Organizers call for love to counter growing racial tensions during Cocoa meeting

It was the late 1980s. Joyce Cole and her husband had stepped on a flight back to the U.S. after spending what she described as a two-year, culturally challenging stay in Saudi Arabia.

Just as the airliner lifted into the azure skies above, she began to hear a Dua for travelers, an Islamic prayer, over the plane’s intercom.

At first the recitation — a standard for Saudi airlines — drew a visceral response from Cole, who was raised a Baptist and found the Qur'anic recitations blared five times a day to be disconcerting.

“All during the time we were in Saudi Arabia, I hated everything. I wouldn’t have ever said I was that kind of person," Cole told a crowd at the Central Brevard Library, recalling that moment of clarity.

"But as we flew into the blue skies and heard the chanting, the pilot started to translate it. It was all about asking God to help us to have safe travels. No one had ever bothered to explain it to me."

Her recounting of how having someone simply explain what she was hearing helped her see the beauty of what was said was one of several stories recounted during this week's "Racial Healing: The Heart of Racial Equality" program. Hosted by the Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex board of directors, InterfaithUnited and the North Brevard branch of the NAACP, organizers focused on bringing people together to build on Martin Luther King Jr.'s grand dream of inclusion in an era where the nation appears as divided as ever over culture, religion, gender and issues of race.

The event is held on the National Day of Racial Healing and is observed annually on the Tuesday following the holiday observance of the slain civil rights leader.

“This is the second one we’ve done,” said Bill Gary, president of the NAACP.

“It’s needed right now. There is so much vitriolic rhetoric taking place in the state of Florida right now. You also see how the Jewish community has been under attack lately. What we wanted to do was have this conversation."

Nearly 50 people, from ministers to community leaders, attended the program and participated in panel discussions. The audience heard anecdotes that touched on recent episodes of racial violence, the dismantling of diversity and inclusion programs, increased antisemitism on college campuses, and book bans and history revisions to school curriculums in Florida.

Rabbi Pat Hickman of Temple Israel in Viera urged the audience to stand up for neighbors as discussions about faith and race continue to permeate the news, dinner table discussions and social media.

“We have to be witnesses for each other,” said Hickman, also a part of the Interfaith United alliance of faith leaders in Brevard.

Credenda Jones spoke to the audience about focusing on healing when confronted with the harsh realities of past racial violence — such as the May 25, 2020, homicide of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.

Jones asked audience members to raise their hands if they were angered by Floyd's death or suffered grief or numbness because of the violent imagery as Floyd pleaded with the officer before going unresponsive.

Hands shot up in the meeting room.

“These are very common responses. We are not alone and that is comforting,” Jones said, adding that dealing with those feelings and seeking healing is an important step to sorting through the lingering issues of race.

“We have to be healed if there is to be racial healing."

Audience members were broken up into groups to discuss solutions for addressing the divisions besetting the nation. Among them were grasping how to reach an understanding between groups; learning how to listen to one another; implementing acceptance of one another; improving educational standards; and helping others. There were worries, too, including dealing with political isolationism, the rising threats to voting rights, and increasingly aggressive faith movements seeking influence in politics and on elected boards across the country.

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Pastor Ken Hitte, of Discover Life Church in Melbourne and a member of the panel discussion, said that the nation must return to the ancient biblical concept of people loving neighbors as themselves, regardless of background.

“I think we have to love the hell out of each other,” Hitte told the audience.

“If God is governing us we are not going to act ugly."

The event provided a fruitful discussion on a number of topics impacting communities, said Eric Austin, a former Cocoa Police Department major who has been serving as the executive minister at Discover Life.

“I loved this,” said Austin, whose congregation had several staff members in attendance.

“We’re here tonight as a part of Pastor Hitte’s vision. We want to bridge the gap and the way to do that is to love one another. We want to be a part of the solution.”

J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. X/Twitter: @JDGallop.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Cocoa organizers call for love and healing to counter racial tensions