THE SUNDAY SERMONETTE: Musings About Prejudice.

The Sunday Sermonette September 10, 2023. My dear mother grew up in hard times. Old Man Depression roamed around D’Lo, Mississippi, like a roaring lion, devouring much of what he saw. Life on the farm was a struggle, to say the least. Then came the onslaught of World War II. Times got worse.

Those hard times didn’t stop Mother from going to college, though. In those days, college was a tremendous financial strain in the days before government giveaways. To help pay for her tuition at Clark Baptist College in Newton, she taught summer school to black children living with their sharecropping parents on large Delta plantations. She witnessed blacks and whites struggling to survive those hard, trying days. She also witnessed Jim Crow and the ravages he reeked upon black citizens. However, I never knew she wrote about this.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I found a handwritten account of her thoughts on those days. In an old binder filled with yellowing pages, she typed poetry and bits of sermons and wrote her thoughts on various subjects. With that in mind, here is something she wrote in the summer of 1944. Because of how it’s written, I’m guessing it was a speech for a biblical night class. But it proves what I already knew about Mom—she loved as Christ loved. And so should we!

“If my skin was black tonight, there would be some things that I would need from you as white people. I would need understanding, love, and service. But how many of you tonight would be willing to give unto me these things?

How do we, as young people, feel about the Negro, here, in our Southland? Are our hearts so small that we don’t have room for them in our hearts, as Christ would have? Are we so narrow-minded that we can’t look out and see their great qualities as a Colored race? The elevator girl calls out, ‘Going up, all floors, going up.’ The Negro is not only moving South to North and from farm to city, but he is “going up” educationally, economically, and culturally as well. Won’t we be short-sighted if we do not sense this movement, seek to understand it, and adjust ourselves to it? As Christians tonight, what is our answer?

As Christians, shouldn’t we be like neighbors who help each other along the highways of life? What if we had been on the Jericho Road that day long ago, and the one who had fallen among robbers had been Japanese, Mexican, Negro, or Jew? Would we have passed on the other side of the road, or would we have been the Good Samaritan? But what are we doing for the Negro in need on the Meridian Road, the Hattiesburg Road, the Jackson Road, the Memphis Road, or the Newton Road?

Let us bring it a little closer—are we proving to be good neighbors to the Negro who is the janitor of the church, who mows our yard, washes our clothes, plants our corn, and picks our cotton? Possibly, the Good Samaritan suffered the jeers and ridicule of the priest, the Levite, or his own people. Many of the pressing moral and social problems of the South are not going to be solved until more Christians will be willing, if necessary, to be criticized and called names in the application of Christ’s spirit and teachings.

There is a call ringing out for courageous souls who will wisely but persistently practice the good neighbor policy in relation to those of other races. What are we doing tonight to help our Negro race?

Are our hands so graceful that we can’t use them to soothe some Negro person who is in pain or angry? Are our feet so busy, taking us somewhere else, that we can’t stop to help someone in need? Do our tongues speak kindness or harshness?

Do we use our tongues to tell the Negro about Jesus as the missionary did? In closing, may we all pray, ‘Lord, if I have any prejudices in my heart to the black person or anyone else, take it from my heart. Make me a stepping stone before them and not a stumbling block.’”

What prejudices do you harbor in your heart?

Ponder this and go forth.