Atlanta Race Riots of 1906

A race riot occurred in Atlanta during the night and early morning of September 22-23, 1906, during which a mob of ten thousand white people assaulted every African American they could find. The Atlanta Constitution reported that "in some portions of the streets, the sidewalks ran red with the blood of dead and dying negroes." Du Bois went to Atlanta as soon as he heard about the riot and wrote "A Litany of Atlanta" on his way to the city. It was published on Oct. 11, 1906, in both The Voice of the Negro and The Independent. [JZ]

A Litany of Atlanta
By W. E. Burghardt Du Bois
Done at Atlanta, in the Day of Death, 1906(1)

O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful days --
Hear us, good Lord!
Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery in Thy sanctuary. With uplifted hands we front Thy heaven, O God, crying:
We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!
We are not better than our fellows, Lord, we are but weak and human men. When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed: curse them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home.
Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!
And yet whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these devils? Who nursed them in crime and fed them on injustice? Who ravished and debauched their mothers and their grandmothers? Who bought and sold their crime, and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity?
Thou knowest, good God!
Is this Thy justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence, and the innocent crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty?
Justice, O judge of men!
Wherefore do we pray? Is not the God of the fathers dead? Have not seers seen in Heaven's halls Thine hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the black and rolling smoke of sin; where all along bow bitter forms of endless dead?
Awake, Thou that sleepest!
Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, thru blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, of women strong and free-far from the cozenage, black hypocrisy and chaste prostitution of this shameful speck of dust!
Turn again, O Lord, leave us not to perish in our sin!
From lust of body and lust of blood
Great God, deliver us!
From lust of power and lust of gold,
Great God, deliver us!
From the leagued lying of despot and of brute,
Great God, deliver us!
A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack and cry of death and fury filled
the air and trembled underneath the stars when church spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate the greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance!
Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!
In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears and held our leaping hands, but they -did they not wag their heads and leer and cry with bloody jaws: Cease from Crime! The word was mockery, for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one.
Turn again our captivity, O Lord!
Behold this maimed and broken thing; dear God, it was an humble black man who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They told him: Work and Rise. He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but some one told how some one said another did -- one whom he had never seen nor known. Yet for that man's crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife naked to shame, his children, to poverty and evil.
Hear us, O Heavenly Father!
Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, O God? How long shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound in our hearts for vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed brutes who do such deeds high on Thine altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn it in hell forever and forever!
Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!
Bewildered we are, and passion-tost, mad with the madness of a mobbed and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy Throne, we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the Plan; give us the Sign!
Keep not thou silence, O God!
Sit no longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb suffering. Surely Thou too art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, heartless thing?
Ah! Christ of all the Pities!
Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words. Thou art still the God of our black fathers, and in Thy soul's soul sit some soft darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night.
But whisper -- speak -- call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path.
Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and without, the liar. Whither? To death?
Amen! Welcome dark sleep!
Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet shudder lest we must, and it is red, Ah! God! It is a red and awful shape.
Selah!
In yonder East trembles a star.
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord!
Thy will, O Lord, be done!
Kyrie Eleison!
Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words.
We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!
We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little children.
We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!
Our voices sink in silence and in night.
Hear us, good Lord!
In night, O God of a godless land!
Amen!
In silence, O Silent God.
Selah!

A Response to Marty's Blog on U2

hey Marty:
I went to see Donald Miller, Sara Groves and some other band that used to be cool...ummm...forgot their name...ummm...uhhh...Jars something Clay or whatever...that same night that you went to see U2. When we got there Donnie as I call him was reading from one of his books (and that was all he did that night, no speaking) and it was actually pretty good, then came Sara and she rocked actually, and then came the Jars and they surprised me some and I actually enjoyed it, although I tried my best to talk Kell and Lesley into going to look for this local fudge shop during their set...to no avail...But I have to say that at this "Christian" concert, I never seemed to get to this same moment of worship that you spoke about in the context of the drifting weed (I know the weed had nothing to do with the worship experience). Point being...I am left wondering if you can program worship or not? And perhaps if I had been less focused on the fudge as you were less focused on the weed (hopefully) thenI would have been more focused on God...of course, then I could do the same thing in Church on Sundays no matter how traditional the meeting...and of course that's not what your blog is saying at all...its saying U2 is AWESOME and something about that brought you to the throne of God...so maybe we need AWESOME worship leaders like you and Phil just to REALLY ROCK OUT so the rest of us postmodern freaks can really get into the presence of GOD in our very unique personal way.

Baptism

I have been thinking about a couple of reasons I have heard we don't do baptism. I have some questions:

I heard:

Our uniform is our baptism. Baptism is just a sign of our conversion. This is what our uniform does for us.

My question:

If we are to pick a sign should we not pick the one that best represents the action that has taken place? In that case I would pick water baptism over wearing the uniform because it represents dying with Christ (going down into the water) and rising again in the power of the Holy Spirit (coming up out of the water). When it is done, it is done. You can't deny that you have been baptised.

Wearing the uniform on the other hand can be put on and taken off (unfortunately this is the model of salvation that we struggle with...how many times do we say, "how do we keep our youth saved between youth councils?")

I hear:

Baptism is not essential to salvation therefore we shouldn't do it.

My question:

Should we only do the bare essentials? Should we not live in the abundant life? Tithing is not essential to salvation. Should we not do that? Wearing a wedding ring is only a sign of my marriage. Does it downgrade the quality of my marriage to wear that sign? Should I take off the ring?

Guard Against Greed

This is a devotional written by Captain Roni Robbins for the Southern Territory's Easter to Easter Campaign. Sometimes I see new program ideas motivated only by being able to secure more funding. When I hear someone presenting an idea in the back of my mind I am thinking and what will be the price tag? How many ideas do you hear where it cost no money? These are the thoughts that have come to me after reading the devotional below...

Acts 16:19-24a

Money and greed caused an outcry of opposition against the gospel. The owners of the enslaved girl had lost their top moneymaker.She had been delivered by the power of Christ. As a result,her owners were frustrated, angry, and full of vengeance. Theyapprehended Paul and Silas and violently dragged them before thecity magistrates.Money and greed also caused corruption of the publicofficials. They gave in to the influential owners and to the public. Truejustice was by-passed. Paul and Silas were not allowed to answerfor themselves; in fact, they were not even allowed to speak. If thecourt had been interested in true justice, the magistrates would havediscovered that the two men were Roman citizens much sooner thanthey did. They would have also found out that the two men had onlyhelped a poor enslaved girl.However, the officials and rulers allowed themselves to beinfluenced and guided by their own selfishness and self-seekingpurposes. Tempted by money and greed and the promptings ofinfluential people, they gave in.As we ‘serve helpfully,’ we need to clearly understand thatboth personally and organizationally, we are not exempt from thesesame temptations of money and greed. As Frederick Booth-Tuckersaid, “Money is the rock on which many a good religiousorganization has made spiritual shipwreck.” He went on toadmonish, “Let us fling the devil’s golden bribes back in his face!”This is sound advice. salvationists, we must guard againstany form of greed or covetousness. Let us covenant that we will notforfeit our soul for the sake of money and greed (Mark 8:36). Wecannot afford to allow salvationism to be spiritually shipwrecked bycrags of covetousness.

Convicted Gang Member's Journal

For any of you who are praying for our situation I wanted to give you a glimpse of a journal from a convicted gang member...

In the streets its eye for an eye. your homie is your eyes and ears. People locked down scream free me. Gangster die a violent death wit closed caskets to horrible to view to the public eye. No man can be trusted. But you remain loyal to your thugs, hoping to rise higher than those who hate and are jealous and despise you.

apathy

I always journal when I write a sermon. Tonight I will be speaking at the training school for their teen praise meeting. I am using Jeremiah 29:11 as the scripture. But the topic is apathy. Do our teens have a vision for their lives? I wonder if the reason that many of them are apathetic towards things of the spirit is because they don't have a vision for their life that matches the calling of Jesus Christ.

I know so many of us don't figure out what we are going to do until we are finished with college. But perhaps that is a problem. Our relationship with Jesus is not just a fifteen minute time period that we spend each day reading a devotional. Our relationship with Jesus integrates every aspect of our lives. What is it that we dream about during the day while we are at school or work? What do we wish we were doing? Who is it that we wish we could be?

John Calvin (I know I immediately turned some folks off by mentioning his name, but this quote has nothing to do with eternal security or predestination) believed that it was important to have a set time and place to go to church. He thought that institutionalizing the services helped remind humans to worship God. He thought that humans were likely to be lazy with out a set structure to encourage them to worship. Isn't it the cry of our day to move away from institution towards a more casual worship? I know I am a voice for this type of movement. And I think we will have to make this move if we are going to be relevant!

But...

... if it is causing apathy then perhaps we need to adjust our strategies slightly to call for accountability among our members. Otherwise, our move to embrace the culture will not produce disciples.

Color of Skin - Content of Character

When my next door neighbor first moved in several months ago, someone called the dog pound on his dogs. He immediately assumed that it was me. I asked him why? He said it was because I was new to the neighborhood and no one else in the neighborhood would have done that. I wondered inside if it had to do with being one of the only "white" folks in the neighborhood. Something felt wrong about it.

Then I realized what discrimination was like. The way many people African American, Jew or Muslim are discriminated against by the European Americans. Sometimes in the depths of our hearts its the color of their skin that influences our perceptions of the content of their character. Perhaps it was good for once to feel what that is like. To be judged for something that I didn't do simply because of some external factor (either being new in the neighborhood or perhaps the color of my skin).

Maybe the dream still waits to be realized!

Fear

Last night I was reading some notes for a class I am taking. The subject was fear and leadership. The priniciple was that leaders must deal with their fear or they will not be able to lead without abusing their power.

I went to bed. At 12:15 I heard noises next door. Someone was being arrested, again. At 2:15 am I woke up and my security lights were on. I heard a knock at my back door. Kelly grabbed the phone and held it in case we needed to call the police. I went to the back door. The person had parked their car within six inches of my car. It blocked the drive way from an escape of either car. I went to the back door and asked who it was...no answer. I went to Kelly and told her to make the call.

The person went to the front door. I didn't recognize him. The police showed up. The person didn't have a good story for why he was there. The police arrested him. His car wouldn't start...they towed it away. Kell and I spent the rest of the night at the in-laws house.

Am I afraid? Yes.

The Loss of a Friend

What mixed feelings urban ministry can bring! Yesterday there was a major raid in our neighborhood. The swat team came in unmarked police cars and took out several guys from our neighborhood. For some months now we have been struggling with an increase in foot traffic around our house. We were afraid because many people who were desperate and could be potentially dangerous were walking past our house on a constant basis. We made friends with some of the guys that were involved in this. One guy in particular I have had many deep discussions with. Although his life is not lined up with God's purposes at present God worked through him to minister to me on several occassions. Yesterday the police had him lying face down to the ground with handcuffs on his wrists. The feeling is a wierd mixture of relief that some of the safety issues for our neighborhood will improve and sorrow for a friend who is now going through some very real and difficult transitions. Don't get me wrong he deserves what is happening...but we all deserve some sort of punishment don't we? But Christ's love reaches even beyond our evil to minister to our hearts!