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Gayraud Wilmore interviewed by J. Oscar McCloud, 1982.
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- speakerDo you have any regrets about that period,
- speakernine years interruption in your,
- speakeryour theological workplace?
- speakerNo, not at all. I feel that I was much the
- speakerbetter theologian by having had that experience.
- speakerI am convinced that one cannot do theology
- speakerfrom a library carrel
- speakeror from a study desk.
- speakerI think one has to be out in the world to do theology.
- speakerAnd I always have
- speakerthanked God that He gave me an opportunity to take
- speakertheology, my own theology into the streets in that period
- speakerand to bounce it against the hard realities
- speakerof the world of the
- speakerperiod 1964 through 71, 72.
- speakerI will say (unintelligible)
- speakerI would say also that
- speakerI felt the need
- speakerto subject some of the things that I have been doing
- speakerto a more careful academic scrutiny after 1971-72.
- speakerSo that there was a period of immersion in
- speakeraction and then the need to you know move
- speakerback from action to reflect about meaning of action.
- speakerSo I think those two things belong together,
- speakeryou know, action reflection.
- speakerAnd that's what my career was about,
- speakerit seems to me,
- speakerin the 1960s and 70s.
- speakerInvolvement in action and then a retreat from action in order
- speakerto get ready for the next phase.
- speakerLet me ask you a final kind
- speakerof a question about how you assess
- speakerthe racial justice scene today.
- speakerWhen you began your ministry, you
- speakermentioned in the earlier interview about the education
- speakerof your oldest son
- speakerhelped to launch you into some engagement because of segregated schools.
- speakerNow, in 1982,
- speakeryou have some grandchildren and as you look at them
- speakerand look at society around them
- speakerand so forth as racial justice is concerned,
- speakerwhat are your feelings today?
- speakerI feel that prejudice
- speakerand discrimination on account of race is still very much a part of
- speakerour society. I think it's much more difficult to
- speakeridentify
- speakerand expose today than it was 10 years ago because institutions
- speakerhave learned how to hide it better.
- speakerBut it's still there, there's still prejudice, there's still discrimination based on
- speakerrace. I experience it in my own profession in the academic field,
- speakerI see it in the society at large.
- speakerNow what does this have to say to black people?
- speakerI think it has to say to black people that
- speakerthe struggle never ends. We must
- speakercontinue to be alert,
- speakervigilant, about the rights that people have in this society
- speakerregardless of race.
- speakerBut it also says to me that we cannot rely upon laws
- speakerand statutes and pronouncements
- speakerand all these kinds of things to deal
- speakerwith this problem. This problem is much deeper than that.
- speakerIt's a problem that the Gospel addresses,
- speakerfirst of all, at the depth of the human soul that
- speakerhas to do with sin, radical sin,
- speakerin all of us.
- speakerBut it's also a problem that requires
- speakerour taking responsibility for ourselves.
- speakerQuite apart from what other people want to do against us because
- speakerof our race. So that I faced the 1980s
- speakerwith a sense of not having,
- speakernot wanting to rely upon white folks to do something,
- speakerto solve the problem for me,
- speakerthat I now have enough room, it seems to me,
- speakerto operate to begin to do some things on my own by
- speakerdint of my own moral effort and by the strength
- speakerand solidarity of black people working together for
- speakerlegitimate objectives.
- speakerSo that I'm really trying to make
- speakerup my mind about what this means programmatically now,
- speakerand I think that's relevant to what is the future of
- speakerthe Council on Church and Race.
- speakerBut my initial reaction is that
- speakerwe need to stop crying and complaining
- speakerand blaming somebody else
- speakerand take responsibility for ourselves, and do some things that we can
- speakerdo and nobody else can do for us.
- speakerDo you, I gather from what you're saying that you would also say that
- speakerthere is a key role for
- speakerthe black church in terms of blacks in the church.
- speakerDo you sense any new awareness on the part of black Christians
- speakerof the kind of responsibility
- speakerand initiative on our part that you just were speaking of?
- speakerI did, up until maybe two years ago,
- speakerI think there's been some slippage
- speakerin the last two or three years,
- speakerprobably since Ronald Reagan's ascendancy.
- speakerToward the end of the last Republican administration,
- speakerI think,
- speakerwe began to see black people,
- speakerblack Christians lose some of that
- speakersense of vocation and mission that I think was abroad in the
- speakermid 70s going into maybe 1975,
- speaker76, 77,
- speaker1979, 80, 81, yes,
- speakerI think we've lost some things there.
- speakerBut I don't think it's irretrievably lost.
- speakerI think our leadership has not been good
- speakerand our communications facilities
- speakerhave not served us well. We're not writing.
- speakerWe don't have the kind of information going out that
- speakertends to inspire and mobilize people
- speakerand we need we need to do more in that regard. I'm trying to do my part in terms of
- speakerwriting in order to, to recoup something that,
- speakerI don't think it's irretrievably lost.
- speakerI think we're in a period of ebb and flow, and right now,
- speakerI think it's a kind of ebbing of enthusiasm for
- speakersocial action within the black church.
- speakerRooted and grounded in a sense of vocation
- speakerand mission that black people have.
- speakerOkay, let me ask you one last question about the United Presbyterian
- speakerChurch along these lines. Would
- speakeryou comment on what you assess to be the situation in the United Presbyterian
- speakerChurch in that the
- speakerchurch finds it possible to utilize
- speakerthe gifts, the leadership ability
- speakerand skills of blacks in seminaries,
- speakerin synods, and national agencies,
- speakerbut
- speakerblacks still seem to be quite absent
- speakerfrom involvement in the leadership of white
- speakeror predominate white congregations?
- speakerWell, I don't know, I'm puzzled to know why that is.
- speakerI think, first of all,
- speakerof course it has to do with that continuation of prejudice,
- speakerbias within the white constituency of the United
- speakerPresbyterian Church that we just talked about. I think it's still there,
- speakerand it's not
- speakereasy for white people to think of blacks being
- speakerleaders and pastors of local congregations.
- speakerI think it also has something to do, however,
- speakerwith the fact that we have not prepared young black
- speakerleaders for the kind of
- speakertrailblazing,
- speakerexperimental, progressive ministries to whites
- speakerthat such a pastor would represent in my mind.
- speakerAnd one of the things I've tried to do, for example,
- speakerin my teaching in seminary is to say that there may be,
- speakeramong these black students here, some of us who are called to pastor in an
- speakerall white congregation, to demonstrate something in a
- speakermetropolitan area. Maybe we ought to have one
- speakeror two in every metropolitan area.
- speakerThat doesn't mean we all have to be pastoring white churches
- speakerbut there ought to be some churches, some white churches in these metropolitan areas which demonstrate
- speakerthe possibilities with respect to integration at that level.
- speakerAnd also give an opportunity to bright young blacks to
- speakerlead white people in a direction that some of their own white ministers have never been able to
- speakertake them. So I think,
- speakeryou know, here again, I think we have responsibility as well as the church.
- speakerAnd while we are saying to the judicatories you
- speakerneed to produce some churches that want to call black
- speakerministers as pastors,
- speakerwe need to prepare some black young men and women to take those jobs.
- speakerGay, I'd like to thank you very much for
- speakeryour sharing
- speakerwith us by means of this taped interview.
- speakerSome of your reflections on your period of service as the director
- speakerof the Commission on Religion Race,
- speakerand the Council on Religion Race
- speakerand including some of your views on
- speakerthe status of racial justice in both church
- speakerand society.
- speakerI say thank you very much and look forward to
- speakersitting with you some time again to pursue some of
- speakerthe same kinds of subjects,
- speakermaybe a few years hence.
- speakerWell thank you, Oscar, for the opportunity to do this.
- speakerAnd I'm looking forward to getting your reaction to some of the things that are on
- speakerthese tapes because I think of all the people in our church today who know
- speakersomething about this period,
- speakeryou probably know more than most of us,
- speakerI imagine.
- speakerYou play a very strategic role in all of this
- speakerand you have restrained yourself admirably in not
- speakerrepudiating
- speakeror even seconding some of the things that I know
- speakerI have said and others have as well.
- speakerSo, looking forward to doing more. Thank you.