The Way it Was: Talking Race and Faith with an Eye Witness

[interview photos by Heather McDonald]

Forgive me, as this entry will be a bit longer than usual.  Also forgive me, because there hasn't been a "usual" to measure it against!  I see my last post was back in July--alas, the odds and ends of pastoral life take up more time than you'd think

However, this next little bit is one I've been wanting to write for a long time.  There are a few characters here I have to introduce you to if you're not familiar with our church: 

Pastor Abner Washington (AW)--Pastor Abner, who will turn 92 this Christmas, is the patriarch of our Indy church.  He has been in ministry for decades and tried to retire once twenty years ago, but we didn't let him.  In his life, he has used separate drinking fountains and streetcars, attended the Tuskegee Institute, and faced racism within and without the church.  His breadth of experience and joy of spirit made it a no-brainer that I would interview him for my blog.  He graciously agreed; and I bought him some soup.

Worldwide Church of God (WCG)--My denomination, Grace Communion International, used to be called WCG.  This was a hetero-orthodox Christian off-shoot that followed the teachings of Herbert Armstrong, who is also mentioned here in several places.  Along with pervasive legalism, their practices included not celebrating Christmas and Easter (although they believed in Christ) and sometimes tithing 30% of their income.  Ambassador College and the Imperial Schools were their educational institutions.  They were also basically politically separatist, a theme which shows up here as well.  In the mid-90's, WCG was healed of these non-biblical practices and joined mainstream Christianity--an exciting, tumultuous time we usually call "the changes."  Abner's life has been deeply shaped by his journey with WCG, which became Grace Communion International in 1999, so to understand him you have to understand them. 

Me (JM)--The new kid on the block, a transplant to Grace Communion International.  An associate pastor with two kids and one on the way.  From Tide-with-Bleach white suburbs of northern Virginia for my formative years, and everywhere else in America since then. 

That said....I will let the interview speak for itself...

JM: Have you ever been interviewed about your life and experiences before?

AW: Well…not really.

JM: You’ve been in a lot of writing though before, as much writing as the church used to do.  You were in the Plain Truth and stuff weren’t you?

AW: No…I never wrote anything for the Plain Truth.  I kept all of my writing to myself {LAUGHS}

JM: You put it in sermons though!

AW: Yes, I did a lot of that…a lot of that. 

JM: Any idea how many sermons you preached?

AW: Oh man…you know I really don’t know?  I’ve given a few of them.

JM: So…when were you born?

AW: December 27, 1923.

JM: Christmas baby?

AW: Christmas baby.  It’s what I used to tell my momma all the time—I was a gift for her Christmas.

JM: Were you born at home?

AW: Yes.

JM: Everybody was then, weren’t they?

AW: Yes. 

JM: Growing up where you did—did they have a black hospital and a white hospital?

AW: No…they were segregated though.

JM: A black section and a white section. And black schools and white schools right?

AW: Yes. 

JM: Did you feel that separation or did it not really occur to you?

AW: Didn’t occur. 

JM: Just the way life was.

AW: Yes, just the way life was. 

JM: Were you allowed to ride elevators and stuff like that with white people—you know I get all this from movies, man [we both laugh]. You have to be patient with me. 

AW: {LAUGHS} It’s okay. I understand.

JM: It was different there though, right?  Texas had a lot of racism.

AW: Oh yes.

JM: Did you have a black seat section in church?

AW: It was a separate church.  They used to talk about racism and say Sunday morning was one of the worst times.

JM: Most segregated time of the week. Still true isn’t it?  Except at our church {LAUGHS}

AW: Pretty much.

JM: Growing up in Virginia.  That was definitely true.  We had the black churches and the white churches.  And if you had a church that was “racially integrated” that just meant you had a couple white people who worshipped at the black church {LAUGHS}. I lived in a town that was probably twenty percent black, and had one black guy in our church, and he was from out in the country.  So he was the only black guy in his neighborhood too.  It was sad.  We had four hundred people, and if we were anything like the rest of the city, about a hundred of them should have been black.  We were just the way we were, and the black church that was a block away was the opposite.  One white guy.  And we all got along just fine. 

AW: Segregation was the way they kept it.  So you did what your community did.  Segregation always was the way. 

JM: When I was in college.  Some of the less sensitive students would say, “Look at this, it’s the college cafeteria!” Then they’d put out a square of salt on the table with a line of pepper going down one side.  And these were the black kids from Miami and Detroit—and they all sat together.  Nobody wanted it that way, it’s just the way it happened.  I hope it’s different there now, but that was southern Virginia twenty years ago.

AW: Well that’s until somebody breaks the loop, and they’re not insulted.  This is one of the main reasons that they don’t automatically integrate.  Even now in many places, where there is no [legal] segregation, you find blacks on one half and whites on the other. 



JM: Do you remember your first awareness of segregation—your first experience of, I shouldn’t be in this restaurant seat or some place?

AW: Yes…I don’t know about first awareness, but by being number five in a family of eight, my sisters and brothers had already experienced that {LAUGHS} .They’d already done most of that.  It was made known to you—you had signs to let you know.  Wherever you went you only saw you or those like you {LAUGHS}.

JM: And when the people around you started turning white then you turned around!

AW: Yes. {LAUGHS}

JM: Whoa…I can’t imagine.  In Virginia in the south, you had to be at least a little bit aware that you were walking into a black neighborhood, as a white guy.  You had to respect the fact.

AW: No, that part was true.  You had no business going into a white neighborhood.  What business did you have?

JM: You had all the stuff you needed in your own neighborhood right?  Grocery store, laundromat, and all that.  When did you come into WCG?

AW: 1958. 

JM: So you were about 30, and converted at that point. 

AW: It was interesting.  I had just gotten tired of people calling themselves Christians and acting the way that they were acting.  So I just decided I’m not going to go to church anymore.  I’m just going get my bible and me and God are just going to do whatever. 

JM: On your own.

AW: Then I started listening to the radio. And I listened to preaching sermons all day long.  Then I heard Mr. Armstrong.  He was talking about Christmas—how wrong it was a so forth. I said, “This man is crazy.” But I heard what he said concerning God and it was different than what I had heard before.  So I listened.  Then he talked about Easter, and I wasn’t so sure about Easter {LAUGHS}. So I said, ‘Well I’m going to listen to this guy and see what he’s talking about.’

JM: Whoa.  And then pretty soon there you were shaking his hand right?

AW: Pretty soon I was.

JM: But you weren’t working as a pastor before right?

AW: No. 

JM: You were an electrician right.

AW: Yes.  I went to school for that, went to Tuskegee. 

JM: Tuskegee Institute.  And that was down in Alabama? 

AW: But I didn’t get a chance to do very much because Uncle Sam called me.  So I had to go into the Navy—well I chose the Navy because I didn’t want to be clumping around in trenches—people shooting at each other.  People would say, “You can’t swallow all that water!” And I’d say, yes, but at least when I swallow that water that will be it—and that’s it! {LAUGHS}

JM: What years were you in the Navy?

AW: 1941-1943.

JM: Where’d you go? 

AW: Didn’t go overseas.  Spent all my time in New York, in Virginia, and California. 

JM: But you didn’t go into the fighting areas.

AW: You know, really, I think my wife is tired of hearing me say this, but I should have been a chip in the road somewhere.  God’s been so good to me {LAUGHS}.  Not deserving, but he’s been so good to me, all my life.  And I just began to take the time then in noticing it.  But anyway, WCG sent guys out see me because during that time you had to be Jesus Christ before you came to church! {LAUGHS}

JM: You had to be well before you went to the hospital?

AW: Yes {LAUGHS}

JM: Man, different times.  So in the Navy you bounced around the country and did exercises and learned stuff.

AW: I was an electrician’s mate.  I fixed up the wiring.  Not the big big ships, but the landing crafts and the smaller boats. 

JM: You didn’t get stuck out there on the boat for two years. I can’t imagine what that’s like.  So when you were at Tuskegee, did you know the famous airmen there?

AW: I was there when they started. 

JM: When they started the program?

AW: Man, was I a proud dude.  Yes sir.  I used to watch those guys and they would come in there like [holds his shoulders at attention like a soldier]. They were good.

[Tuskegee Airmen, www.history.com]

JM: And all the ladies’ heads were turning.  Of course there probably weren’t any ladies there to speak of at the time.

[shakes his head]

So in the Navy, being an electrician’s mate and then you got discharged after a few years?

AW: Yes.  A few years.

JM: Were you married at the time?

AW: No.

JM: Were you running around being crazy, being a young person?

AW: Yes! {LAUGHS}

JM: I’ve heard you reflect on that before {LAUGHS} You met Mr. Armstrong, but you were in the church for a while before that.

AW: Oh yes.

JM: You got the call to ministry after you joined?

AW: But when I went into the church, it was still segregated.  We had a man called Mr. Jackson—he was the first black minister in WCG.  I owe that man a lot.  I used to see stuff going on in the church and I’d go in his office, fit to be tied, and he’d listen.  Then he’d sit you down and he’d tell you that, ‘You think God doesn’t see what you see?’ What are you going to say?  He had a way of doing that kind of stuff {LAUGHS}.  He’d say, ‘you win your battles on your knees’—that’s where you have to go. 

JM: Was that in Texas or?

AW: California.

JM: So right in the heart of things.

AW: Yes.  It’s interesting how we got together because I was having a problem with the Sabbath, and I had been writing them for a long time.  What am I supposed to do?  I’ve got to feed my family. If I do what they tell me to do I’m going to be fired, won’t have a job.  And they too told me, “Is God who you think is?  Is He is the most powerful?  Are you serving him or not?  If you’re serving him, he’s going to take care of you.  Try it, and see.” So I did, and I saw {LAUGHS}

JM: Same with tithing right. 

AW: Yes.  As a matter of fact I found out I had to tithe—second and third tithe.  {LAUGHS} I know God is great and all that, but how great is He?  It’s interesting.  And the reason I say I ought to be a little pebble on the floor with people walking on me is because God had a way of showing me all of my gripes and groans and whatever I had.  He had a way of showing it me, ‘I got it. Always.’ Mr. Jackson would say, ‘Abner, you’re working for God, don’t ever forget that.  And if He’s the person He says He is in that book you read, then He’s it. He owns everything, he’s the most powerful thing that there is.  Smartest dude you’re ever going to meet. Don’t you worry about it.’ Yes, but man!  That was thirty percent of my money.  But just try it, talk to God about it and try it.  Never had a bad financial situation. When I say bad, I just mean that things just fall in on you and you don’t know what to do.  I made all of the stupid mistakes in my life financially, but He just showed me that things would just work out.

JM: And it would come together. 

AW: Things didn’t break.  Didn’t have to have the man come in a fix this or that. 

JM: So you got in in ‘58. When did you receive the call to ministry?

AW: I was made a deacon in New York.  Then to me it was just out of the blue.  Mr. Jackson asked me if I wanted to go to Ambassador College.  That was like going to heaven.  Beautiful school, beautiful campus. But in the beginning, blacks couldn’t go there.  Then they began to allow black married students to come in—so blacks wouldn’t be dating whites.  The whole country was so segregated at the time—that’s just how it was.  Then there, they ordained me as an elder.  Then I went to [Ambassador] for a year and I went out into the field in Philadelphia. 

JM: The way I heard about those days was that you graduated on Friday, got married on Saturday, ordained on Sunday, and then got your Chrysler on Monday and went to work. 

AW: In some ways that was correct. 

JM: You were already married by then right?

AW: Yes. 

JM: You were in Philadelphia.  Was that a black WCG church?

AW: No. The senior pastor was a young Caucasian guy. I sure hated to see him go off with a splinter group, because he was pretty good.  Anyway, I stayed, then I was sent back to New York.  Then Mr. Jackson was doing a lot of traveling in Africa. So he asked me one day, ‘Do you want to go to Africa?’

JM: And the rest is history.

AW: Packed up everything we had.  My wife was with me—it was five years before she came into the church.  She was a member by the time we went to Africa.  She was always encouraging me, always behind me doing God’s work.  And that was the reason God and I had such a big falling out when He took her {LAUGHS}.

JM: What year was that?

AW: 1982. 

JM: You married Sharon in what year?

AW: 84.  My wife died in 82, I married Sharon in 84. 

JM: You said you used to ride Armstrong’s bus and when you got to the Mason Dixon line he made all the blacks get in the back?

AW: I never rode the bus.  But I heard the stories.  When I joined the church, people thought black people were crazy for joining.  Why do you want to give that white dude all that money?  That’s all he wants is the money. 

JM: And it wasn’t a racially friendly church right.

AW: It depended on where you were. In the beginning there was racism in the church.  And when the young blacks began to go to Ambassador College and the Imperial Schools, they weren’t treated properly.  So, they had to work it.  And in some instances they didn’t work it like it should’ve been worked.

 

JM: Interracial dating or marriage or anything wouldn’t even been near the radar.

AW: No.  [Not allowing interracial marriage] was one thing I never agreed with, never preached it, never taught it.  Because I didn’t see it in scripture.  If you want me to do it, you show it to me in scripture.  There wasn’t separation in the bible. 

God said don’t you go and marry them because if you do they’re going to take you away from me.  So he told even Solomon that and it was true.  Because you’re going to get so involved with them that they’re going to take your mind off of [God].  And that’s what I saw in scripture.  Mr. Jackson made that very plain to me, he said if you see it you can rest assured that God sees it. And in His time, in His place—He’s going to correct all that stuff you see.  But you have to wait, you have to do what he tells you to do in this situation.  Don’t try to tell Me how to run my business {LAUGHS}

JM: You saw some racially insensitive things in the church, I bet.

AW: Oh yes.  When Martin Luther King was making his move, there were a lot of people there calling him some of the same names that other people called him. 

JM: You heard that in the church?

AW: Yes.  But not all—not everybody said it.

JM: If I ever even got close saying a word like that when I was in school in the 90s. I’d have ended up in the hospital.  {LAUGHS} Back when you were growing up if somebody said that word that’s just what they called you.

AW: You had some of that.  They’d do that if they thought they could get away with it.  At that moment if you were angry, you’d react and fight back, but you paid for it.  You had to be smart enough to pick your time to do your thing {LAUGHS}

JM: In books and movies that I’ve seen about the South in that period, a guy could be unloading a truck and say, ‘Hey boy, come over here and help me I’ll give you a quarter.’  And that was just life. 

AW: That’s just the way it was.

JM: With older black men I heard they’d say, ‘Hey uncle—hey Uncle come over here and help me.’

AW: Yes, they’d call him a boy too. 

JM: Whoa.

AW: That’s when you hear blacks say, ‘When do you think a person grows up?’ {LAUGHS} That was when things started to turn.  You couldn’t just do anything you wanted right there, because there would be a fight.  But God knows what he’s doing, so we have to do what He tells us to do.  He says, ‘I’m going to fix it in my time. I got all that stuff worked out.’ 

JM: That’s right, every tribe of every nation of every tongue. 

AW: So it’s going to happen.  It may not happen when we want it to.

JM: I’m just thinking, in my home town if I had said, ‘Hey boy you help me unload this.’ I probably wouldn’t even finish the sentence.  Just wake up on the ground under the truck with all my teeth lying next to me!

AW: That was a different time—late 90s.  Segregation was still strong when I was young. 

JM: Were you participating in the Civil Rights movement directly?

AW: I was thinking about it, but that’s when they called me to go to Ambassador College.  God always put something there in front of me to make me choose.  And I always try to chose his way for me.

JM: So rather than join in a riot or whatever…

AW: If I hadn’t come into the church, I’d have been marching like many others were.  God was working with me, he knows what you’re thinking.  If He knows you’re with Him, He may correct you to get your attention and make you know that He is with you, but He knows that you’re with him and he’ll keep you protected. 

JM: I’ve heard people at church talk about black socials back in WCG to find a mate.

AW: That was when things were really segregated.  Blacks had theirs; whites had theirs.  If you were really looking, 9 times out of 10 you found a mate there.  You had all the single blacks in the same place. 

JM: What was Mr. Armstrong like?

AW: Mr. Armstrong began to change because he met Haile Selassie and other dignitaries in Africa.  Of course, when you meet a dignitary and you’re at event and the dignitary’s wife wants to dance with you, what’re you going to say?  No I can’t dance with you, you’re a different color {LAUGHS}. This wasn’t just any woman, this was a nice, refined princess woman.  So his mind had begun to change quite a bit.  He wasn’t as overtly racist as some people were, but he knew segregation was the deal.  I never heard him say some of the things other people would say.  He’d talk about going to the south and having blacks do things for him and he’d give them a quarter or something, reached out to them.  But I never heard him be really down and out about it.  You could tell he wasn’t 100% on the other side too.

JM: Sure, he was a product of his time.

AW: Yes.

JM: What would you tell young black guys today who are coming up—reaching adulthood? What would be your advice to them?

AW: Well, it’s a totally different situation now than it was when I was younger.  Number one I would tell them: get yourself a good education.  Have some paperwork as part of your credentials.  That will have a whole lot to do with what you become.  Don’t be a demanding dude, but you don’t have to let anybody step on you either.  Show what you can do, don’t say what you can do. 

JM: You’ve raised your own sons and seen them have opportunities you would never have had.  And your grandkids too.

AW: Oh yeah, nowadays you can do—even with all the racism that’s beginning to raise its head here again in America—you can still do stuff now that was unheard of when I was coming up.

JM: Do you ever remember any racial violence growing up?

AW: Not for me, but there was.  God protected me, I don’t know why {LAUGHS}.  I was always able to talk my way through stuff like that that would have turned to violence.  God just worked with me.  I didn’t appreciate it then, but I can now.

JM: Always the case isn’t it?  Do you remember the KKK being around?

AW: The Klan wasn’t so much in Dallas where I was, but I remember them working.  I heard others talk about them, and I’ve seen what they did and have done because they would just publish it like they would publish anything else.

JM: The lynchings and all that?

AW: Oh yes.

JM: I can’t imagine that. 

AW: The same kind of stuff you read about when MLK was marching.  What they did to churches and black communities.  You saw them with the dogs and sticks and so on—all that was going on. 

JM: And you jumped into ministry and there you were, and here you are!

AW: Back during the changes, the churches here were just splitting.  It was a huge problem.  They needed ministers up here.  The church had retired me, but they called me back up here—to help them out until we can get someone permanent up there.  I thought I was retired! {LAUGHS} I drove from Florida to Indianapolis in 1995 to pastor up here. 

JM: The year I graduated from high school.

AW: Oh really? {LAUGHS} Then the permanent pastor came and I got retired again {LAUGHS} Then we just stuck around. 

JM: What do you think, in the future, the church can do to be healing in race relations?

AW: The church has always been a key—in the wrong way and the right way.  There were many churches that thought slavery was fine.  But once God turned the churches.  America has the problem [of racism] because they never admit it, never talked about it sensibly.  Even today you’ve got people who talk about how they want it to be like back then [in the days of segregation].  People say they want America to go back and I say—hey wait a minute, how far back do you want to go? {LAUGHS}

JM: When I was in seminary, I had a roommate from South Africa.  I talked about my dad’s memories of visiting Louisiana [in the 1950s] and the separate drinking fountains and bathrooms.  My roommate said he remembered that from junior high.  That’s totally foreign to me—and I’m thankful that it’s even more foreign to my kids. 

AW: You always have those who want to prolong MY superiority.  America made one big big mistake.  They always talked about the family, how important the family was—and they tore up the black family.  Selling husbands there, wife there, kids there—they tore up the family.  So America is reaping and has reaped for a long time.  The reason they got a lot of blacks the way that they are.  They say, Where’s your dad? Who are you talking about?  You sold my dad to mister whats-his-name in Timbuktu and thought nothing of it.  They ripped the black family apart.  They didn’t care—it was money they were after.  What do you mean you have a husband—get up on that auction block!

JM: Did you have family that were slaves?

AW: Nobody living that I knew, not my grandparents.  But before them.  My grandparents on my mother’s side started an AME (African Methodist Episcopal) church in Dallas.  It’s still there, I can remember it like yesterday. 

[historical picture from St. Paul AME Church, Dallas]

 

They were in Texas, and they were just building it up back then.  Dallas has always been kind of progressive.  But I remember the signs on the streetcars and the buses.  Behind the sign was black and in front was white.  Water fountain over there “Whites Only”; Water fountain over there “Blacks Only.”

JM: Why?! That is completely foreign to me!

AW: Yes, I know.  God says it’s going to get better in some places, but never get all the way better.  But if we can ever get the churches to talk—like they ought to.  On every corner you got a church and each one of these churches are talking about something different.  We have so many, we should be thoroughly Christianized {LAUGHS}. In some instances things are getting better, in some places.  But America has never hurt like it’s going to hurt.  Because we still won’t talk about what needs to be talked about, still won’t admit what needs to be admitted.

JM: With our sin and…

AW: And our treatment of one another.  For a long time blacks weren’t even considered human beings.  We’ve come a long way, but, man, we have a lot further to go. 

Concluding thoughts…

The other character/theme I'll have to introduce to you here is my constant refrain of {LAUGHS}.  Pastor Abner is one of the most joyful people I know.  He is someone who lives out the truth penned by the Psalmist, rendered well in the KJV:  "Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be...flourishing" (92:13-14).  "Flourishing" is a good word for him, whether it be discussing truth from scripture, throwing his head back to laugh, or listening close to those who are hurting. 

The joy here is the point.  Abner has been able to process and digest a lot of pain in his life, from the torture of racism to the loss of his first wife to cancer.  He has put his pain in God's hands; he's tried to understand his life from God's perspective, even when it didn't seem to come together.  And he'd be the first to tell you that he's been blessed.  He'd also be the first to tell you to go out there and get blessed yourself. 

Cheers,

Josh