Home
Sankofans Explore Slavery's Past in Mount Bayou
MOUND BAYOU, MS (October 8, 2001) - In the 1880s, a group of ex-slaves moved to Mound Bayou to form their own community. Though located in a poor county - Bolivar County remains one of the poorest in the United States - they felt it was better to have a place of their own rather than deal with constant racial oppression in a white-dominated community.
While Mound Bayou was subject to "Jim Crow" laws that mandated racial segregation, so few whites visited that the "whites only" bathroom was an outhouse behind the railroad station.
This past weekend, a group of Covenanters - 11 from Walk of Faith Covenant Church in Mound Bayou and 21 from around country - shared a Sankofa journey, named for the West African expression meaning "looking backward to move forward." The group, including African-Americans and Anglo-Americans, reflected on slavery and segregation and used the occasion to talk about current race relationships. Accompanying photo shows participants on one of their site visits.
The group visited the sites of slave auctions, plantations and slave quarters in Mississippi. The schedule also called for a visit to Memphis, Tennessee, including the Civil Rights Museum and the Lorraine Hotel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Friday's events ended with prayer around a kettle in the woods, re-enacting a familiar scene of years ago when slaves gathered in similar fashion to keep the slave master from hearing the prayers.
The trip was organized by three conferences - Northwest, Southeast and Central - as well as the Department of Christian Formation, North Park University and Covenant Ministries of Benevolence (CMB). Other Sankofa journeys have taken place over the past three years.
Darryl Johnson, pastor of the Walk of Faith Covenant Church, helped lead the group, along with CMB's Jim Lundeen. Members of Walk of Faith Covenant hosted those from out of town in their
homes.
For many participants, the journey provided an opportunity to build new friendships across lines that often divide, such as race, age and geography. "It's good to be able to love someone who is not like me the way the world see us," said one participant, "but who is just like me as God, as Jesus sees us."
Others recognized the need to make changes in their own lives and in the lives of their church community. "We need to change if we want to follow Jesus," said another participant. "The church, His body, must do something like this Sankofa if it is to live like Jesus taught and lives." One thirteen-year-old Mound Bayou youth added, "Don't judge us by our skin color, (but) by who we really are."
During one of the bus rides, the group passed the intersection of Highways 49 and 61, known as "The Crossroads." Legend has it that the famed blues guitar player Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in that place in exchange for fame. One participant suggested that people in the United States face the same crossroads as they respond to racism in the past and in the present. "(Are we) about to make the same mistake again?" the participant asked. "Jesus, lead us in your path."
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
