Vincent Harding asks what we need to do now

Vincent Harding asks what we need to do now to prepare for a multiracial democracy

Dr. Vincent Harding asked as many questions as he answered at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, January 16 and 17.

Harding reflected on the question of where King was heading in his ministry, but added questions of his own during his first AMBS presentation on Monday. At the end of the Selma to Montgomery walk for voting rights, Harding noted that King did not say “We have finally gotten to victory, so let’s sit down.”

Instead, Harding pointed out, “In the middle of that long, hard, victorious march, he comes to a point where he says, ‘We are on the move now.’ Could he have thought we would still be on the move in 2012? Do you need to move that long to make American what it ought to be? How much moving is necessary to make America a truly multiracial democracy for all its people?”

Harding, who served for a time as one of the pastors of Woodlawn Mennonite Church in Chicago, told about King going to Chicago and claiming his place with people who were suffering, sacrificing and dying for each other. He hinted that if we are honest we might say we are scared to follow King on that journey. But then Harding asked, “Why have a God who we ask to take care of us and guide us if all we want are places that don’t scare us. You don’t need the Great Deliverer if you’re not going to any dangerous places. Going to stand with any deserted, pushed-aside people is a dangerous vocation. It is the only truly Jesus-connected vocation. That’s what Martin believed.”

In the discussion time that followed, Harding asked people to state their names, where they grew up, their “momma’s momma’s” names,” and where they grew up. Knowing that information already helps us know something about each other, he insisted.

Bill Swartzendruber of Middlebury, Ind., asked what he could do as a white male to live out a Christian calling to color-awareness. Harding initially pointed out that Swartzendruber is not “white” (like a piece of paper). Then he answered, “We must recognize that our healing as a nation depends on each other, on being as honest with each other as we can be, on breaking out of black circles and white circles and Asian circles and creating new circles. We have all been wounded in ways that we need each other for healing.”

On Tuesday, Harding spoke again in a chapel service and lunch-time forum. Also featured in the chapel service was the choir from St. James A.M.E. Church in Elkhart, directed by Ray Barham.

Several times, Harding repeated King’s declaration that this nation “must be born again.” In his focus on what kind of education is needed, he again asked questions: “How do you develop—in church, in school, in seminary, in the community—an educational process that will prepare people to move into the task of creating this born-again America, this multi-racial, beautiful, democratic society. How do you prepare for that?”

These questions carried over into the final session in which members of the seminary community, choir members and other guests shared their own experiences of being educated for a multiracial community.

Harding is author of several books, including Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement, and Martin Luther King: An Inconvenient Hero. He became the first director of the King Memorial Center in Atlanta, Ga., and founded the Institute of the Black World, an organization committed to creating and defining the field of Black Studies. He has been a member of the faculty at Spelman College in Atlanta and Iliff seminary in Denver, Colo.

Harding’s visit to AMBS was in cooperation with other area organizations: Center for Peacemaking and Nonviolence, Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame, College Mennonite Church, Civil Rights Heritage Center, Goshen College, Indiana University South Bend, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Mennonite Church USA, Mennonite Mission Network and University of Notre Dame.

Mary E. Klassen / January 2012