Why knowing the truth of history is so vital: 12-8/9-18

When we think about how -- as a nation, a state, a city, a neighborhood, a family -- we got to where we are today, one of the rules should be that we tell the truth as far as we know that truth. And that we admit it when we don't know the truth. In that case, we should promise to find out what we can.

In a different context, a passage in the New Testament speaks to a primary benefit of truth-telling when it says it will set us free. And what a glorious gift freedom is.

I thought about all this the other evening when I attended an American Public Square event in Kansas City called "Common Good: A Model for Community Engagement and Racial Equity."

One of the panelists was the Rev. Wallace S. Hartsfield II. He's pastor of the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church in KC and he also is a professor of Hebrew Bible at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in suburban Shawnee, Kan. Plus he's a musician and a smart guy whose father, WSH Sr., pastored MMBC earlier and has been a community leader for decades in many ways.

Anyway, Wallace (II) was talking about how Kansas City's East Side became racially segregated and how Troost Avenue became the city's racial dividing line (a line that has begun to break down finally today).

"What you have is an area," he said, referring to the East Side, "that was created with intention, an area that was intended to be segregated space  -- space that intentionally separated blacks and whites. . ."

The intentional nature of racial segregation in Kansas City is what we must remember. Yes, there is some truth in the old adage that birds of a feather flock together, but there were government policies, real estate practices and other intentional contributors to the segregated reality we see on the ground still today in KC.

That intentional division was rooted in white supremacy, which became one of the very foundations of this nation and was embedded in our Constitution, which in Article 1, Section 2, fixed it so that each black slave would be counted in the population as worth just three-fifths of a person.

Just as that was an intentional act to maintain slavery and the attitudes of white supremacy on which slavery was built, so the segregation of Kansas City was, Hartsfield said, "an intentional act to make sure that blacks would not have the same rights or opportunities" as whites.

In response to a later question I asked, Hartsfield did say that today "any kind of supremacy" can prevent additional racial, economic and community progress here. And, of course, he's right about that.

No community wants to spend its time mired in its own sad history, especially if that keeps people from moving forward in harmony. And that's not what this event was designed to do and it's not what Hartsfield wants to do, either, by referring to the intentional nature of segregation here. Indeed, the evening discussion spent a lot of time on how to create a better community and how to work together across racial and economic lines more effectively.

But unless we understand our history and, when necessary, repent of it, we'll never get to that desired harmony.

(The photo here shows the panelists, from left, Moderator Mark Levin, founding rabbi of Congregation Beth Torah; Terry Dunn, principal of the D.D. Ranch in Leawood, Kan., and former president and chief executive officer of J.E. Dunn Construction Group; Irene Caudillo, president and CEO of El Centro; Mike English, executive director of Turn the Page KC, and Hartsfield.)

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GONNA SAVE YOU SOME TIME HERE

Lots of Christian churches (to say nothing of congregations of other faith traditions) are struggling to attract millennials and Generation Z (born from the 1990s to 2010 or so). This RNS review of a new book on the subject saves us time by suggesting quite clearly that this new book isn't the answer at all. Which is another thing good book reviews do -- help us avoid wasting our time.