GYC 2009: unASHAMED

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

David Williams:  The Racial Divides

David Williams

The Racial Divides, Part 1

The Racial Divides, Part 2

The Racial Divides, Part 3

The Racial Divides, Part 4

The Racial Divides, Part 5

The Racial Divides, Part 6

We go back to our topic of unity and the challenge that God has given us.

I just keep emphasizing harmony and unity existing amongst us is the strongest witness that can be born.

Where I want to go to is what led to the formation of regional conferences in the first place.

I think this is where we stop talking about Adventism in 1943.

Back in 1943, I'm getting to the, I'm hearing a voice from the back.

In October 1943, Lucy Bayard, or Brother Bayard, an Adventist in Washington, D.C., took his wife Lucy to the Washington Sanitarium and Hospital in Tacoma Park, Maryland for medical treatment.

That was an Adventist facility and Adventist got sick, was taken his wife to Adventist Hospital.

Both Brother Byard and his wife were black, but of a very light complexion.

His wife was initially admitted to the Adventist Hospital.

However, when Lucy Byard's true racial identity became evident as her husband completed the admitting paperwork, he wrote down her race as colored and the clerk double checked, is she really colored?

They said, well, we're sorry, we made a mistake.

Because the Adventist Hospital did not provide medical services to colored patients.

Without examination or treatment, Lucy who had already been in a hospital room, was wheeled from a hospital room into a hallway, as the hospital staff called around to other hospitals saying, we've made a mistake, we accepted a black patient, can you accept her?

Eventually, Freedman's Hospital, operated by Howard University in Washington DC accepted Lucy Bayard And she died shortly after she was accepted from pneumonia.

I don't know that an autopsy was done, so I'm not sure what she died of.

It was the belief of the black Adventist community in Washington, D.C.

In October 1943 that Lucy Bayard contracted pneumonia while waiting in the damp, it's October so it's getting chilly, in the hallway of the hospital.

She'd been accepted in the hospital, she was just out in a hospital gown with her back exposed not properly dressed for hours while the hospital was waiting to try to assure a transfer of her from the Adventist facility to another facility.

So I'm not sure if she actually got the pneumonia in the hallway, but the Adventist community in DC believed that she got pneumonia in the hallway and this Adventist sister died.

So the black Adventist community in Washington, D.C.

Turner, president of the North American Division, went to the Ephesus Church in Washington, D.C.

At the time, it's now called the DuPont Park Church, the next Sabbath.

He chose as his text for his sermon, 1 Peter 4, 12, which says, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing has happened to you.

He had hardly sat down from preaching his Sabbath morning message when brother James O.

Montgomery is the father of Alma Blackmon, who for many years was the director of Oakwood College's choir.

He was sitting there at the front of the church.

He stepped to the congregation before the closing hymn was sung and delivered a speech to the congregation.

He said, think it not strange, commenting on the sermon that had been preached.

He said, yeah, I think it is mighty strange that there's a college Washington missionary to which I cannot send my children.

There's the Review and Herald Cafeteria right down the street at which I cannot be served.

I think it is mighty strange." So he really took the sermon, attacked the sermon publicly in front of the entire church and after the service, a group of people gathered around Brother Montgomery and in true Adventist style, guess what they did?

And this committee made up of illustrious Adventists in the DC area, they included people like Eva B.

Dykes was the first black woman in the United States to receive a PhD degree and she was a Seventh-day Adventist.

He was a noted author of the Harlem Renaissance.

It also included, you know, some prominent Adventists at the time.

So that very Saturday night, they formed an organization.

They called their organization the National Association for the Advancement of Worldwide Work Among Blacks, Colored Seventh-Day Adventists.

Alma Scott was elected as secretary of the organization.

She had served as the president of the Howard University alumni at 1 point in the past.

At 1 point, she had organized the entire alumni of Howard University overnight, by sending telegrams to Howard alumni in different places.

Following that model, we will contact Black Adventist leadership around the world overnight.

They sent telegrams to Black leadership in Jamaica, in Africa, they printed up stationery that very night and articulated a set of demands that they presented to the General Conference on Sunday morning.

They did a lot of work that Saturday night and that Sunday morning they got a commitment from Elder J.L.

McElhenney, president of the General Conference, that he would meet with them in his office the very next day, Sunday, October 17, 1943.

Like I said the black press reported this story nationally.

And the story was black Adventist lady dies because Seventh Day Adventist Hospital refuses to provide treatment.

That was the galvanizing event that led to the formation of this organization that met with the GC president and stated a number of demands.

Importantly The stated goal of this organization was not the formation of black conferences.

The organization was demanding complete integration into the church.

As I mentioned before the break, in 1943, Adventists could not attend most, black Adventists could not attend most Adventist colleges and universities in the United States.

They would not accept them based on their race.

They could not attend most camp meetings.

So the group was not demanding separate conferences.

They said, we are Tithe Paying members, we are children of God, open the doors of the church to equality to all members.

I think another important point to keep in mind is this group that was formed, made this demand to the general conference was a lay group.

It was not a group of pastors, it was a group of lay members who were concerned about this event and came up with a solution.

Like I just said, these are the 3 principal demands.

The integration of all Adventist institutions, greater black representation at all levels of administration, greater accountability for black members' financial contributions.

They were saying, we are paying TIFE, but we can't go, and the TIFE helps to support the institutions.

So I think it's important to realize what the demands were.

So it called a meeting in Chicago of all black departmental men and pastors of the leading black churches from around the country met the next spring, April 8 to 19 in 1944 in Chicago.

The agenda called for the demands and we saw the demands, these were the 3 principal demands of the group and that's what the agenda called for.

However, as the meeting wore on, the leadership of the general conference instead of following through on the demands that the group had, that organized, that was requesting, came up with the idea instead, instead of following through on these demands, why don't we give you your own black conferences, start your own conferences and then the black leaders will be in charge of their own work and they will have responsibility for their own work.

So the proposal of conferences in that meeting came not from the demands of the members but it was if you want to call it a compromise it was an alternative proposal.

When that proposal was made people like Jacob Justice who has written about this, who was in the meeting, talks about the fact that the laity opposed the idea.

They didn't like that, that was not what they came for, that was not what they were calling for, they were not calling for separate conferences, but this is what the general conference leadership proposed.

The black minister said, fine, it's fine with us.

And so the black clergy went ahead with it, and the white clergy were happy to go along with it, although the lady who had come forward with the demand had a very different set of demands and it was not what they had asked for.

And so as a result of this, April 10, 1944, the General Conference in Spring Council voted to start Black Conferences.

Lake Region Conference led the way with the first conference in the Lake Union and then the Northeastern Conference in New York was the next conference that started.

Series

David Williams: The Racial Divides

The Racial Divides, Part 4

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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