c. 1998 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Last summer, the United Church of Christ considered a seemingly simple resolution at its annual meeting encouraging each church in the denomination to display a portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in their buildings.

But the effort was defeated, in part because some delegates worried such a symbolic act would allow churches to avoid taking a more active stand against racism.

Earlier this month, a suggestion to name a new high school in Riverside, Calif., after King was greeted with protests from white parents who were afraid the school would be branded as a predominantly black school. The name was adopted, but only after two hours of debate in which some parents argued King wasn’t famous in some local communities.

The grappling over these modest attempts to honor King are emblematic of a much deeper wrangling over racial issues across the nation. As President Clinton’s initiative on race continues holding discussions from Ohio to Arizona, some say the disputes demonstrate King’s goals of justice for all have not yet been achieved; others maintain such conversations are merely a waste of time.”I think grappling is a good sign,”said Sister Paul Teresa Hennessee, an associate director of the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute in New York.”I think conflict is always a good sign of life. If we stop doing that and have bland feelings about it … then I think things are beginning to die.” The struggle over racial justice is what King lived and died for, said Hennessee, who oversees the Desk for African-American Churches of the institute, a Roman Catholic ministry aimed at fostering Christian unity.”I think his whole life had to do with that same struggle,”she said.”That’s the value of what he gave us.” Bernice Powell Jackson, executive director of the Commission for Racial Justice of the UCC, said her denomination has long been supportive of King and his principles, but some members were torn over whether the particular suggestion raised last summer for honoring him was appropriate.

In response, her office plans to send a picture of King and a study guide of his sermons and speeches focusing on economic justice to each of the denomination’s more than 6,000 churches. They are scheduled to arrive by April 4, the 30th anniversary of King’s assassination.

Holding on to King’s name and goals is part of the process toward improved race relations, Jackson believes.”He was so much more than any one group,”she said, reacting to the situation in Riverside, Calif.”That’s kind of tragic that that’s been lost and these folks are reacting in that particular way. It shows you that we do have a long way to go.” Despite the questions about some symbolic acts, interfaith gatherings are held in King’s honor across the country during the days surrounding the anniversary of his birth, on Jan. 15, and the national holiday named for him, celebrated this year on Jan. 19.”I think that the best way to honor Martin Luther King, though, is … for each individual, for each person, for each local church or congregation or each city … to begin to address the issues that were so important to him, the issues of nonviolence, the issues of economic justice as well as equal opportunity,”Jackson said.

Hennessee pointed to a challenge in addressing issues upheld by King in today’s society: People want reconciliation but they’re afraid of conflict.”We can never have reconciliation without going right through the conflict and conflict is not always negative,”she said.

Affirmative action has become one of the flashpoints of the conflict.

Hennessee, a supporter of affirmative action, sees efforts like California’s Proposition 209, which bars the state government from using race-based or gender preferences in public hiring and school admissions, as signs some people no longer want to wrestle with racial issues.”It’s some final conclusions many people have come to, unfortunately,”she said.

The Rev. Earl Jackson, president of the Boston-based Samaritan Project, a spinoff of the conservative Christian Coalition, said he is glad to see what he called”the dusk of affirmative action.” Instead, he said, he preferred what he called”affirmative opportunity,”which focuses on helping all disadvantaged people. He supports a”universal school scholarship system”_ he prefers not to use the term”vouchers”because it has become a”dirty word”_ to help poor people send their children to the schools of their choice.”I think affirmative action needs to end, but I think we need to also have a positive vision for how we maintain upward mobility in America,”said Jackson, whose program aims to help minority communities with faith-based solutions to social problems.

Jackson does not say affirmative action should be ended because King’s goals have been realized. But he does think some of King’s goals have been achieved.”We removed virtually all of the legal impediments to the progress of black people and other minorities,”he said.”But what we have not done, it seems to me, is dealt with the cultural problem of the division between blacks and whites and browns and yellows, both as groups and individuals.” (OPTIONAL TRIM _ STORY MAY END HERE.)

But Jackson said the president’s initiative on race has not been the answer and he prefers a grassroots discussion.

However, Bernice Powell Jackson, of the United Church of Christ, said Clinton’s initiative continues King’s efforts, but she also hoped for more action.”We’re 30 years after his death and many of those very hard issues around economic justice … have yet to be addressed and we’ve got to do that as a nation,”she said.

She said she saw glimmers of hope in the partnerships and friendships growing out of work by African-Americans and others to help black churches that have burned in recent years.”In many ways, as tragic as the fact that black churches are still burning is, in other ways it shows that good can triumph over evil,”she said.

People who may disagree on the approach to solving racial problems share the sense people need to keep talking and attempting to reach some kind of consensus.

Earl Jackson said when he speaks about racial reconciliation across the country, he tells whites they can’t claim to be Christian when they don’t even raise questions about cases of apparent police brutality against African-Americans. Likewise, he tells blacks they can’t say”white people are racists”and then complain about whites stereotyping them.”I think that the racial situation in this country is far better than a lot of black leaders want to make it out to be and it’s a lot worse than a lot of white people in denial want to make it out to be,”he said.

Though there is a lack of consensus, some, like Hennessee, refuse to give up.”There are some who say that racism will always be with us and I will not say that,”she said.”I think it’s a human disposition that can be changed.”

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