I've Been Thinking About The Protests

I’ve been thinking about the protests. My thinking is prejudiced by my personal observations of protests about Open Housing in Louisville in the 1960s. Judy and I were in Louisville at Southern Seminary from 1964 – 1968. I was in Dr. Henlee Barnette's Social Ethics class and we were looking at protests as a social/moral ethic. The class went downtown one afternoon to observe and/or participate in a protest around the Court House for legislation favoring open housing. Open Housing was that anyone, especially someone of color, could legally purchase a house anywhere in Louisville. The protestors sat on the steps, prayed and sang hymns. When the Police arrived, the protestors went willingly to the police vans. The protestors were not loud, shoving, disorderly, etc. In fact they would often ask the name of the policeman so they could pray for them, which they did on-the-spot. I wasn’t on the steps of the building so I was not going to be arrested. Those 1960s protests were about moral or ethical persuasion. Before we went downtown, we were reminded of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi’s peaceful protests. We prayed before we drove downtown. We pledged to each other a peaceful protest and cooperation with the authorities. Today’s protests seem different than those of the 1960s. Today’s protests bother me. I’m not so certain their methods are seeking moral persuasion. They ask for justice, which is an appropriate request and one I support; that’s the legal ground of he protests. There is, also, a moral ground for protests. That moral ground is asking that we treat all people as you want to be treated because all of us are one family, created in God’s image.