At one point the reverend for the black church became seriously ill and asked my father to substitute for him while he recovered. The reverend’s congregation offered to move their service to the afternoon so my dad could preach for them after he was finished with his own Sunday-morning service. It was during those afternoons that I first heard the joyful gospel music and the unrestrained “Amen"s that were so different from the subdued propriety of the white congregation’s services.
So it was no surprise when Dad invited members from the black congregation to attend our church’s summer revival, a week of preaching services that featured a speaker from out of town. As the week’s services began, a few black visitors came to our church and sat in the back rows of the sanctuary. In the past such visits had been quietly accepted, but this was a summer of discontent throughout the South. My dad’s invitation brought discomfort too close to home.
Soon followed the solemn visit to our home by the church elders. After that Dad was no longer the preacher. Nonetheless, my parents stayed in the same town and my father went on to become reverend for another congregation. Before long, schools, churches and lunch counters were integrated, and today children learn about those years in history classes.
Now, whenever I read a story about heroes of the civil-rights movement, I realize that I’ve been blessed to know one. Dad never needed to tell us to judge people for who they were and not by the color of their skin, or to treat people who disagreed with us with respect. He showed us. And in the midst of troubled times, I learned that change doesn’t just happen on the big battlefields. It also comes from little victories won by individual heroes.
