The Courage of Our Convictions

Call it what you will, but that violent insurrection against our country last week was nothing more than a mob scene gone berserk. They had been invited and incited by President Trump who tweeted to his base on December 19: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” “Wild” was an understatement. As I watched the madness, I was reminded of another mob that turned the tide in my life nearly sixty years earlier when one person’s profile in courage made all the difference in the world.

In the long hot summer of 1964, my hometown had become one of the targets of the Freedom Summer project to encourage our African Americans to register to vote. Even though they represented nearly 70% of our town, they were disenfranchised from voting through many guises of voter suppression. This effort would eventually lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. All of this is set in what’s famously known as the Old South, which had gone to war against the United States for the right to enslave other humans.

The fearsome “outside agitators” were mostly peaceful college students who were giving their summer in what they thought to be a patriotic cause for voting rights for all Americans.  Most of the protestant churches in town began to gradually prohibit these white students from coming to worship, but the Presbyterians continued to welcome them, which did not set too well with the powers that be.  On one Sunday, members of the White Citizens’ Council formed a human fence around the Presbyterian Church, and I watched as they literally beat up those students who were innocently going to church.

Meanwhile, the young Presbyterian minister who was serving in his first parish, made a crucial decision that would change my life and the lives of others through his courage to stand up for what was right rather than give in to the demands of a fearful community.  He came into the sanctuary and simply declared that he could not serve in a church that would not open its doors to anyone and everyone.  And with that he resigned.  Never mind that he was one of the brightest and best, graduating from Washington and Lee and Union Theological Seminary and was himself a native Mississippian.  Never mind that his wife was pregnant with their fourth child.  Never mind that he did not know the full implication of his action or where he might go next.  Like Atticus Finch, Dick Harbison chose to confront this confederacy of complicity and  to live by the courage of his convictions.  For me, that courage and those convictions became a North Star that has helped me navigate the journey of a lifetime.

While that incident is old, it has guided me through many dangers, toils and snares.  And while we may have come a very long way toward liberty and justice for all our citizens, there’s a strange bitterness let loose in our land that wants us to go way back there  to what truly were the dark days of our history. During my lifetime many things did change for the better. Or, so I thought, until I watched the mob of white Christian zealots wearing sweatshirts proclaiming “God, Guns, Trump” and carrying “Jesus is my savior; Trump is my president” flags that declared their crazy deities and illustrating that fools do indeed rush in where our better angels better not tread on the likes of them. 

We dare not turn a deaf ear nor a blind eye to these awful shenanigans of treason and by our silence give any form of credence to such a shameful act. America deserves our courage to stop this madness.