Just Grace
Justice. Equality. Grace.
ASLC Statement on Anti-Transgender Legislation
Just Grace advocates for racial and social justice through education and facilitating the difficult conversations that lead to change and by working within the congregation and surrounding communities toward dismantling systemic racism.
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June 17, 2015 and June 19, 1865 mark two important dates for us to acknowledge as we confront our nation’s history of racism.
June 17: Emanuel Nine Commemoration and Day of Repentance
On June 17, 2015, Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Lee Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson were murdered as they gathered for Bible study and prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (often referred to as Mother Emanuel) in Charleston, South Carolina. The perpetrator, Dylann Roof, was a self-professed white supremacist as well as a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Columbia, South Carolina. Pastors Pinckney and Simmons were both graduates of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. A resolution to commemorate June 17 as a day of repentance for the martyrdom of the Emanuel Nine was adopted by the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on August 8, 2019.
As stated on the ELCA’s website, “Our relationship to the shooter, as well as two of the slain, reminds us of both our complicity and our calling. Together we confess that we are in bondage to the sins of racism and white supremacy and, at the same time, we rejoice in the freedom that is ours in Christ Jesus who ‘has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us’ (Ephesians 2:14). May God continue to guide us as we seek repentance and renewal, and racial justice and reconciliation among God’s precious children.” We are invited, individually and collectively, as members of the body of Christ, to mark June 17 with penitence and prayer.
June 19: Celebration of Juneteenth National Freedom Day
Juneteenth, the “other Independence Day” and the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the US, alludes to the events of June 19, 1865, when Union troops first delivered the news to slaves in Galveston, Texas, that slavery had ended. The pronouncement reached Texas two and a half years after Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Why the extensive delay? Many theories have been posited: that the messenger commissioned to deliver the news was killed along the way, that plantation owners purposely withheld the news from their captive labor force, that Lincoln’s proclamation simply wasn’t enforceable in the Confederate South.
The notification of freedom, conveyed to Texan slaves via “General Orders No. 3,” conferred “an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.” Yet, at the same time, the order advised all former slaves to “remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages, warning them that they would not be allowed “to collect at military posts.” Nor would they “be supported in idleness there or elsewhere.” Witnesses recounted the beating, lynching and shooting of slaves attempting to flee their plantations upon receipt of the news of emancipation. Other former slaves, knowing no alternative, continued to work in servitude, incurring the same punishments they had endured prior to receiving the news of their freedom. Conditions in Texas remained status quo long after emancipation, as they did throughout much of the South.
In the years following 1865 and the “scatter” that drove many former slaves to leave Texas, the Juneteenth celebration was a time to pray, to reassure each other in the face of an unknown future, and to gather remaining family members. Juneteenth was declared an official Texas state holiday in 1980. Today 47 states recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday, and a years-long endeavor continues to declare it a national holiday. To learn more about the significance of this day in our history, we encourage you to read Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth, one of the featured books in our 2021 Just Grace Virtual Book Fair.
Juneteenth Virtual Book Fair
In celebration of Juneteenth National Freedom Day, the Just Grace Committee is preparing a virtual book fair that will be available for your browsing on the All Saints website and Just Grace Facebook page by mid-June. Individual committee members have selected one or two books to highlight that have made a personal impact on them. Their recommendations will include a brief summary of the book’s content together with their own personal reflections. Our 2019 Just Grace Book-Pick Table was a big hit among the Saints. We hope you will take the time to browse this year’s book picks as well, even if they are presented to you virtually!
January 6, 2021 ASLC Statement on Violence in the Capitol
Just Grace Annual Report
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Resolution on Racial Justice
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