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Sankofa: Facing the Pain of Racial Injustice

CHICAGO, IL (October 17, 2002) - Thirty-nine Covenant women experienced first-hand the pain associated with racial injustice as they visited key historical sites that are part of the history of the Civil Rights movement.

The women were part of a special Sankofa journey - a racial reconciliation weekend bus tour - sponsored by Covenant Women Ministries (CWM) of the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Beginning in Chicago last Friday, the group of Anglo-American and African-American women visited civil rights historical locations in Birmingham, Alabama (16th Street Baptist Church, Civil Rights Museum), as well as Albany (Albany Civil Rights Museum) and Smithville (Freedom Center), Georgia, before arriving in Atlanta Sunday afternoon. The top photo shows a Freedom Center guide explaining some of the history of that area to tour members. To see additional photos from the trip, visit CWM Sankofa. To see a larger collection of unedited photos and other items from the trip, visit CWM Sankofa.

The group then visited the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and toured a photographic exhibit focused on lynching in America. They visited New Life Covenant Church and discussed ways in which the interracial church is melding as a community before heading back to Gary, Indiana.

On Monday, the contingent toured the Youth Family Community Renewal Learning Center in Gary, a ministry sponsored through Covenant Ministries of Benevolence and Church of Gary, Indiana, before debriefing and participating in a communion service.

CWM Executive Minister Ruth Hill participated in the journey as did co-facilitators Doreen Olson, executive minister of the Department of Christian Formation, and Debbie Blue, the department's director of adult and family ministry.

"The relationships (between group members) were started but are by no means finished," said Heidi Griepp in reflecting on the experience. Griepp is a member of the Department of Communication staff. The lower photo shows Alexandria Taylor of North Park University in Chicago and Deborah Fondell of Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis in one of many discussions that punctuated the trip.

"The Sankofa bus was appropriately intense because I had to face horrible things about how racism affects society and acknowledge that we as white people create that," Griepp said. "I as a white woman don't have to face racism every day in the way people treat me. I can get off the proverbial bus when it comes to seeing and facing racial injustice - it's an every day reality for my black sisters.

"We were in interracial partnerships, so there was a lot of self-disclosure of the harsh truth in the group of how my black sisters have been treated," Griepp continued. "And having to stand in the pain of that made it a trip where I hurt, sobbed and was confronted with the truth of what they had experienced and the immensity of what I had been blind to before."

Joan McPherson, Griepp's partner on the trip and a member of Chicago's North Park Covenant Church, saw the Sankofa experience as an excellent opportunity to bring about racial dialogue. "Because of the closeness of the environment, we had the opportunity not only to dialogue, but to reflect on what that dialogue meant from an African-American perspective and the white perspective,"McPherson said. "We had to look at the history of the African-American community, both past and present. And we looked at what that meant both to a African-American's family and every aspect of life.

"Because we are Christians, it was important to ask how you work this out in the Biblical principles and what can we do as Christians in this area, because Sunday is the most segregated area of life," McPherson continued. "It was difficult. There was a call and a challenge put out. There was suffering, there was pain, there was forgiveness and there was a challenge for both sides."

Hill described the weekend as an eye-opening experience and one that she hopes to continue through other Sankofa trips. "It was far more painful than I anticipated and yet the pain resulted in an ever deeper commitment to racial righteousness," she said. "I learned that as a white woman, understanding is not enough and sympathy is insufficient; it is only righteous anger that will empower me to make a difference."

For more information about the CWM Sankofa journey, call Covenant Women Ministries staff at 773-907-3332.

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