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NAACP focuses on riot

Convention speaker asks: Where was the church?


By Angela Mack,
Staff Writer

Published: Friday, October 12, 2007 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, October 12, 2007 at 6:00 a.m.
The N.C. NAACP wanted to answer one major question Thursday: Where was the church during the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot?

N.C. NAACP President William Barber speaks Thursday during the state convention at Union Missionary Baptist Church.
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A hard-hitting lecture given by William C. Turner, a pastor and professor in the Duke Divinity School, left hundreds in attendance with a new perspective on the matter.

The church was right in the middle of it, he said. But not in the way many might think.

"What came forth in the riot wasn't isolated or out of character," he said. "It was consistent with what was taught in churches and the larger society about race."

The riot is a key focal point during the 64th annual N.C. State NAACP Convention being held in Wilmington through Saturday. Turner's lecture was the convention's first lecture topic on the riot. A national symposium on the riot will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Hilton Wilmington Riverside.

Turner's topic, "A 21st Century Perspective on Prophetic Struggle," touched on the belief that many whites viewed blacks as inferior - a message that was once delivered in many Southern churches in the United States, he said.

He said white churches taught their congregations that "blacks were an entirely different species from whites."

"This is the stuff that good church folk were reading and preaching," Turner said sarcastically.

The 1898 race riot stemmed from a conspiracy of a white elite bent on stripping blacks of economic and political prosperity. They overthrew Wilmington's city government and forced black and white opponents of their campaign out of town. On Nov. 10, the violence plaguing the city erupted in a climax of bloodshed and death.

Turner said the biggest point he wanted to make in his lecture Thursday was that "racialized acts, gestures and speech are like fruit from a tree that has deep roots."

"It's not superficial," he said. "But they're not exposed."

Margie Ellison, a member of the Western Chatham County NAACP, said the lecture was a history lesson for her.

"Race, or the definition of race, has really been used to dehumanize African Americans," she said afterward.

Ellison said the information showed how the church was used to spread materials that can lead to something as painful and life-changing as the 1898 riot.

"That to me puts a whole new perspective on manipulation," she said.

Ellison said the good news is that now people can use that knowledge to undo injustices.

State NAACP President William Barber said the inferior label placed on blacks is in many ways connected to the racial injustices seen in today's society.

He said people must learn about the ingrained beliefs of the past to move forward in the future, which is why the NAACP has focused on the 1898 race riot. The organization has been met with some opposition because of this, he said.

"Folk don't want us in Wilmington. They want us to let it go," he said. "You can't let it go … If you don't want to address your sin from (109) years ago then there's no wonder why they don't accept our agenda today."

Turner's lecture was the first of a series of workshops held Thursday related to the faith community. The day ended with a mass community worship service.

Woody Woodard, president of the Statesville NAACP, said he's glad NAACP members spent the first day of the convention focused on faith and the church.

He said the church and the NAACP have been "married" for many years.

"That marriage is still just as important as it ever was," he said. "We need religious leaders to speak out about social injustices. They just can't preach the Sunday theology."

Angela Mack: 343-2009

angie.mack@starnewsonline.com


Comments

  1. emeraldcelt says...
    October 12, 2007 3:34:39 am

    For one I go to church to hear the word of God, not to preached at about races, discrimination, and 40 acres and a mule. That's for history class, not church.
    Live, learn and move on. Irish, chinese, japanese, slavic, jewish, indian. .. all of these races and cultures have been looked down upon as scum of the earth, lower than life but yet they moved on. Black is not the only race out there. They perservered, worked hard and fought for what they wanted. I don't use my race as a crutch to fall back upon and I am tired of others doing so. Get off your lazy rear ends and go get what you want instead of expecting everyone else to pay for it for you. And don't preach to me about race. . . . I'm the mixture at the bottom of the melting pot.

  2. jackbauer says...
    October 12, 2007 3:57:20 am

    AMEN AND AMEN...The past is gone and done with
    We can change the future if we all pull together and work in harmony and quit wallering in the self pity of things we had no control of in the past

  3. pbsgirl01 says...
    October 12, 2007 4:52:35 am

    Well, we could not have said that better. Kudos and good luck in this melting pot the next couple of years. Pray we can get the sewage out of our little melting pot down here.

  4. Indawindigoes says...
    October 12, 2007 5:11:58 am

    I saw William Barber (NAACP Pres.) the other day at a local function. He was so fat that he had to walk with a cane and his hair had six layers of greese. There was some fine looking ho's buzzing aroung though.

  5. pbsgirl01 says...
    October 12, 2007 5:13:44 am

    Dear NAACP. Thank you for your money. You can go home now. For you are too deep in the Green Swamp and all that surrounds it. Your people will get nowhere here. I know that is sad for you, (here is a tissue).
    Segregation, yada, yada. Thank you for bringing your money to Wilmington for your meeting. The higher ups here got what they needed. Run along, now. Thank you in advance.

  6. FloLake says...
    October 12, 2007 5:42:10 am

    Don Imus is on line 6 and wants to know if any of the ho.s were nappyheaded???

  7. goatothebozo says...
    October 12, 2007 5:45:43 am

    You from Georgia?

  8. Indawindigoes says...
    October 12, 2007 5:53:10 am

    Hey, watch it!

  9. goatothebozo says...
    October 12, 2007 5:56:56 am

    I wonder how many black people in Wilmington really givacrap about this memorial?Packman might but he will never stop being mad anyhow,so what's the point?

  10. The Iguana says...
    October 12, 2007 6:01:29 am

    Let me tell you what it's all about for these talking heads. The simple fact of the matter is that they absolutely have to look back. Because in the four decades since Dr. King they have done nothing but squander every single opportunity made available to them, and created specifically for them. Every single one, just thrown away. Instead of a hand up, all they want now is a hand out. And that hand out is always based on some injustice that was several generations removed from where they are today. Oh don't look forward, don't look for ways to improve going ahead, that's too hard. Let's harp a little more on the past. Let's bring that up again. It'll draw the focus away from the rampant crime, chronic unemployment, and run-away out of wedlock births that the current generation is so content with. There's no future, and obviously no one cares to work at changing that, so again, let's dredge up the distant past and lay the blame for all of our current problems there. Pathetic.

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