On July 31, 2015 a group of people journeyed toward Ferguson, Missouri for the one year anniversary shooting death of Michael Brown. This is an account of that travel from a daily journal.
Bishop John Selders and wife Pamela organized a tour to Ferguson, Mo with four adults and ten students from Trinity College. The group departed from Hartford, Connecticut at 1:00pm for the beginning of a tour [ 8 cities in as many days ]. We will stop at churches and sing, recite poetry and collect money for #BlackLivesMatter legal fees in Ferguson. Our group arrived in Harlem, New York at Grace Congregational Church, 310 West 139th Street. We unpacked musical equipment, then carried it inside the church. Shortly thereafter people started coming into the church; a diverse crowd of young adults and middle aged. Bishop Selders started off the program singing songs, five men called Peace Poets recited stirring poetry. The church resonated with black inspired music plus spoken word poetry, while people clapped... shouted.
A Caucasian male with white hair and guitar in hand stood up to speak-it was Peter Yarro of Peter, Paul and Mary fame. Peter elaborated on being part of the Civil Rights Movement and how being with Martin Luther King et al. inspired him. After all the singing and poetry ended around 10:00pm Bishop Selders collected money for distribution in Ferguson. We departed the church and traveled to New Jersey where the group ate dinner at 11:40pm. When our group went to the hotel reserved by Bishop Selders a surprise awaited. This hotel was literally occupied outside by unsavory characters lurking in shadows. Selders tried to retrieve his money for reserved rooms but had to go through the tedious process of completing paper work, then waiting for it to meander through official channels. It was decided to seek other hotel accommodations; this proved difficult and was not successful until 3:30am. All members of the tour are tired. Gratefully everyone went to sleep in beds or sleeping bags.
We leave for Baltimore at lunch time 12:00pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment