Stand In Unity

We will strive to update this page with resources to help us, as a church, to "stand in unity" and address issues of injustice, oppression and inequality.

The Stand In Unity group began meeting in May 2020, participated in the United Way’s 21-Day Equity Challenge this fall, and began partnering with other area churches and the Marion Alliance for Racial Equity in December 2020. They helped to collaborate with the MLK Day celebration video (https://youtu.be/Q_j0CPXiYX8), and will continue to work together during Black History Month and beyond. They would love to have you involved in joining in the next conversation or shared learning opportunities! Contact the church office for more information.

Phil Vischer: Race In America - A Holy Post Video

Recommendation from Jill Hansen, LCR Staff

This video may be appropriate for middle school students.

From one of the creators of Veggie Tales... "We need to talk about race. Why are people angry? Why so upset? Didn't we elect a black president? Pass civil rights laws? Isn't racism illegal now? Three years ago my brother Rob and I co-taught a class that discussed issues of racial injustice. That class turned into a popular podcast episode, which we've now turned into this video. Why are people still angry? Let's take a look at race in America.."

Click here to watch the video

Black Like Me

John Howard Griffin

Recommendation from Tom Lillevig

Amazon Link

In the Deep South of the 1950’s, a color line was etched in blood across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross that line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man.

What happened to John Howard Griffin—from the outside and within himself—as he made his way through the segregated Deep South is recorded in this searing work of nonfiction.

Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation

Jennifer Harvey

Recommendation from Ana Clymer, LCR Member

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QQKO5KY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Description from the above website:

In this provocative book Jennifer Harvey argues for a radical shift in how justice-committed white Christians think about race. She calls for moving away from the reconciliation paradigm that currently dominates interracial relations and embracing instead a reparations paradigm.

Harvey presents an insightful historical analysis of the painful fissures that emerged among activist Christians toward the end of the Civil Rights movement, and she shows the necessity of bringing "white" racial identity into clear view in order to counter today's oppressive social structures.

A deeply constructive, hopeful work, Dear White Christians will help readers envision new racial possibilities, including concrete examples of contemporary reparations initiatives. This book is for any who care about the gospel call to justice but feel stuck trying to get there, given the ongoing prevalence of deep racial divisions in the church and society at large.

Freedom Summer

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/freedomsummer/

Recommendation from Jessi Lau, LCR Staff

In 1964, less than 7% of Mississippi’s African Americans were registered to vote, compared to between 50 and 70% in other southern states. In many rural counties, African Americans made up the majority of the population and the segregationist white establishment was prepared to use any means necessary to keep them away from the polls and out of elected office.

A plan was hatched by Bob Moses, a local secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. For ten weeks, white students from the North would join activists on the ground for a massive effort that would do what had been impossible so far: force the media and the country to take notice of the shocking violence and massive injustice taking place in Mississippi.

Written, Produced and Directed by Stanley Nelson