With around 200 people gathered on the Miller Park lawn Tuesday night, a group of more than a dozen local pastors called on white Americans to recognize their silence and complicity in racism throughout the nation’s history.
The black and white clergy, representing denominations across the Chattanooga region, asked people to unite in understanding and to push against ongoing racial oppression in religion, education, economics and politics.
For white Americans, talking about race and addressing racism is a nuisance to be put aside for another time, said Troy Brand, senior pastor of Orchard Park Seventh-day Adventist Church. For black Americans, it is a constant and depressing weight, he said.
“Tonight, what we’ve gathered here to do is to put an end to the frustration and the irritation. The frustration for the one and irritation for the other. We have come here tonight to have a truth and reconciliation ceremony.”
White pastors spoke of the history of racism in America, including historical examples of racism and current events of police brutality. Behind them were pictures of lynchings, slave bills and the open caskets of Emmett Till, Sandra Bland and George Floyd.