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My wife’s great-grandfather’s encounter with the Ku Klux Klan
This article was originally published in The Christian Science Monitor.
Every year in observance of Black History Month, I look for a special story that exemplifies the spirit of black history. By spirit I mean its essence and enduring message. After finding this story, which may have been shared with me by family or friends or seen in a film or photograph or heard on the radio, I spend the month cherishing more deeply the spiritual truths shared. Observing Black History Month in this way has blessed me. Again and again it affirms my understanding of the ever-presence of divine Love forever active in our lives.
This month I have been cherishing a story about my wife’s great-grandfather Joe “Man” Suttles, the son of a former slave. The story takes place during a time in US history when the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization, began terrorizing blacks as well as those who supported blacks.
Suttles lived in a small rural town of a few hundred people. One Sunday as he and his daughter of six or seven years of age entered church, he was alerted that members of the Klan were there. As the frightened church members wrestled with what to do, Suttles told the ushers to seat the Klan members in the front of the church. So the five or six members of the Klan, wearing their white robes and hats attached to masks, concealing their identity, were seated in the front pews. They sat quietly without incident through the entire service.
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