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On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday, as Presbyterian Fred Rodgers might do, I invite you to think about the people in your neighborhood. Who are they? Imagine the faces of those who live next door on one side. Now imagine the faces of those who live on the other side. In what ways are they similar to you and your household? Can you think of some ways that they are different from you? How often do you interact with them? Maybe you trade tools or food ingredients back and forth when in need or maybe you pull your hair out over their trees growing in your view or their barking dog or their loud teen-age music. When we buy a house or rent an apartment, we are never sure what our neighbors will be like when we move in or as the neighborhood changes down the road. How do you adjust?
Many of you know that I serve on the Board of Fair Housing of Marin. This non-profit, like several across the country, helps individuals, families, landlords, and real estate agents know about their rights and the laws governing discrimination in housing. The motto is “People learn to live together by living together.” It is true, but in the past, some of us didn't have the chance to try.
In the early part of the last century, racially restrictive covenants were written into deeds for particular areas specifying which races or ethnicities could be excluded from a neighborhood. They existed all over the country AND in Marin County. In 1948, these covenants were outlawed by the Supreme Court but in many places were still informally observed at least until the late 1960s. Veterans from World War II and later from the Viet Nam War, vets who had lived and served together with Americans of all races and ethnicities found when returning home that they couldn't buy or rent in the areas where they wanted to live and raise their families. As a result, an African-American Assemblyman in California, Byron Rumford authored the Rumford Fair Housing Act in 1963. The act targeted discrimination based on race or religion in all aspects of housing. Many Californians including some of my own family members were against this legislation believing that government had no business telling them to whom they could rent or sell their homes. They managed to get on the ballot a proposition to reverse the Rumford Act. Faith congregations were involved in the campaign against Proposition 14. It was a first in Catholic-Protestant cooperation in California on social issues. However, the proposition passed and successfully overturned Rumford in 1964. Do you remember where you or your parents were living at that time? Were you involved or impacted by it? Much to the disappointment of the Prop 14 supporters, two years later the California Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional and upheld the Rumford Act forbidding discrimination in renting or selling homes within the state. The struggle for fair housing was more difficult in Chicago.
Trouble had been brewing since the race riots in 1951. In 1966, the same year the Rumford Act was upheld in California, Dr. King traveled to Chicago. He and members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference partnered with leaders in Chicago to bring the non-violent method of peaceful marching to the north for the first time. They campaigned to open up housing opportunities there. It started with a rally at Soldier Field on July 10, attended by 60,000 people to hear King along with Stevie Wonder and Peter, Paul & Mary. By late July there were regular marches of 300-400 people into all-white neighborhoods and to City Hall. It was one of the largest campaigns in history to target housing segregation and inequality and the most ambitious civil rights campaign in the north. On July 31, a priest and photographer, Bernard Kleina hurried to participate in the march that day. He missed the usual preparation meeting in a Southside church but followed the participants to Marquette Park and a small parking lot where they would leave their cars. The only spot left was between two police cars so he pulled in and caught up with the marchers. Bernie, a young white man, wrote of the event: “Marches were like religious processions. We dressed in suits, walked quietly and kept cameras hidden away. As we started marching that day, angry whites began spitting on me and the other marchers. Not being mentally prepared to accept this kind of degrading abuse, I told someone in the mob, ‘I wouldn't do that if I were you,' as if I were ready to take on the whole mob. Then an older African-American man in front of me turned around and said, ‘Remember why you are here, brother.' From that point on, I remained silent and walked in solemn procession while rocks, bottles and cherry bombs were thrown at us over the heads of the police who were ‘escorting' the marchers through the park.” When Kleina and the others returned to their cars in the parking lot, several had been pushed into the lagoon and others set on fire, turned over or damaged in some way. Kleina's car was safe in its lucky spot between two police cars. The march inspired him to photograph much of what he saw in the coming weeks. The Chicago Freedom Movement Photographic Exhibit containing 50 of his pictures is on display this month at the Shopping Center in Marin City and in early February in Novato. As you know, two years later on April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The risks taken by King, Kleina, and many others resulted in President Johnson signing the Federal Fair Housing Act one week later and prior to King's funeral in Atlanta. On April 11, as a fitting memorial to King's work the new law made it illegal in our nation to discriminate when renting, selling or financing a home.
So, as they say, what would Jesus do? We don't often read of Jesus being angry in the Gospel stories but today's passage was important to the early disciples and the early church. The people in authority had allowed the temple to become a “bandits' den.” Worshippers who needed to change currencies from their local villages were being cheated in the exchange rate. Those who came to buy doves for sacrifice were overcharged. The problem was not that these transactions were happening near or inside the temple. That was the usual practice. The issue that upset Jesus was that innocent people were being scammed, robbed, and some of them weren't even aware. Those in power at the temple, those particular chief priests and scribes were looking the other way because they very likely were getting a piece of the take, especially through the temple tax. Jesus couldn't stomach that people were not treated honestly and fairly especially at the doorway to the house of prayer – a house where all people should be welcomed regardless of their ability to pay. In Jesus' actions, he denounced the national and religious exclusivism. The people of Israel were to be a “light to the nations – all people” but the leaders were limiting who was given access to the temple. In story after Gospel story, Jesus advocated for those who needed a voice. He encouraged his disciples to do the same.
Last Thursday night, Charles Bonner was present at the opening of Kleina's photo exhibit. Bonner is a civil rights attorney in Sausalito who in 1965, at age 17, led his high school class in protest at the City Hall in Selma, Alabama, when his college-educated classroom teachers were denied the right to vote. In his brief remarks Thursday, he said, “Predatory loans are today's housing issue. The loans took advantage of those who, in many cases, didn't fully understand the long-term process and who desperately wanted a home for their families.” Both Bonner and attorneys at Fair Housing of Marin are working with families finding ways to legally re-write or invalidate some loans.
Does discrimination in housing still happen in Marin County? Yes, it does. In 1988, conditions added to the Fair Housing laws included disability and family status. And yet, in 2009, a condominium association refused to let a single woman with a wheelchair install a ramp. A couple with five children were told their family was too large to rent a three-bedroom apartment though California guidelines allow up to seven. In a third example, when a Pakistani man moved in with this Caucasian fiancée, her landlord terminated her rental agreement and accused him of being a terrorist. With the counseling and advocacy of Fair Housing, through mediation, education and the threat of lawsuits, these situations were able to be resolved.
Have you ever been the victim of obvious or subtle discrimination – because of your skin color, your country of origin, your gender, your disability, your economic status, educational background or sexual orientation? Do you remember how it felt? When it happens, it usually comes from a person or group that hold power in some way – potential employer, landlord, real estate agent, banker. Photographer Kleina said and Dr. King knew that, “It is hopelessness more than pain that crushes the human spirit. The most important thing is to give people hope.” Without hope, it is hard to have the strength to stand up for yourself, your family, or your friends. Fred Gage, attorney for Rosa Parks said, “A pebble cast in the segregated waters of Montgomery, Alabama, created a human rights tidal wave that changed America…and it all started on a bus.” Rosa Parks was a symbol of that hope. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave people across the nation the hope that attitudes and action could and must change.
What can we do and how can we empower our children to give hope? Are there tables in your path needing to be overturned? Rosa Parks just sat on a bus. King and Kleina and thousands of others walked peacefully making a statement with each step. What can you notice in your day-to-day life? How do you respond to those fear-inspired hate-filled emails that sometimes come your way? Do you ignore them or confront the sender? Your effort to stop those emails would give hope to an innocent victim somewhere. In an age-appropriate way, help our children see and understand the conditions of those in their world that they might learn to respond in a helpful, hopeful, barrier-breaking and loving way.
In his racism speech, in 2008, President Obama said, “In the end, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.” As we struggle watching the pain in Haiti this week and sending our checks in support, we may find down the road that it is important and necessary that we welcome some Haitian refugees into our country, at least temporarily. If that happens, let us reach out in love and hope remembering in the words of Fair Housing, “People learn to live together by living together.”
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