A Conversation on Race

This year's presidential campaign continues to bring race to the forefront of our national consciousness. Several months there was a general call by media and political leaders to have a culture-wide "conversation on race." President Clinton made a similar call in the early 1990s, but that call went nowhere.

Leading the way, CNN, with correspondent Soledad O'Brien anchoring, is offering valuable programs on various aspects of race: Black in America.

In my estimation race, long the shame and scourge of American culture, has reached a new threshold because of Barack Obama's presidential possibilities.

Within my own congregation, I' m leading a year-long "conversation on race." On Sunday, August 10, at 10 a.m. in the UCH auditorium, I'll present, as a slide show, Jacob Lawrence's monumental (1940) 60 panel series on the "Great Migration," in which southern blacks came north to work the factories during WWI. This show will be backed by music composed by the African American composer William Grant Still.

I'm also urging all members and friends of UCH to read Frederick Douglass's classic Slave Narrative. Without a sense of the many evils of slavery, it's impossible to understand the course and outcome of racism in America. Visit my web page to learn about the program and how to download a free copy of Douglass's 1845 book, an outstanding first person account of the slave experience: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.