When Alisa Williams asked me to write about the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice (informally known as the National Lynching Memorial) for Spectrum, I did not expect that the experience would begin a process of unfolding awareness about structural injustices. This became the seed of an idea to invite the Adventist Forum Board to Alabama for one of our scheduled board meetings and take the extra time to reflect on recent history of racial injustice in the United States.
This is a fantastic initiative! Kudos to the organizers. It should have been a GC’s initiative, but those people are way too busy writing irrelevant letters of "thoughts and prayers."
Go Spectrum GO!
(Not sure I can go; will be campaigning in Southern California for Ted Wilson’s re-election… )
Yes! Better late than never, I guess. Why is this church always playing catch-up?! If you see Mr. Wilson, kindly ask him to resign before this whole movement implodes because of his extraneous leadership.
Wonderful initiative. The Memorial, created by the Equal Justice Initiative led by Bryan Stevenson, is the beginning of a reckoning with this country’s legacy and the long-lasting impact of slavery, lynching, mass incarcerations. It is only by dealing with the past that healing can start.
I never met him, and probably won’t until we are all in Heaven…
Don’t take literally, or seriously, the last part of my post that you replied to. Fact is that I would never “campaign” for him; also, I live in SoCal, specifically in Riverside, at a walking distance from LSU. TW is not much popular around here, so I was joking - but only people who knew these details would understand the sarcasm…
But be assure that, if I ever meet him, I will certainly convey your message and a few other things of my own…
One thing that is important to keep in mind, if I may, is not to take people’s comments too seriously - even if they have the appearance of being very serious. Don’t let people’s ideas, opinions, and stubbornness to consume you!
Also, sometimes someone may go after you personally just because they don’t like your opinions. If it gets ugly, just ignore them and focus on those people who respect your opinions and can “tolerate” your personal beliefs.
Many Spectrum readers will know that one of Spectrum´s founders and long-time editor Roy Branson was part of the Martin Luther King Jr march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama - his early and lasting focus on social justice was not a focus of the GC, whose leaders discouraged Adventists from participating in marches. See this short summary of an interview with Roy about his Selma experience at an Adventist Forum Conference in 2008. https://spectrummagazine.org/article/alexander-carpenter/2008/09/27/sabbath-worship-forum-conference
