By Vincent L. Hall
“You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.[a] 39 But I tell you, don’t resist[b] an evildoer. On the contrary, if any- one slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
– Matthew 5:38,39 HCSB
There isn’t much talk about it these days, even when Dr. Martin King’s name is evoked. However, there was a time in the civil rights struggle when media types prefaced Dr. King’s leadership as a non-violent resistance movement. King learned of this strategy from his mentor, Dr. Howard Thurman. Thurman, a giant in his own right, set a path of inclusion and took the road less traveled in America during Jim Crow.
After high school, Thurman attended both Morehouse College and Colgate Rochester Divinity School. By this time, the boy who couldn’t go to high school in his hometown had grown to be the valedictorian of his college classes. But he had another blow to strike against segregation.
In 1944, Thurman co-founded the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco—an interracial congregation intentionally designed to break through the barriers that separated people based on race, color, creed, or national origin. It was the first of its kind, but the model was cast a decade before.
In 1935, Thurman and his wife, Sue Bailey, agreed to lead a delegation of Negroes to Southeast Asia. Thurman met the same Mohandas Gandhi that King would later meet. Gandhi is known as the “Moses” of India. Gandhi proved that facing national hostility and oppressive powers could be achieved through non-violent direct action.
So much of Thurman’s writings reflect that teaching and are more relevant in America today than they have been since the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Bishop Sally Dyck repeated a story told by Howard Thurman. The story is on the Northern Illinois Conference webpage as part of the United Methodist Church litany of teachings.
“Thurman’s grandmother had a little plot of land next door to a very mean old white woman. This woman was mean to everybody, not just her Black neighbor. The woman had a chicken coop and one night after she had cleaned it out, she dumped a big mound of manure on Thurman’s grand- mother’s garden. She meant to destroy his grandmother’s garden of flowers and vegetables, but his grandmother got up in the morning, saw this dump of manure on her plants and began to work it into thesoil.
Weeks later, the old woman got sick, and because she was mean to everyone, no one went to visit her. But Thurman’s grandmother picked some of her flowers from her garden and took them over to her neighbor.
The woman was rather surprised to see her. She ex-claimed that these were lovely flowers. Where did she get them, knowing that she had tried to destroy her garden?
Thurman’s grandmother told her that she, the white woman, had actually helped grow them. When she dumped all the manure on her plot, she had worked it into the soil as she planted flowers and vegetables, and the result was these beautiful flowers.
His grandmother’s way of dealing with her neighbor deeply impressed young Thurman. It’s a story of forgiveness and redemption— not because anybody deserves it but because it’s the “tracks” Jesus left us.
“Forgive your enemies. Love your neighbors. Pray for those who hurt you. Work the manure into the soil of your soul.”
Our nation has been on an upward trend line of hate, discord, and revenge for the past 15 years or so. From the moment that Barack Hussein Obama was elected, a group called the Tea Party resurrected the brand of White grievance politics and nationalism that fueled America’s only Civil War.
The ground was fertile with the advent of Donald Trump. He has been effective in pit- ting Red states against Blue states, conservative versus liberal, and whites against all non-whites. His daily is to heave the feces of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and tribalism on this nation.
But remember the story that Thurman told. If you resist getting revenge and do what is right, even as evildoers and dung-throwers are at full throttle, you will win. When anyone throws manure, just work it into the land with a little forgiveness and redemption.
Love plus anything equals flowers!
A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.
