Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Jonathan writes a monthly update called ‘Turning Again’ to friends and supporters of School for Conversion, a non-profit organization that works to promote community and reconciliation from the Walltown neighborhood of Durham to NC prisons to local churches and communities around the world.

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Most of the proceeds from the sale of Jonathan’s books go to support the work of SFC. You can also donate to SFC’s ministries online.

February 2012

Last Wednesday night at church we had our annual Black History Month Program, recalling all that black folks have suffered in this country and remembering God’s faithfulness through it all. Nora, who’s two now, wasn’t settling into audience participation so well, so she and I spend a good part of the evening away from the gathering. But when it was getting late, Leah took her home for her bath and I went back into the church to get JaiMichael. We stood with the whole congregation to belt out “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” then JaiMichael and I bundled up to walk home.

“Am I black enough to be a slave?” JaiMichael asked as we walked down the slope of the church’s parking lot.

“Do you mean now or two hundred years ago?” I asked.

“I mean, would they do all that stuff to me?” We talked about race for a minute, and I watched a seven year old struggle to make sense of the story this country tells him about who he is. Then we got to the cross tie in the parking lot that JaiMichael likes to use as a balance beam and he said, “Watch this, Dad. I can balance with my eyes closed.” Seven year-olds can be deep, but not for long.

Still, I kept thinking about the ways race continues to shape reality for all of us in this country. Slavery was abolished 150 years ago, but that did not end the institutionalized racism that re-emerged as Jim Crow in the South (and ghettos in the North). The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s made great strides toward freedom and justice for all, employing the nonviolence of Jesus to abolish Jim Crow. But 50 years later, as I’ve heard my friend Rev. William Barber say, “Jim Crow has become Mr. James Crow, Esquire.” What was once “segregation now, segregation forever” has become a crusade for “law and order.” Our prison population has increased eight fold over the past 30 years. Our country now imprisons more African-Americans than it ever enslaved.

What, then, do I tell JaiMichael? Is he black enough to be a slave? I know the statistics. He’s black enough that one out of three of his friends will go to prison at some point in their life. He’s black enough that he’ll be subject to random searches by the police in our neighborhood. I have a responsibility to introduce him to this reality.

But we also know another reality. We are members of the church that learned to pray in brush arbors when Master wasn’t looking for God to make a way out of now way. We’re inheritors of that great tradition of black and white folks who said God didn’t make anyone to be slave, so they would create an underground railroad of safe houses to usher slaves to freedom. We are a community that remembers there is no shame in going to jail for doing what is right—that sitting down to a meal together may be illegal, but it’s right. And right will win in the end. We celebrate black history month so that we can remember this reality too.

In the context of our present prison industrial complex, SFC’s Project TURN is a space like the 1960’s lunch counter where those who are legally segregated can sit down together and begin to imagine a new future. I continue to be amazed by the way this experience is leading to new friendships and new imagination, both for the students who come from the outside and for the students who are incarcerated. The beloved community is coming to life behind razor wire. Truth is, no walls will be able to contain it. God is creating a new society within the shell of the old.

This is long, hard work that Jesus is dragging us into. But after four years, it’s work that some in and outside the prison system are beginning to notice. I hope you’ll help us spread the word this month about two articles on TURN—one by our very own director, Sarah Jobe (this one comes with a study guide; you can use it for Sunday School or small group), and a second by a correspondent for The Christian Century.

The good news that we’re hearing and seeing inside the walls has to get out if this new vision is going to spread. But we’re also convinced that more people are going to have to come in. Which is why we’re delighted that three new prisons have invited us in this year. Of course, we want to say, “Yes!” But we’re praying fervently for new partners who can help us say yes and mean it. We need institutions that are willing to give their students credit (so far, a big hoorah to Duke Divinity School for this!). We need professors who can volunteer to teach. And we need money to buy books and pay staff to coordinate these programs. We’d be grateful if you’d pray and act with us.

Thankfully, as we find our way forward, our church has taught me a song that I can pass on to my son. It says, “Before I’ll be a slave / I’d be burried in my grave / and go home to my Lord / and be free.”

Yes, JaiMichael, this old world can be terribly mean. And I sure wish I could spare you from its troubles. But what I know is that Jesus has met us in the midst of this mess. And if you hold onto Jesus, you’re free. Even if this world’s system kills you, it can’t make you anything less than a child of God. God, my son, is greater than any force that will come against you.

Peace and all good,

Jonathan