Without Sanctuary

MLK-Paul's Letter to American Christians 

Mondays class was a very insightful yet deeply disturbing class. We were shown photographs and postcards from a book entitled Without Sanctuary depicting gruesome lynchings from the early 1900's. These images brought up a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas especially the idea of modernity. These images or specifically these acts of violence were committed without consequence not so long ago and continued until the 1960's. I feel like times haven't changed that much despite the fact that this cannot be publicly committed any longer. The reasons for such change can only be attributed to things other than respect and equality. The united states needed to redeem their image as a world power due to acts that were severely contradicting, such as being an allied power in WWII (White supremacists fighting against white supremacists?) as well as the Cold War. Another reason for such change is religion. This country boasted their christian beliefs so heavily and so much that they misconstrued "the word of god" (a god who is supposed to be good and accepting of all) by interpreting the story The Curse of Ham from Genesis. Ham,Noah's son who is  apparently mentioned to be "black" was cursed and his descendants were condemned to forever be servants. Christian slave owners would try and Christianize their slaves by having them attend sermons in which the uneducated slaves were made to believe that they were inferior. This was flawed and sure to backfire especially when these slaves were becoming more learned. Once emancipated their was obvious fear and the only way to control the fear of the white man was to cause even greater fear to the freed black man who was seeking independence and education. Religion and its use to justify slavery and white supremacy was spoken about in a great speech by Martin Luther King Jr. entitled Paul's Letter to American Christians. I have supplied a link to the whole thing above but have decided to quote a specific part

"I understand that there are Christians among you who try to justify segregation on the basis of the Bible. They argue that the Negro is inferior by nature because of Noah's curse upon the children of Ham. Oh my friends, this is blasphemy. This is against everything that the Christian religion stands for. I must say to you as I have said to so many Christians before, that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus." Moreover, I must reiterate the words that I uttered on Mars Hill: "God that made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth."

I feel that if it weren't for the self liberation of the African Americans (and other racial minorities) we would still be dealing with lynchings today. White supremacy and oppression is still strong in this country but not as physically violent or blatant as before (Well, not blatant if you haven't been following politics and the possible Republican presidential candidates recently).

The Huffington Post (Recommendation to my fellow classmates)