Independence in Inches: A July 4th Reflection by Nathaniel Viets-Van Lear
Independence in Inches: A July 4th Reflection by Nathaniel Viets-Van lear For the last four years, I’ve made the same walk on Fourth of July weekend. Each walk feeling as hot as any other before it. Shoes sticking to cracked...
Relearning our shared history by Linda Post Bushkofsky
I was surprised as the next person when I received the Daughters of the American Revolution History Award my sophomore year of high school. I sure wasn’t one to memorize years of battles or know which general led which brigade...
My Freedom Day as a Female, Black and Queer Pastor by The Rev. Dr. Yolanda Denson-Byers
My Freedom Day as a Female, Black and Queer Pastor To be a female, Black and gay pastor on “Freedom Day” necessitates a certain amount of introspection, for my relationship with the church has long been a queer dance...
A Pastor’s Reflection on The Feast Day of the Emanuel 9 by Rev. Kelly France
I had just started my car to drive to my internship site on June 18, 2015, when I learned from the radio about the martyrdom of the Emanuel Nine. As I drove down the freeway and the details of this...
Reflecting on and Commemorating the Emanuel Nine by Bishop Virginia S. Aebischer
June 2022 — Reflecting on and Commemorating the Emanuel Nine On the evening of June 17, 2015, a white supremacist walked into Mother Emanuel AME Church, sat down and joined a Bible study focused on Mark 4. We all...
Remembering Tulsa by Bishop Michael Girlinghouse
For a long time, no one in Tulsa’s white or black communities talked about the massacre that destroyed the Greenwood district in May 1921. Those who were there remembered. A few kept the memory alive. But most simply chose to...