Race, slavery and the Bible

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Georgia was at the center of America’s racial struggle, for good and bad. From its colonial days, Georgia was a slave-owning colony and then state. It stood in the heart of the Confederacy and, even after the abolition of slavery blacks were treated as less than equal. A few miles from where I grew up and less than ten years before I was born, Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn, a black US Army veteran of WWII, was murdered by Klansmen in 1964. Martin Luther King, Jr., an Atlanta native and pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, became the face of the civil rights movement. King represented a full circle between past attempts to use the Bible to justify racial discrimination. King, and other Christians like him, was instrumental in banning slavery and segregation in the US.

Over the years, religion has been used to justify slavery and segregation as well as racial reconciliation. Pastors and congregations have used Bible verses to support arguments on both sides of the racial and political spectrums. What does the Bible really tell us?

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Race, slavery and the Bible – Atlanta Conservative | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/race-slavery-and-the-bible#ixzz1BEbq9DQS

Part 2: Abolition and civil rights
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/abolition-and-civil-rights-race-part-2

Part 3: Where do we go from here?
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/where-do-we-go-from-here-race-part-3

I believe in the Kingdom Come, when all the colors will bleed into one. - U2

Photo credit: Louisa Stokes
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1722

(This article originally published Feb. 24, 2010. It has been one of my most popular posts. Thanks to all who viewed it!)