Charlotte clergy look to lessons of Martin Luther King Jr.

They totaled more than 100, these Charlotte clergy who marched and stood as buffers between police and protesters, trying to defuse the tension without silencing voices that needed to be heard.

They were a diverse group, some new to Charlotte, some leaders of the city’s big-steeple churches. They represented various faiths, congregations young and old, and houses of worship – black, white and Latino – of all sizes.

That was the scene over a few nights in September 2016, when nationally televised pictures of violence and tear gas in the streets of Charlotte testified to long-simmering grievances that had finally erupted.

Now, on the eve of the national holiday honoring another preacher who took to the streets to promote love and justice, some of these local clergy say they’re committed to making 2017 a time to confront systemic racism in this city once thought to be a model of racial progress.

This first Martin Luther King Day since the protests that followed the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott “has increased significance,” said the Rev. Rodney Sadler, vice chairman of the Charlotte Clergy Coalition for Justice, an interfaith and multiracial group which supplied the largest contingent of clergy in September.

“We have finally seen that Charlotte itself not only has the same kind of racial tensions ... as Baltimore and Ferguson and New York,” Sadler said, “but that we are perhaps even further behind the curve in terms of finding ways to address our racial issues.”

The biggest proposed remedy in the works is the clergy coalition’s idea for a Commission on Reconciliation and Equity (CORE). Among other things, it would examine the history of race in Charlotte, hear from people who are suffering and pull together plans to address and ultimately move beyond racial divisions, economic disparities and mistrust of the police department and other institutions.

“It’s about bringing about racial harmony and understanding,” said the Rev. Amantha Barbee, a Charlotte native who chairs the clergy coalition and pastors predominantly black Statesville Avenue Presbyterian Church. “And it will (provide) a forum for people of different walks of life to come to the table and have real honest discussion and seek to resolve together for a better tomorrow in Charlotte.”

Though Charlotte, with its gleaming skyline, has emerged as the country’s second biggest banking center, “the economic gravy train has left behind the African-American community,” said Sadler, who is also president of MeckMin, an interfaith group. He and other clergy point to a 2013 study by Harvard University and the University of California-Berkeley that scored Charlotte dead last in a social mobility survey of 50 U.S. cities. That means the poor have a harder time rising in Charlotte than in any other large city.

Then there’s the 2015 study by a UNC-Chapel Hill research team that suggested a racial disparity in traffic stops by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Though African-Americans make up less than a third of the city’s driving-age residents, the study of 1.3 million stops over 12 years found that blacks were pulled over by police more frequently, received more tickets and were the subjects of roadside searches twice as often as whites.

In the months since the protests, more white clergy in Charlotte appear to be taking a harder look at systemic racism – and at their own biases. Last week, 50 Charlotte-area Presbyterian ministers attended a two-day training program on “Dismantling Racism.” Fifty more ministers are expected to go through it in February.

“First off, (it’s about) growing ourselves, in our understanding and trying address any kind of racial bias that we have,” said the Rev. Bob Henderson, pastor of predominantly white Covenant Presbyterian. “But also setting an example for our congregations and for the city.”

Henderson’s church is also teaming with C.N. Jenkins Presbyterian, a mostly African-American congregation, and a women’s business group to sponsor a five-week community dialogue series called “Race, Culture & Opportunity.” One session will focus on Charlotte’s record – now and in the past – of racial inequality and white privilege.

Offering similar programs at other predominantly white houses of worship this month and next: Myers Park United Methodist (“Reconciliation with God and Others”) and Temple Israel (“Judaism Erasing Racism”).

As the clergy who witnessed Charlotte’s protests on the front lines work to try to keep the city focused on follow-up, they say they are looking to Dr. King as a model.

“We need Martin Luther King more than ever,” said the Rev. James Howell, pastor at Myers Park United Methodist, one of Charlotte’s largest churches. “One of the things that he did was that he kept issues before the public. He wouldn’t let them slide away.”

After the Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964, for example, King began pushing for an even heavier lift: The Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In Charlotte, some ministers said the September protests have led them this year to find inspiration less in King the preacher who gave mountaintop sermons about the dream of racial harmony and more in King the civil rights activist who asked hard questions about everything from economic injustice to a criminal justice system that targeted minorities.

This was the Dr. King who, late in his life, rallied sanitation workers in Memphis who were striking for a living wage and planned a Poor Peoples’ March on Washington that happened after his assassination.

“The later King made people extremely uncomfortable,” said the Rev. C. Rashard Alexander, the 29-year-old director of millennial ministries at Little Rock AME Zion Church, a meeting place for clergy during the protests. “He talked about economic issues and he spoke truth to power.”

Added the Rev. Jay Leach, senior minister at Charlotte Unitarian Universalist Church: “If he were to scrutinize Charlotte, King would say, ‘Where is your commitment to a living wage? Why don’t (your) political and business leaders demand it?’ And King would also say, ‘Why does Charlotte have a highly militarized police force?’ ”

If King had been on the streets last September with Charlotte’s clergy, Sadler surmised, “I think he probably would said that we in Charlotte have in essence tried to put a lid on a boiling pot and that this pot will eventually boil over.”

This story was originally published January 14, 2017 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Charlotte clergy look to lessons of Martin Luther King Jr.."