Fiery Crosses

I found out on last week that this really nice lady in my Sunday School class once had a cross burned in her front yard.

My husband and I are very happy with the church that we have found in the city we moved to in August; a progressively minded Episcopal congregation that is just the right size for us and has terrific music. Most of all, this parish is blessed with an outstanding priest who is “about our age”, as they say, and inspires us. One of the things we enjoy most is the Sunday School class that takes place between the two weekly services every Sunday morning. There are usually between eight and twelve people there, as well as Father Marc. We have been going through the Catechism, but occasionally detour onto other subjects. Okay, so there is some sort of detour every Sunday; that is simply the nature of the group and the structure of the task at hand. Last Sunday, we talked a little bit about history.

Our church is part of the campus of the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa. We are located across the street (and share a parking lot on Sundays) with Foster Auditorium, the site of George Wallace’s famous Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, where he tried, unsuccessfully, to stop two black students from enrolling at the University.

During our time at Canterbury Chapel, people had mentioned that the church was very supportive of the Civil Rights Movement, and served as a staging area for protests on campus. On last Sunday morning, we learned that two crosses had been burned by the Ku Klux Klan on the front yard of our church. It served as a reminder that the violence and the fear inherent in such an act is a very real thing; something that neither of us can fully imagine nor appreciate. People around the table used phrases like “walking on eggshells” to describe their fears and feelings at the time.

But I was most shocked to learn that one of our “church ladies”, a sweet, grey-haired, grandmotherly type, a Daughter of the King and the foundress of the Flower Guild, had a cross burned in her front yard by the Klan as well. Why? She was a teacher. I’m not sure what or whom she taught or why that made her the Klan’s target, but I was overcome by a sense of awe and amazement.

Her name is Elizabeth. She was a teacher, and that’s why the Klan burned a cross in her front yard. Oy.