Recent days have seen clergy and faith leaders in the US join in protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Here are a photo essay depicting some of the protests of the past…
In recent days, pastors, priests, imams, rabbis and other faith leaders have joined protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. They’ve handed out water and provided medical care and other support for protesters, been tear-gassed, prayed, marched in the streets and declared that Black Lives Matter.
In doing so, they followed in the footsteps of clergy and ordinary believers who marched for civil rights and for equal rights for women, demanded an end to poverty and the Vietnam War, and denounced the use of nuclear arms.
A look at some historic protests, from the archives of Religion News Service:
Religious, labour and civil rights leaders from New York City came to the nation’s capital for a 1963 March on Washington to urge early passage of the civil rights bill without “crippling amendments.” Some of the 1200 marchers are shown arriving at Union Station. PICTURE: RNS archive
On 28th August, 1963, Rev Martin Luther King, Jr, addressed the crowd gathered during the March on Washington, delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech. PICTURE: RNS Archive photo.
Rev William Hogan, of St Martin’s Catholic Church in Chicago, is carried off by police in a civil rights demonstration protesting racial imbalance in the Chicago’s public schools, on 29th June, 1965. The priest was one of 80 white and black demonstrators arrested when they held a rush hour sit-in at a busy intersection outside Chicago City Hall. PICTURE: RNS archive photo
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, is struck by a rock during a march in Chicago on 5th August, 1966. PICTURE: RNS archive photo.
Left – Rev David Andrews, assistant chaplain at Morgan State College, is shown being taken into custody by police while protesting at Gwynn Oak Amusement Park, near Baltimore, Maryland, in 1963. Protestant, Catholic and Jewish clergymen have been among some 300 persons arrested in a series of efforts to integrate the privately owned Gwynn Oak Amusement Park. In one of the anti-segregation demonstrations outside the park, Rev David Andrews donned a red, white and blue “Uncle Sam” outfit to symbolize the fight for racial equality. He was arrested on trespassing charges; Right – Police carry off a demonstrator identified as Barbara Minor, of Denver, after breaking up an anti-air war protest during chapel services at the Air Force Academy, near Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1971. Thirty-one protestors, including seven nuns, six clergymen and 19 lay people were detained briefly by Air Police and county sheriff’s officers for handing out pamphlets denouncing continued US bombings in South-East Asia. Some 60 members of Clergy and Laymen Concerned joined in a non-violent silent witness during Catholic and Protestant services at the chapel, seen in the background. One protestor left the service every five minutes to dramatise a claim that US bombs are killing 300 civilians – or about one every five minutes – every day in Laos and Cambodia. PICTURES: RNS archive photo.
A mother and her child join a massive peace march in New York, part of a nationwide protest against the war in Vietnam, in 1971. In addition to protesting the war, demonstrators carried banners and heard speeches attacking racism, the wage freeze, the Attica prison tragedy and the atom bomb test on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians. PICTURE: RNS archive photo; courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.
Members of Church Women United, a national movement of Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox women, launch a “Spirit Walk” on the boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey, led by national president, Rev Mary Louise Rowand, on 7th March, 1980. PICTURE: Janet Charles/RNS
Part of a crowd of 25,000 demonstrators march along Chicago’s lakefront on 10th May, 1980, in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Three hundred delegations, some from as far away as Alaska, gathered for the downtown rally, in an event billed as the centrepiece of a lobbying effort leading up to an Illinois ratification vote scheduled for 14th May. PICTURE: RNS archive photo
These photos and more can be found in the RNS archives at the Presbyterian Historical Society. Special thanks to Allison Davis of the PHS for help in assembling this collection.
