When I finished the
passage, I let the Bible fall to my side with my finger
firmly planted in Luke, chapter 6, and said quietly, "Blessed
are the poor." All of a sudden, a small man sitting just
in front of me, not eight feet away, called out, "Yes,
brother, preach to me!"
I
jumped. This was immediately followed by another, who said, "Amen, brother," and
soon a chorus of "Amen," "Yes, Lord," and "Preach
to me" filled the room, before I had said anything.
Did I blush? Did
I show my astonishment? Was my terror visible to everyone? This is not how
preachers were greeted in the Episcopal churches I attended
in New
York.
-- from No Turning Back
At
a time when "separate
but equal" schools were
under orders to integrate, Freedom
Riders and civil rights
workers could be beaten or killed and all of American society
was learning to deal with a revolution in race relations, a
24-year old, idealistic and slightly naïve Episcopal seminarian
from New York volunteered to spend the summer serving at the
Ebenezer
Baptist Church in Atlanta. Gurdon Brewster was studying
at Union Theological Seminary and had been working in minority
communities in New York. He was tossed into the heart of the
black civil
rights struggle in the South at the church led
by co-pastors Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. and his son Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Gurdon
Brewster would go on to spend
35 years as Episcopal
chaplain at Cornell as well as earning
an international reputation as a sculptor.
His summer at Ebenezer had a transforming influence on him.
An emotional meeting with some
Ithaca schoolchildren observing the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday
made Brewster think back on that summer of '61 and his encounters with both
love and hate, commitment and evasion, and the deep differences in religious
belief and practice within Christianity. He has now shared that experience
in his book, "No
Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King".
Brewster clearly
experienced cultural shock immersed in the energy and emotion of an African-American
church.
There was also some consternation among church
members. No congregant wanted to board him for the summer and he settled in
with "Daddy King" and his family. But everyone seemed willing to
give the novice preacher a chance, and he began to draw close to the slow hymn
singing, emotion and call-and-response that were remnants of African culture
and a history of slavery. Every jolt seemed to carry an opportunity for spiritual
and intellectual growth, and Brewster benefited from those moments.
But his
learning curve was also twisted by contact with mainstream white clergy who
clearly didn't want to get involved when Brewster proposed a joint meeting
of black and white church youth groups. One minister even suggested that such
a gathering might be possible as long as police were present. (An interracial
youth meeting did eventually happen that summer).
During his
time in Atlanta, Gurdon Brewster had the benefit of the friendship and counsel
of Martin Luther King, Sr.
and Jr. Daddy King was a sharecropper's
son who struggled to get an education and was an activist for the black community
in Atlanta starting in the 1930s. His son had recently led the successful bus
boycott in Montgomery, Ala. and was emerging as a voice of conscience for
the nation. Dr. King's teaching of non-violence and love as a response to hate
and oppression was difficult for Brewster to apply as he discovered segregated
facilities, racial epithets and threats of violence, including an incident
where three hostile white men nearly attacked him in a church parking lot.
When he told of his fear and doubt about non-violence at that moment, Dr. King's
response was, "You've got to reach down deeper until your suffering and
love draw you closer to God." Brewster wrestled with the difficult directive
to love one's enemies.
Gurdon Brewster
remained close to the King family and the congregants at Ebenezer. In 1979 he
invited Daddy King to preach at Cornell,
and the elderly minister
spoke of the many losses that he had suffered. "God has taken much away
from me, but God has given to me even more. I am a grateful man." Then
he added, "Brewster is like a son to me." It was a moment of both
deep emotion and amazement for Gurdon Brewster, who writes in "No Turning
Back" that till that moment he had not fully appreciated the depth and
richness of their relationship.
Gurdon Brewster will
join Bill Jaker on OFF THE PAGE to recall the summer of 1961 and the people
and ideas that changed him and the nation. To join in the
conversation call during the 1:00 PM live broadcast to 1-888/359-9754 or post
a question via e-mail to WSKG.Radio@Gmail.com.
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