This past weekend members of Racial Justice Georgia, the diocesan racial justice and healing ministry (racialjusticega.org), participated in the Diocese of Alabama’s Jonathan Daniels pilgrimage. Daniels was a White Episcopal seminarian who became active in the civil rights movement in Lowndes County, Alabama. He was shot and killed on August 20, 1965 while protecting other civil rights workers. This was the 25th anniversary of the pilgrimage, and it was a moving, inspiring, and hopeful event. The Racial Justice group also visited the Equal Justice Initiative’s powerful museum and memorial in Montgomery, walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and worshipped at St Paul’s, Selma–which Daniels was instrumental in desegregating.
Also, beginning in early June, churches in two convocations–Southeast: St Athanasius, Christ Church, Good Shepherd, Pennick; Augusta: St Alban’s, St Mary’s, St Paul’s–have been participating in a Racial Justice Georgia pilot program of intentional interracial fellowship. Members of these historically/predominantly Black and historically/predominantly White churches meet every other week for meals, discussing what Becoming Beloved Community (https://www.episcopalchurch.org/beloved-community/) means in their local context. Next month, members of this pilot program will participate in the First Annual St. Anna Alexander pilgrimage.
Read the original article in From the Field, a weekly news publication by the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.