Juneteenth is a reminder that racism is deeply rooted in the American way
Dr. Amos Jones, Jr., is the president of the National Association of Christian Educators. He resides in Nashville and is a Vanderbilt Divinity School graduate.
I am an African American with a tinge of Cherokee Indian blood in my veins.
Born in Giles County, raised in Nashville, I am a proud American. I served in the U.S. Air Force and was honorably discharged. Educated in Nashville, attended American Baptist College, and Vanderbilt Divinity School, I am 83 years old.
To think on Juneteenth is pain. Let me share my pain.
Some time ago, I read H. Shelton Smith’s, “In His Image. . . But!” It was a painful read, but I read every page. A University of North Carolina professor, Dr. Smith tells of the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention in Augusta, Georgia in 1845.
Probably the major reason for SBC’s formation was the maintenance of the brutal institution of American slavery. Time and again, Smith cites the convention’s argument that the Negro was not human, following the idea of Homeric philosophy rather than Biblical theology.
So, Christians amassed enormous wealth off the back of Christians, in violation of Christian principles and teachings of the Bible.
In an article by Mark Wingfield, the theory is that the delay of the news of freedom for slaves in Texas was the work of white Southern Baptist Convention slaveholders.
Dilatory tactics have not been limited to white Southern Baptists, it has been an American problem.
The carnage of 1921 that wiped out Tulsa’s Black Wall Street was not known to me until NPR reported it in the 1990s.
Charlottesville, Virginia was described by President Trump as having some good people and some bad people. The peaceful demonstrations by young Black and white Americans when George Floyd was murdered were described by President Trump as a demonstration of thugs and rioters. He called for law and order.
Yes! Juneteenth speaks loudly. It acknowledges racism as deeply rooted in the American way. Dilatory tactics are consonant with racism.
In 2015, Dylan Storm Roof, a white supremacist casually went into Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and killed the pastor and eight others.
One after another, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, 10 African Americans in Buffalo, New York, have been murdered in this country but no murmur from the white church. No denunciation of the pain and suffering of their Black Christian brothers and sisters.
Juneteenth is a reminder that America must do more to make our nation a “more perfect union.”
Our forebears envisioned America as a “city set on a hill.” Reverend John Winthrop preached that if the nation abided not by the prophet Micah’s maxim to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, the American experiment could fail.
Juneteenth is a word of caution that comes to us from the annals of our history.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Juneteenth reminds us that racism is deeply rooted in the American way
