SUNDAY CONFESSIONS

I was raised in church: St. Matthews Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. It called itself, "the little friendly church on side of the road." My parents took me--not 'sent me'-- and my siblings to church every Sunday, as a vital part of our, and of their, socialization, growth, and spiritual development. It was a very small church. Its members were primarily drawn from black working-class migrants from the South--like us former Mississippians--who had been poorly educated due to its historic, legal and racist, Jim Crow, oppression in the pre-1950s. As my reading skills and comprehension improved, I was eventually moved into the Adult Sunday School class by the time that I was in the 6th grade. Once, there, I was shocked to discover that I could read better than many--if not all--of the adults, who were embarrassed by my corrections, my questions and youthful impetuosity. One Sunday, I was removed from that class and made a Sunday School teacher of younger children. Since I enjoyed teaching, having always taught my younger siblings something, a few of whom were my new pupils, I eagerly assumed this task. By this time, it was the early 1960s, and the Civil Rights Movement was spreading all over the land. It was on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and in St. Louis. My parents were big proponents of civil rights and made sure that we stayed abreast of developments by talking about them openly and passionately at home; in watching any programs on television where black leaders were interviewed; and by subscribing to JET and to EBONY magazines, and to the St. Louis Post Dispatch daily. All of this cultural exposure, and the times themselves, caused me to read deeply into our history and culture; reading included THEY CAME BEFORE THE MAYFLOWER by Lerone Bennett, Jr. and THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Alex Haley. One Sunday, after church, I asked our pastor if I could teach a black history course to the children of the church. Not only did he say "no," but he actually preached a sermon against it! In his sermon he said, "black is ugly. Stick your hand in a jar of axle grease. That is ugly!" Needless to say, I was totally outdone and humiliated by his reaction to my simple request. Our church, at the time, still featured pictures of white Jesus, prophets, disciples, angels, everything except the devil, who was black. I could not reconcile the church's iconography, literature, and teachings with the world-wide Black Revolution, nor with my own sense of self-dignity as a black man. So I rebelled at 15 or 16, stopped going, and did not formally rejoin any church until Palm Sunday 1993. In the meantime, I continued to seek the path that was right for me. So, I read THE BIBLE and THE QURAN, cover-to-cover and other holy books like CITY OF GOD by St. Augustine and others. When I was delivered from a very grave illness by Jesus Christ in 1992, however, while visiting in St. Louis, I promised Jesus in heart-felt supplication, that if he would give my life back to me, that I would thenceforth give it to him. Well, He did and I did, so here I am! Lord be praised!