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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
While in south Alabama—one of the last strongholds of slavery—I was reminded that only the true gospel can bridge the racial divide.
If I had been a black slave in Alabama in 1860 I would have been worth about $3,000 on the auction block because of my gender and height. Taller men cost more.
That’s one thing I learned this week while visiting a museum in Mobile, Ala., where some of the last slaves were sold in the United States. The museum also offered a sobering recreation of the interior of a slave ship, showing how Africans were stacked like cord wood and chained to each other in the frighteningly narrow hold.
| "Being in south Alabama this week has reminded me that we still have a long way to go when it comes to racial healing. Some of these old wounds are still bleeding." |
I put the authentic iron shackles on my arms to feel what those people suffered. I lost my appetite thinking of how many slaves died from disease or lashings before they could be sold in markets in Mobile, New Orleans or Savannah, Ga.
I still can’t fathom how human beings could treat other human beings with such cruelty. And it blows my mind when I consider that in 1860 the slave population in the South numbered more than 3.9 million. The estimated value of these slaves, based on their market price, was more than $4 billion.
One isolated corner of the museum in Mobile featured some newspaper clippings from the mid-1800s. They were “runaway notices”—a type of classified advertisement commonly placed by owners looking for fugitive slaves. Here’s an example of one such notice:
$10 Reward. RAN AWAY from the subscriber, on the 2nd day of this month, a NEGRO MAN named ABRAM. Said negro is about twenty-five years old, five feet nine inches high, and weighs about one hundred and sixty pounds, is black, and speaks slowly when spoken to by a white person; wears very long hair and usually has it plaited and tied up. I will give the above reward for his delivery to me at Florence, Ala.
Jan. 19, 1859. JAS. B. GRAY.
So if I had been a black slave in Alabama, and I had run away from my chains, my owner might pay $10 to the person who captured me like an animal and returned me to my master’s farm.
History can be painful.
This is not a comfortable topic, and some Christians think we just need to “move on.” But being in south Alabama this week has reminded me that we still have a long way to go when it comes to racial healing. Some of these old wounds are still bleeding. Many churches are still politely segregated. Walls of suspicion and mistrust still divide people of faith.
This past Sunday night I spoke at a meeting in Brewton, Ala., that attracted Christians from nine area churches. I reminded them from Mark 7 that Jesus led the way for us in breaking the racial barrier. When the Pharisees questioned Jesus because His disciples did not follow their strict religious codes of hygiene, Jesus called them hypocrites and then immediately went to the region of Tyre—outside the borders of Israel—and ministered to a desperate Gentile woman who was considered unclean by Jewish leaders (see Mark 7:1-9; 24-30).
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