Moments of awareness when I became 'woke' about racism

I was a freshman at Valpo -- that’s Valparaiso University, a Lutheran college in Indiana.  There was a requirement that all students take at least two religion courses.  In the spring semester of 1958, I took a course called “The Church and the Race Problem.”  The teacher was an elderly pastor named Dr. Schultze.  His lectures, while sometimes inciteful, were often boring, but that was OK, since his classes were reputed to be an easy A.  For me, the highlight of the course was a fieldtrip to nearby Chicago.

Dr. Schultze and his 20-or-so students made the one-hour trip to the Loop area in a rented bus.  Our first stop was a high-rise building.  We rode the elevator to one of the upper floors and entered a very large and posh office.  There we were introduced to John H. Johnson.  He was owner and president of Johnson Publishing Company -- publishers of Ebony and Jet -- and of several cosmetic and fashion enterprises.  He was one of the wealthiest men in America -- and he was “Colored.”

Johnson told us about his upbringing and the poverty that brought him from Arkansas to Chicago with his family during the “great migration” of the 1930s.  He extolled the importance of education, his at the University of Chicago and Northwestern,  and of faith, instilled in him by a deeply religious mother, and of the mentorship that contributed so much to his life and success.  He answered our questions honestly, with neither condescension nor boastfulness.

As a young kid, my parents fed me the white, working-class stereotypical view of “Colored folks” of that era -- as generally being poor, dirty, lazy, and not very bright.   As I traversed my teenage years, some cracks opened in that flawed understanding, largely due to this nerdy white kid being befriended by a kid named Ernie, a popular and athletic schoolmate, and by Willy, the short-order cook who ran the YMCA’s snack bar, both Black.  But meeting and listening to a proud, intelligent, successful, and erudite Black man, like John Johnson, was the enlightening experience that finally brought that stereotype of my youth crashing down.  I became aware -- I was WOKE.

I’ve since learned that John Johnson had traveled with Vice President Nixon on missions to Africa and the Soviet Union, and later served as a special ambassador on behalf of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.  Late in his life Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  In 2005 I saw on national TV that both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama attended his funeral. He was truly an American icon who made a real difference in lots of lives -- unknown to him, in mine also.

After leaving Johnson’s office we made our other stop at a Lutheran church in the near-north-side of Chicago, not far from Wrigley Field.  There we were met by a delightful middle-aged woman, a member of the congregation who happened to be Black.  She told us this story: Five years ago, this congregation, in a changing neighborhood, was entirely white. Almost all were descendants of Swedish immigrants.  One Sunday, shortly after the beginning of the service, a "colored" man came into the sanctuary and sat in a rear pew.  He left quietly shortly before the service ended, so most of the congregants weren’t even aware of his presence.  But obviously a few were, for that week the Church Council voted to change Communion from use of the common cup to individual service.

I got the message and vowed to use the common cup in Communion whenever possible as an expression of the oneness of God’s creation -- we’re all in this together!  I kept that vow for 60 years until the pandemic of 2020 upended the use of the common cup in almost all Lutheran congregations.  That woman also told us that then -- in 1958 -- the membership of her Swedish congregation was half Black and that they all got along quite well, but they still only used individual cups for Communion.  Progress is slow and stepwise, but over the years I’ve endeavored to promote diversity and oneness in the congregations where it’s been my privilege to worship.  I became aware -- I was WOKE.

This is just one story about how I became proudly WOKE, decades before the term was invented.

Vic Berecz is a retired defense systems software engineering manager with homes in Fort Myers Beach and Connecticut.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Moments of awareness when I became 'woke' about racism