by James Melson | May 23, 2024 | 2024, Weekly Reflection
During these times characterized by daily reports of division, fear, and hatred, I came across a story of grace and love that has the power to unite people across the barriers that separate us. Earlier this month, Father Gregory Boyle received the nation’s...
by James Melson | May 16, 2024 | 2024, Weekly Reflection
This week marks the 70th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision that declared racial segregation in public education unconstitutional. Many historians consider this to be the start of the modern Civil Rights Movement. After hundreds of years...
by James Melson | May 9, 2024 | 2024
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. It is a time to honor and remember the nurturing love of our mother or mother figure. But Mother’s Day 1961 went down in history for a much different reason. On May 14 an act of racial terror took place on the outskirts...
by James Melson | May 2, 2024 | 2024, Weekly Reflection
The protests about the Israel-Gaza war on college campuses around the country continue to be a major story covered by a wide variety of media sources. Most of these stories focus on scenes of verbal and physical violence. The overall impression is that most protesters...
by James Melson | Apr 25, 2024 | 2024, Weekly Reflection
Sometimes lesser known parts of our nation’s history have major impacts on the legacy of racial injustice today. One such event happened 147 years ago this week when federal troops were removed from the state house in Louisiana on April 24, 1877. This marked the...
by James Melson | Apr 17, 2024 | 2024, Weekly Reflection
Thirty five years ago on April 19, 1989, a woman was brutally beaten and raped in New York City’s Central Park. Police soon arrested a dozen teenagers who were in the park that night. After long hours of intense and threatening interogation, five teenagers,...
by James Melson | Apr 11, 2024 | 2024, Weekly Reflection
The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC was the site of one of the best known events in the struggle for racial justice in our nation’s history. At the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a...
by James Melson | Apr 4, 2024 | 2024, Weekly Reflection
Fifty seven years ago this week on April 4, 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the landmark speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” at Riverside Church in New York City. Although it is not nearly as well known as “I Have a Dream” or “I’ve Been to the...
by James Melson | Mar 28, 2024 | 2024, Weekly Reflection
During this Holy Week, Christians in this country and around the world commemorate the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus 2000 years ago. This provides an opportunity to reflect on what this means for our world and our lives today. Jesus was executed by the...
by corneliuscorps | Mar 24, 2024 | Workshops
The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement for Today (3-5 sessions online or in person): A detailed focus on specific years in the modern Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968) to commemorate the anniversaries of significant events of that year – for example 2024 marks the...
