Covenant Presbyterian to host human rights activist

A nationally-recognized human rights activist who was on the front lines of the civil rights movement will speak Jan.10 at Covenant Presbyterian Church.

Ruby Nell Sales joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s a teenager at Tuskegee University, and in August 1965 she and other SNCC workers joined a demonstration in Fort Deposit, Ala.

The group was arrested, jailed and suddenly released. In gunfire that ensued, a white seminary student was shot as he pulled Sales out of the line of fire.

Sales has since worked in numerous ways to further the work of racial, sexual, gender, and class reconciliation, education, and awareness. She founded and directed the national nonprofit organization Women of All Colors in the early 1990s.

Sales’ talk is free and open to the community. She will speak at 9:30 a.m. in the Covenant Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall and at 10:30 a.m. in the church’s Fellowship Hall 203, which is upstairs.

At Covenant Presbyterian, Sales will speak on “Why Spiritual Maturity Matters and What it Looks Like: The Hard Work of Hope.”

The Rev. Jessica Patchett, associate minister for Christian education at Covenant Presbyterian, said the church wants to “increase our efforts to work toward a society in which all people can enjoy dignity, opportunity and care.”

Sales, she noted, has gained her perspective through a lifetime of activism, service and scholarship.

“We are eager to hear about the role that spiritual growth and maturity has played in her capacity to stay engaged with the unrelenting realities of injustice, pain and violence,” Patchett said.

Sales’ writing and work have been published in many journals, online sites and books. Her nonprofit SpiritHouse Project, which she currently directs, uses the arts, research, education, action and spirituality to bring people together to work for justice and for spiritual maturity.

Her talk will be helpful to anyone longing for a more just and peaceful world, Patchett said.

“Listening to one another’s stories, perspectives and longing is in and of itself part of the task of creating a society in which we know, honor and respect all of our neighbors,” she said.

Covenant Presbyterian is at 1000 E. Morehead St. For more information about Sales’ SpiritHouse Project, visit www.spirithouseproject.org.

This story was originally published January 9, 2016 at 2:21 PM with the headline "Covenant Presbyterian to host human rights activist."