I am always intrigued the way persons use Scripture in public speeches. I especially appreciate it when people know scripture and can honestly make decisions about public and political issues on the basis of seeking to be faithful to God’s word.
Recently, Dr. Willie Herenton announced his candidacy for Mayor of Memphis (The Commercial Appeal August 29). He referenced Caleb, one of the spies Moses sent into Canaan to enable Moses to decide about moving forward. The spies’ majority report was “there is no way to possess the land, we are grasshoppers in comparison to the giants that are there.” Referring to that story, Dr. Herenton continued, “In the real sense, we are fighting giants that if not defeated—our city will not reach the promised land.”
Eighteen others, along with Dr. Herenton, are seeking to be elected to lead our city and it is important who that is. But, I’m reflecting on history and another mayor’s race. On October 3, 1991, Dr. Willie Herenton defeated incumbent Dick Hackett by just 142 votes to be elected the city’s first black mayor. He had already made 172-year history as the city’s first black public-school superintendent.
White incumbent, Dick Hackett had been an effective leader and was deeply loved and appreciated. The dynamic of race and the pervasive black/white tension was dramatically expressed as the vote lead flip-flopped through the night. Then came the narrow 142-vote victory.
That vote was being challenged in the public arena and the talk of a recount was setting the city on edge. Though we shared appreciation for the leadership of Mayor Hackett, some of us thought that a recount would throw the city into further panic, and possibly trigger destructive racial unrest and explosive civil upheaval.
The more I thought and prayed about it, the more I felt ministers of the city, primarily representing the white establishment, needed to speak on the issue. We needed to be pastoral and prophetic. The white community needed to hear a call to accept the verdict of the election, and to move to reconciliation and commitment for the sake of our community. I wrote an eight-paragraph letter expressing the desperate need for the city’s constituents to get together and turn our city into a community.
I wanted the message to be an open letter to the citizens, but primarily addressing the white community. I knew it would not be impactful unless it had representative leaders of the clergy community. The two I thought absolutely essential were my two closest clergy friends in the city, Adrian Rogers, Baptist pastor and the most influential conservative Christian voice in the city, and Doug Bailey, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, recognized as one of the most influential liberal Christian leaders. If I got these two friends, others ministers would readily join us and perhaps we could calm the troubled waters.
I spent two days, by phone and fax, sharing the letter with Adrian and Doug. When we had perfected the letter, we recruited a dozen of the county’s most influential clergy leaders to sign. We purchased space for the letter to go in the Sunday paper. A reporter got hold of the letter and wrote an article, which called attention to it, making it more powerful. The big message was a call for reconciliation and unity, saying, “God has been powerfully at work in recent historical events such as the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the independence movement in the Soviet Union. That same God will enable us to achieve unity in our city.”
Dr. Herenton and other leaders credited that statement with calming the raging waters, saving the city from destructive turmoil. and making his beginning work as mayor successful. It’s not easy to navigate the way, but Christian Leaders, as pastors and prophets, must speak to critical issues that become political.