Sunday, January 11, 2004
When Darryl Hunt walked out of jail a few days ago, not only did he receive a second chance to live free, but so did we.
Thank God for the power of redemption.
Is there anything more precious than being offered a second chance when you really need it?
Looking back on what happened to Hunt, it is safe to say that our community barely escaped the legacy that to this day haunts so many Southern towns.
When you think of Birmingham, Ala., you think of the four black girls who were bombed on that Sunday morning, Sept. 15, 1963, as they put on their choir robes. When you think of Selma, Ala., you think of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the terrible price 600 civil-rights marchers paid on "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, when they were beaten unmercifully by highway patrolmen as they marched for their right to vote.
Stain of injustice
When you think of the Scottsboro Boys, you think of the town in Alabama where nine black boys were sentenced to death for the rape of two white women, even though medical evidence showed that neither woman had been raped. When you think of Memphis, Tenn., you think of the Lorraine Motel, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in 1968.
Had Hunt been charged with the same murder a few months earlier, he might well have been sentenced to death and already executed by now, and Winston-Salem would have joined the long list of cities imbued with the stain of racial injustice and shame. But because of the dedication of a few people, Larry Little, John Mendez, Carlton Eversley and attorney Mark Rabil, among others, our community has received a second chance to heal a deep wound.
For the healing to begin, the best thing we can do now is be honest, and not be arrogant and dismissive about what we think we know about our system of justice.
Hunt is free, and we are too. We are free to get it right the next time. Free to acknowledge that while we all may aspire to live in a just and fair society, our reality is nowhere near that. Our system of justice is not always applied fairly - especially to black folks.
Spirit of forgiveness
Hunt's words and demeanor have shown us the road to healing. Who could have asked for a more forgiving spirit than he has presented?
He might well have presented a more vitriolic, hateful and revengeful posture, as many of us would have, but instead, Hunt has spoken with the decency and grace that so many lack even now. Yet he has come back to us, having been done wrong for 18 years, with a forgiving heart.
His example ought to be the subject for more white preachers throughout this community. This Muslim's Christ-like example ought to be the one for us to test our Christian beliefs about the "least of these." When it comes to race in our community, so often our practice of Christianity is but theoretical, historical, distant and formulaic. We talk and preach a good game about love and forgiveness, but how real is it?
If we are serious about our faith, especially white preachers and white churches, we will see Hunt for the gift that he is to all of us. He should be invited not just to black churches but to all churches as an example of what it means to be redeemed.
The people who worked to set Hunt free have given all of us a second chance. I don't know if they feel appreciated, but I for one want them to know that I am grateful for the gift of a second chance for us to be who we say we want to be.
We are redeemed - or at least we ought to be.