten tickets, and gathered some other friends for an organizing... Read more
Across the country communities will gather for block parties tonight, leaving porch lights on and celebrating the partnerships that make safe and livable communities possible. Since moving to Walltown ten years ago, we’ve participated in National Night Out, and we will again tonight. But National Night Out feels different this year. Since last year’s block party, we’ve held a community forum on racial profiling that the police refused to attend. Since last year’s block party, George Zimmerman has been acquitted.... Read more
I’m grateful to those of you who prayed with me for the release of the Dream 9 during our fast. As of today, 40 members of Congress have signed on in support of the Dream 9. Thousands of people have called to voice their support. But all nine young people who’ve committed no crime are still being held, two of them in solitary confinement. The National Immigrant Youth Alliance is asking everyone who supports the Dream 9 to join a... Read more
At 2pm tomorrow, Sunday, July 28, concerned citizens of Durham will conduct a silent march around the Durham County Jail in support of a man who has been locked up for begging. We are not coming to yell in protest. We are coming to pray in public because we lament this harsh reality when an alternative could already be in place. I wrote last month to celebrate this city where, though a bad law was passed, hundreds of people came... Read more
UPDATE: We’ve just learned that the Dream 9 have been released. Here’s news story from the LA Times. A huge thanks to everyone who fasted, prayed, called ICE and petitioned the White House for help. As Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.” The Dream 9 are today’s Freedom Riders and Abolitionists, leading us toward the American we’ve not yet been. Thank God for them. And glory be... Read more
In 1961, when John Lewis was a student at American Baptist College, he wrote to tell his parents that he had decided to ride through the South with an integrated team of “Freedom Riders.” He knew that his education was important, he said, but he felt he had no choice: at this point in his life, the cause of human freedom was a priority. Today, Rep. Lewis is a member of the US Congress. After half a century, it’s difficult... Read more
On July 19, 1848, the first Women’s Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York, sparking a women’s movement that challenged both the church and the world with the good news that in Jesus Christ, there is neither male nor female. Isabella Baumfree, born a slave in New York State, heard the voice of Jesus speak to her in the woods where her mother had taught her about the God who led Israel out of Egypt. After walking away... Read more
As the concerns of Moral Mondays draw national attention, including a New York Times editorial this week, NC Governor Pat McCrory told The Wilson Times that he has mingled with our ranks and found some among us lacking in character. To quote the governor: “I go out in the crowd all of the time. Frankly, yesterday I went out and talked to several of them and they were not very respectful. They did not represent the majority of those who... Read more
Today is the feast day for Saint Benedict, the father of Western monasticism. 1500 years after his death, Benedict will be celebrated in churches around the world today (and remembered again in almost every intro to Western Civ course this fall). Not bad for a college drop-out who wanted to live in a cave. Early in the 6th century, when the Roman Empire faced attacks from without and discontent from within, there came a point when most people knew that... Read more
For the tenth consecutive Monday in North Carolina, thousands of people got off work and drove to our state legislature building today to join the Forward Together Movement. A mobilization that grew out of our state NAACP chapter’s grassroots organizing through the HKonJ coalition, it is an impressive crowd. This is why the Washington Post and the New York Times have sent correspondents; it’s why NPR’s microphones and satellite trucks from Fox News and MSNBC have been parked alongside the... Read more
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
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