How we can overcome the pain of Charlottesville, power of our segregated past

Dorothy Sanders Wells
Guest column
Rev. Dorothy Sanders Wells

I was a young teen when I first saw the well-recognizable photo of Gov. George Wallace standing in a doorway at the University of Alabama in June 1963, physically blocking the entry of Vivian Malone Jones and James A. Hood, two African Americans who wished to enroll.

The photo was a dozen or so years old by the time I saw it, but no words were necessary to explain it: The man who was still governor of my home state wanted no one who looked like me to attend the state’s flagship public university.

Even though Vivian Malone Jones had indeed gone on to become the first African American graduate of that university, I got the message. I wasn’t wanted. I didn’t feel welcome. I never considered the University of Alabama. I applied elsewhere for college and never looked back.

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But seeing that photo made me realize just how few years stood between me – a product of desegregated schools – and those for whom such opportunities had been foreclosed. I was stunned and saddened – and for the first time, painfully aware of the sacrifices of those who had come before me. Although those who had been willing even to give their lives for justice and equality had owed me nothing, they had been willing to suffer for my sake and for the sake of all others who would follow.

Like many, I initially took the sacrifices for granted. Like many, I wanted to believe that the hard work was done. We’ve realized for a while now the fallacy of that thinking, but Charlottesville has proven that the difficult task before us is undeniable. 

The hard work wasn’t over when our country passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, or the Fair Housing Act. No, the hard work had just begun: 

All of us – white and African American, Latino and Asian, older and younger – needed to sit down together to honestly share all of the feelings – the anger, the fears, the bitterness, the anxiety, the disappointment, but also the hopes, the dreams, and the promises.

That never happened. We didn’t talk to one another. Many of us tried to convince ourselves that everyone was going to be OK with this new way of being. Only, everyone wasn’t.

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That 1963 image of George Wallace at the door of the University of Alabama, which had been emblazoned in my mind, has been replaced by new images from Charlottesville. My heart is broken when I consider how much – and how little – have changed in 50 years.

But I have hope.

Perhaps we’ve been brought to this point so that we all can stop and reassess our values and our priorities, and try again.

Perhaps we’ve been brought to this point to realize that we are one. United, we succeed; divided, we fall.

Perhaps we’ve been brought to this point to realize that our silence and inaction only make us all complicit in the very actions that we claim to deplore. 

We can ill afford to be comfortable and complacent. Now, we are all called to stand with those who have trod the stony path before us, to hold one another accountable, and to speak truth, however painful.

We all have the power to be agents of peace. We all have the power to be agents of change. It is not too late for our nation to rewrite this script, with God’s help, and to recommit to promoting liberty and justice for all people.

Rev. Dorothy Sanders Wells is rector of St. George's Episcopal Church  in Germantown.