Last night, January 31, 2019, the Charlottesville Clergy Collective organized a "Conversations toward Reconciliation" dinner gathering at Carver Recreation Center.  The purpose of the gathering was to bring together faith communities in Charlottesville in a fellowship setting to get to know one another better through intentional conversations.

Our Hope
We hoped that members of these faith communities will begin (or continue) to

• engage with their own congregations in conversations about race,
• learn and record stories of the role their congregations played in the history of race in Charlottesville,
• build relationships with members of other faith communities to support, encourage, and learn from one another as we all do this work.

Great Turnout!
31 faith communities (see below for the list) and around 200 people attended the gathering. They enjoyed a light dinner catered and served by members of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Attendees also brought salad and desserts ... more than enough to share.

After a welcome by Dr. Alvin Edwards of Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church, Apostle Sarah Kelley of Faith, Hope and Love International Healing and Deliverance Center led the group in an opening song. Dr. Lehman Bates of Ebenezer Baptist Church offered the blessing.

Questions for Conversation
During the dinner, the participants around each table shared their answers to these questions:

• Your name, your preferred pronouns, your faith community, how long have you lived in Charlottesville?
• What was the religious or spiritual background of your childhood?
• What brings you here tonight?

After dinner, Elizabeth Shillue of Beloved Community Charlottesville, and Charlene Green from Charlottesville Office of Human Rights prepared participants to answer a few questions (time permitting) selected from this list:

• What is the racial makeup of your faith community?  How does it compare to the demographic of the larger community?
• What teachings does your faith tradition have which support being community across racial lines?
• How widespread is the knowledge of racial justice work in your faith community?
• What opportunities have you had to learn the history of your faith community in relation to the history of race events in Charlottesville?
• Why do you think that our faith communities are largely segregated today, when other institutions are visibly integrated and multicultural?

Participants received a resource booklet that contained more questions to help guide further conversations with their own faith communities.

What is the Charlottesville Clergy Collective and why is honest conversations so important?
Dr. Alvin Edwards, Pastor of Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church, and President and Founder of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective talked about how the collective was formed. Dr. Michael Cheuk and Rev. Brenda Brown-Grooms, Co-Pastor of New Beginnings Christian Community then talked about how the idea for this event came about, and the importance of future conversations.

​Gratitudes

• Rev. Maren Hange, Pastor of Charlottesville Mennonite Church and Rev. Marilu Thomas, Associate Rector of Christ Episcopal Church for chairing the steering committee for this event.
• Elizabeth Shillue of the Quaker Friends Meeting, Rev. Robert Lewis Pastor of Hinton Ave. United Methodist Church, and Michael Cheuk for being the team that created the resource booklet.
• Michael Cheuk for pictures and video of the event.
• The staff at Carver Recreation Center for allowing us to come and helping us to set up their space.
• Charlene Green of the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights for her on-going consultation and support.
• For all the faith leaders who invited members of their congregations to attend the gathering, and for their courage and work to support further conversations and education about race in the coming weeks and months.

Congregations represented:

• Baha'i Faith Community of Charlottesville
• Bethel Church of God in Christ
• Broadus Memorial Baptist Church
• Charlottesville Community Church
• Charlottesville Friends Meeting
• Charlottesville Mennonite Church
• Christ Episcopal Church
• Congregation Beth Israel
• Cove Presbyterian Church
• Ebenezer Baptist Church
• Faith, Hope and Love International Healing and Deliverance Center
• First Baptist Church, West Main
• First United Methodist Church
• Grace Church Red Hill
• Hinton Avenue United Methodist Church
• Inayati Sufi Order of Charlottesville
• Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville
• Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church
• New Beginnings Christian Community
• Olivet Presbyterian Church
• Peace Lutheran Church
• Pilgrim Baptist Church
• Sojourners United Church of Christ
• St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church
• Tabor Presbyterian Church
• Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church-Unitarian Universalist
• Trinity Episcopal Church
• Unity of Charlottesville
• University Baptist Church
• Westminster Presbyterian Church

There was a great turnout for this year's Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration held at the MLK Performance Arts Center at Charlottesville High School. 

We were led by a 140+ voice choir, and this year's guest speaker was civil rights attorney and ordained minister Cornell W. Brooks, Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School and former president and CEO of the NAACP.
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Below are pictures of the event.

In response to the events of August 11 and 12, 2017, the Charlottesville to Jamestown pilgrimage, sponsored by the Charlottesville Clergy Collective, provided a constructive opportunity for us to take the next step in addressing racism in America and its attending systemic injustices. During our journey, we heard stories and untold histories, we built relationships, and we identified common concerns that need to be transformed in order to bring about racial equity.

Our journey began on Saturday, October 6, 2018, from central Charlottesville. Our first leg took us past Emancipation Park (Market Street Park) and the proposed site for a marker to remember the July 12, 1898 lynching of John Henry James -- an African American man from Charlottesville. We walked on the Saunders-Monticello Trail, and ended up at Monticello for an education and reflection experience at the African American Burial Grounds, and the reading of the name of three hundred and sixty enslaved at Monticello.

During the week of October 8 to 11, we hosted educational and cultural activities in Charlottesville.

We heard Dr. Karenne Wood present the 18,000 year history of the Monacan people here in Virginia.

Mark Charles, a Navajo Christian, presented the untold history of Christianity's role in constructing white supremacy, and the United States' role in perpetrating not only the enslavement of Africans, but also the genocide of native peoples in America.  

On October 12, we traveled to Richmond where we went on a Slave Walk guided by the Elegba Folklore Society, followed by a time of group reflection and discussion at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Richmond.

On October 13, we took a pilgrimage by bus to Historic Jamestowne as we traveled back through history with Mark Summers of Preservation Virginia to learn about the pursuit of commercial ventures and economic profit that led to the enslavement and oppression of Africans and native peoples. We visited Point Comfort, where Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander gave a history of the site where the first ships carrying enslaved Africans landed in 1619. We ended our pilgrimage at Fort Monroe, the Union fort where escaped slaves went to seek asylum during the Civil War. There, we held a final ceremony, and re-read the three hundred and sixty names of the enslaved at Monticello.


The Pilgrimage is sponsored by Charlottesville Clergy Collective, a nonprofit, interfaith organization committed to addressing racism. We have fifty members representing over twelve Christian denominations and four other faith traditions.
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The Pilgrimage was funded by the generous support of BAMA Works Fund of Dave Matthews Band at the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, the Virginia United Methodist Foundation, the New Baptist Covenant, twelve different local faith congregations, and several individual donors. The Baptist Center for Ethics and Monticello provided in-kind services.

​Many thanks to EthicsDaily.com for producing this video.

These "historical markers" were posted on the walls of The Haven during our Interfaith Service as part of our attempt to acknowledge the history of racism and white supremacy in Charlottesville. Many thanks to Rev. Albert Connette of Olivet Presbyterian Church for researching this history and displaying it in such an artistic manner.

Picture credit: Michael Cheuk

Download the worship bulletin for this service.

​To: Ms. Diantha McKeel, the Albemarle County Jail Board, and Colonel Martin Kumer, Regional Jail Superintendent 
From: Members of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective  
Re: ACRJ Notifications to ICE 
 
As  members of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective, we have followed with concern the ongoing community discussion of the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail (ACRJ) decision to continue voluntary notifications to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding release dates of detained members of our community. While we understand that the ACRJ is required to notify ICE when an undocumented person enters the facility, notifying ICE of their release is a choice, not a requirement. 
  
Having received and reviewed a copy of your July 1, 2018 “Concerned Citizen” letter justifying the continuation of this policy, we   strongly encourage the Jail Board to reconsider its decision regarding the matter. 
 
Through ongoing notifications to ICE, the ACRJ Board is effectively facilitating extrajudicial incarcerations based on citizenship status, rather than on a serious criminal offense. The position that the ACRJ Board has taken in notifying ICE aboutpeople who have been cleared to be released has the potential to separate families, hinder undocumented persons from seeking legal means to remain in this country, and create an unjust and even inhumane situation that leads to additional racial profiling of vulnerable community  members.    
 
Since we also understand that attempting to develop a methodology for deciding individual cases would create  undue difficulty, we implore you, the ACRJ Board, to end these ICE notifications altogether. 
 
Sincerely,  

Rev. Phil Woodson, First United Methodist Church 
Rev. Isaac Collins, Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church  
Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin, Congregation Beth Israel  
Rev. Liz Hulme Adam, Tabor Presbyterian Church 
Gail Hyder Wiley, elder, Westminster Presbyterian Church 
Rev. Bill Bray, Elim Korean International Church, Charlottesville 
Rev. Sandra Wisco, ELCA 
Rev. Brittany Caine‑Conley, Congregate Charlottesville  
Rev. Dr. Jill Duffield, Cove Presbyterian Church 
Rev. Jillian Andrzejewski, Mooreland Baptist Church 
Rev. Dr. Eugene T. Locke, Parish Associate Westminster Presbyterian 
Rev. Liz Forney, First Presbyterian Church 
Elizabeth Shillue, Charlottesville Friends Meeting 
Rev. Rabia Povich, Inayati Order 
Rev. Deborah Lewis, Wesley Foundation at UVA 
Rev. Susan A. Minasian, Sojourners United Church of Christ 
Rev. Marilu J. Thomas, Associate Rector Christ Episcopal Church 
Rev. Carol Carruthers Sims, Episcopal Priest, Retired 
Rev. Robert Lewis, Hinton Avenue United Methodist Church 
Rev. Emily Rowell Brown, St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church 
Rev. Dr. Michael Cheuk, Charlottesville Clergy Collective 
Ann Marie Smith Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville  
Rev. Maren Hange, Charlottesville Mennonite Church 
Rev. Dr. Martha Dixon Kearse, Peakland Baptist Church, Lynchburg
Jim Bundy, Retired Minister, United Church of Christ 
Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey, United Church of Christ 
Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Emrey, Co‑Pastor, New Beginnings Christian Community  
Jan Rivero, United Methodist Clergy, retired 
Cynthia Power, Charlottesville Friends Meeting 
Rev. Nicholas Deere, Charlottesville, VA 
Rev. Brenda Brown‑Grooms, Co‑Pastor, New Beginnings Christian Community  
Rabbi Tom Gutherz, Congregation Beth Israel 
Rev. Alvin Edwards, PhD, Senior Pastor, Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church 
Sharon Beckman‑Brindley, Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville 
Rev. Cass Bailey, Trinity Episcopal Church  
Sheikha Latifa Till, Sufi Ruhaniat International 
Rev. Don Lansky, Unity of Charlottesville 
Adam Slate, President, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church, Unitarian Universalist