Save this story for later.
On a recent Friday afternoon, Dwight McKissic sat at a folding table in his three-car garage, on a cul-de-sac in Arlington, Texas, discussing the role that race plays in a growing divide among American evangelicals. McKissic is sixty-four, with a trim white goatee and an imposing stature. For the past thirty-eight years, he has served as the lead pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, which he grew from a few dozen people to roughly four thousand congregants. In the process, he has become a prominent member of the Southern Baptist Convention, which, with more than fourteen million members, is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. But McKissic is also one of a growing number of pastors of color who may leave the S.B.C. next week, amid allegations that the organization won’t collectively acknowledge the realities of systemic racism. “I’m hanging on by a thread,” he told me. “Dozens of other pastors have already called me to ask w
A rally against antisemitism draws hundreds in Chicago
June 4, 2021
SKOKIE, Ill. (JTA) After a synagogue in this Chicago suburb was vandalized on May 16 in what police are calling a hate crime, local rabbis could not dwell on the damage: They had to prepare for Shavuot, the two-day Jewish holiday that began that evening.
A week later, though, the rabbis were the engine behind a 500-person rally in this heavily Jewish town against antisemitism.
Skokie perhaps is best known as the place town where, in 1977, free-speech advocates fought for neo-Nazis to be able to march, only to have the eventual rally be outnumbered by local Jews and their allies.
Wilberforce University, AME Church school, cancels debt for 2020, 2021 grads
The school said the amount of debt forgiveness for both classes totals more than $375,000 for the 166 new alumni.
2021 Wilberforce University graduates celebrate after learning that school debts had been forgiven, May 29, 2021, in Wilberforce, Ohio. Video screen grab
June 1, 2021
(RNS) There are usually lots of cheers and applause at university commencements.
But 2020 and 2021 graduates of Wilberforce University, a school affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, had an extra reason to celebrate during their ceremony on Saturday (May 29) in Wilberforce, Ohio.
Their president announced that any debts they still owed to the historically Black university had been forgiven.
Print
The activists spoke from behind their computer screens, convening from multiple corners of the world to convey a singular message on the need for continued solidarity among Black organizers and their Palestinian counterparts.
“I know that Palestinian people have felt alone for so long, and I know that because Black people have felt alone for so long,” said Janaya “Future” Khan, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist. “We have to be together in this.”
The Zoom panel, co-hosted by the Dream Defenders a Florida-based group that was launched in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death and titled “What does Palestine mean for Black America,” included well-known Black and Palestinian voices, including Angela Davis and Mohammed El-Kurd.