Putting It Together, Part 2
LESSON 14: MANY PEOPLES
Objective
To explore the opportunities and drawbacks of living as a racially diverse Mennonite
community in 20th century U.S. Galatians 3:28—There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are
one in Christ Jesus.
Key Concepts
• Students will read and evaluate stories from 20th century Mennonites who challenged and experienced racism in the church.
• Students will take a quiz that challenges myths and misperceptions about
Mennonites.
• Students will research key dates and events among the many racial groups that
constitute the Mennonite church in the United States.
Estimated Lesson Time: 50 minutes
Materials
• “Race Matters” handouts (pp. 225-226)
• “Mennonites Today” handouts (p. 227).
• 'Timeline Truths” handout (p. 228-230).
Teacher Preparation
1. Make enough copies of “Race Matters” for each student to have one story. Be
sure that at least two or three students have each one of the stories.
2. Make enough copies of “Mennonites Today” for each student to have one.
3. Make one copy of “Timeline Truths” and cut it into separate slips.
INTRODUCING THE LESSON
Who is a Mennonite? Start the lesson by saying, “Folks gave me some stories, and
he recommended that we take a look at them. His note here says, ‘These are all
true stories. They’ve got good and bad in them. I think your students can handle
it. Best—Folks.’ I took a look at the stories, and I think you can handle them, too.”
Read the following anecdote:
Barbara Grimes was a student at West Philadelphia High School in the
1970s. When she became a member of West Philadelphia Mennonite Church,
women no longer were required to wear a covering—a light mesh cap that
was worn by some Mennonite women as a sign of their spiritual devotion.
People who were not Mennonite thought that all Mennonite women wore coverings, and if they didn’t, they were not Mennonite.
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According to Miriam Stoltzfus, a church member at West Philadelphia
Mennonite, one day someone found out that Barbara was a Mennonite.
People were surprised. Barbara didn’t wear a covering and she was AfricanAmerican. People didn’t think that African-Americans could be Mennonites.
Barbara’s teachers were so surprised that they asked when she had
become a Mennonite. Barbara told her teachers, “I’m not a first-generation
Mennonite. My mother and my grandmother are both Mennonites.”
Barbara had to defend to her teachers that she came from a long line of
Mennonites. Sadly, her mother also had to defend that she had a right to be
a Mennonite. In 1945, Barbara's mother, Florence Corine Baynard (her maiden name) had applied to attend Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg,
Virginia. The college board refused to admit her. Although Florence was able
to attend Hesston College in Hesston, Kansas, and Eastern Mennonite
College reversed their segregationist policy three years later, the message
still remained, almost 30 years later, that only white people were true
Mennonites.
LESSON STEPS
1. Follow-up. Discuss the following questions with your students:
• Why did Barbara have to make a point that she was a third-generation
Mennonite? What would have been surprising about it?
• How do you think this made her feel?
• What do you think were the biggest barriers Barbara faced—in the church
or in the society?
• Is it important to be able to say that we are Mennonites without people ques
tioning it?
• Why would Mennonite church leaders in Virginia have denied Barbara’s
mother’s entry into college?
2. Case the study. Distribute copies of the “Race Matters” stories. Randomly distribute them, so that at least two or three students have the same story, but all of
the stories are represented.
Instruct students to read their story and then identify: 1) if there was a racerelated problem in their story, and 2) if there are any lessons to be learned by
reading the story.
Invite a student to read her or his story aloud, and then have all the students with
the same story share their answers. Following are suggested responses to the stories.
Separate cups and kisses
Problems—The obvious problem is racial segregation. It becomes even more
troubling when you consider that the church should be a place where all
are welcome.
Lessons—Even the church participates in sins of the society. Even the
church needs to repent of a history of participating in racism.
Shaving mustaches
Problems—Again, this story demonstrates an unwelcoming spirit and lack
of sensitivity to a different understanding of the meaning of facial hair.
Although the pastor may have done the same to any baptized candidate, his
action sent a clear message to members of the African-American community
that they were not readily welcome.
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Lessons—The Mennonite Church can learn from mistakes in the past and
be more welcoming in the present.
Eating fried chicken by the road
Problems—The church member telling this story used the phrase “colored
folks” to talk about the African-American people with whom he interacted. It
was the language of his day, yet it also suggests that he saw members of
that group as fundamentally different from himself.
Lessons—Even with these problems, it is possible to relate as Christian
brothers and sisters.
Talking to a taxi driver
Problems—This story demonstrates how individuals, like the taxi driver,
and organizations, like the newspaper, both made it hard for people like
Dr. King to change racist laws in this country. While Paul Landis is a great
example of getting involved, many white Mennonites did not help support
Dr. King’s efforts.
Lessons—We can stop violence with careful nonviolence; good works like
resisting racism do not always get rewarded by society.
Plenty good room
Problems—Segregation sent the message that African-Americans were not
as important as white people.
Lessons—Goldie’s example and the example of the Webb sisters shows that
it is possible to resist racism with humor and strength.
3. Current Events. Distribute copies of the “Mennonites Today” handout. Say,
“Big Idea put this quiz together to help us learn where the history of many peoples worshipping together in the Mennonite Church has taken us. Follow the
directions on the quiz and then we’ll go over the answers together.”
1. There are more white people than people of color who belong to the Mennonite
church in the world. (False. Even without factoring out the people of African,
Asian, Latino, and Native descent, North America and Europe only account for
500,000 of the nearly 1,300,000 members of Mennonite World Conference.)
2. The Bible lifts up the vision of all God’s children being full partners and equal
in the church. (True. For example, Galatians 3:28 says, “There is no longer Jew
or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female;
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”)
3. The Mennonite church has never practiced discrimination or racism. (False.
See “Separate Cups and Kisses” and “Shaving Mustaches,” above.)
4. Within Mennonite Church USA today, Spanish-language congregations
account for less than 3,000 members. (False. Spanish-language congregations
account for more than 4,000 members.)
5. Within Mennonite Church USA today, there are 57 African-American congregations. (True.)
6. The smallest Mennonite church in the United States today is predominantly
African-American. (False. Calvary Community Church in Norfolk, Virginia, a
predominantly African-American congregation, is one of the largest Mennonite
congregations in the U.S.)
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7. On any given Sunday, there are only three languages spoken in Mennonite
churches in the U.S.—English, Cambodian, and Spanish. (False. Many other
languages are also spoken, including Garifuna, Russian, German, and others.)
8. Mennonite Churches in which white people and people of color worship together
on a Sunday morning do not exist. (False. For example, at Community Mennonite
Church in Markham, Illinois, people from many different racial and ethnic
groups worship together. While racially integrated churches are not common,
they do exist in the Mennonite Church and among other Anabaptist communities.)
9. The Mennonite Church has said it wants to be an anti-racist denomination,
where all God’s children are welcome and white people do not always have the
most control. (True. The “Organizational Strategy Culture and Structure for
Mennonite Church USA 2001-2011” document calls for the church to “make
anti-racism a new frontier of peace and justice.”)
10. Mennonites can be from any racial group in the U.S. (True.)
4. Timeline truths. Tell the students, “Timester has come up with a list of important dates to add to our timeline. I’ll pass you a slip of paper with an event and a
date on it. As you write it on the timeline, offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the life
of the person or people you are writing about.”
Distribute slips cut from the “Timeline Truths” handout. Instruct students to
write the dates and descriptions from their slips on the class timeline.
5. Muddiest point. Say, “Big Idea suggested I ask all of you to help me find the
muddiest point from today’s lesson. Take out a slip of paper and write down the
one item from today’s lesson that you would most like to understand better.”
Collect the slips and clarify points as needed.
EXTEND THE LESSON
(These activities will extend the lesson to longer than 50 minutes.)
• Thicken the timeline. Assign students to each find two more items for the
timeline. Point them to www.mcusa-archives.org/Resources/mimorityministriestimeline.html for more information on Mennonites and race history. Invite them to
add details about racial issues from your local community, church, or school.
• Walk in their shoes. Redistribute the “Race Matters” handouts so that each
student has a new story to work with. Assign them to write a five-paragraph essay
on what they would have done if they had been in that situation.
• All God’s children. Make a collage of faces from magazines, representing the
full racial diversity of God’s kingdom, and place it near your timeline.
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Race Matters: Separate cups and kisses
On March 16, 1941, Mennonite church members in Virginia held the first
communion service in Virginia Mennonite Conference with both white and black
members participating. The white church workers and African-American church
members were distressed to discover, however, that white Mennonite church leaders had decided communion needed to be held separately for blacks and whites.
The year before, Virginia Conference leaders had declared that mission workers
and congregation members could practice footwashing, the “holy kiss” (a formal
greeting, in which men kissed men on the cheek and women kissed women on the
cheek), and communion, but they had to do so segregated by race. The
Conference leaders also demanded that individual cups be used in communion so
that white lips and black lips would not touch the same communion cup.
Race Matters: Shaving mustaches
During the late 1950s and into the 1960s, only bishops could offer communion
and perform baptisms in Mennonite churches in many parts of the eastern United
States. Often, bishops did not live near the area where they performed the baptisms
or gave communion. Sometimes they would only meet baptismal candidates for the
first time on the morning of the ceremony. Michael Shenk, a pastor serving in Florida
in 1956, tells the story of a Mennonite bishop who arrived at Newtown Gospel
Chapel near Sarasota, Florida, and found an African-American baptismal candidate
who had a mustache. Despite local church workers’ objections, the bishop took
the candidate into a Sunday school room, where he trimmed the man’s mustache
with a pair of blunt Sunday school scissors before proceeding with the ceremony.
Race Matters: Eating fried chicken by the road
A white, older member of a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, congregation wrote these
reflections on events during the 1940s or 1950s while he was visiting a missionary
congregation in a community known as Welsh Mountain. He refers to interactions
he had with African-American members of the Welsh Mountain mission:
One of the things that greatly impressed me was the love and devotion the Joe
Lehman family had for the colored people. I’m sure the church could never have had
a better man.
Their feelings toward the colored folks soon rubbed off on me. It was quite hard
at first, but God’s grace was sufficient. I soon found myself taking communion with
them—drinking from the same cup, kneeling on their floors in cottage meetings, eating
from their tables and on several occasions they ate at our table in our home.
Another experience I’ll never forget: One Sunday when I attended service at the
Welsh Mountain Mission, the mother I referred to before invited me to her home for
dinner. Of course I accepted. She had fried chicken. But what I didn’t know at the
time was that the table was out on the lawn aside the public road. I have no idea
what people thought as they drove by, but from my viewpoint, these were my
Christian friends, and fried chicken never tasted better.
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Race Matters: Talking to a taxi driver
Paul G. Landis was riding to the airport in a taxi. The day before, he had met
with the African-American civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the
middle part of the 1960s, when many white people in the United States were
resisting changes to racial segregation laws, talking with a person like Dr. King could
be controversial. As director of the Voluntary Service organization of Lancaster
Mennonite Conference, Paul had met with Dr. King to discuss nonviolence. After
their meeting, Paul attended a large meeting where Dr. King was speaking. Paul
was the only white person in the room of 3,000. During his speech, Dr. King said,
“We will overcome the white man’s hatred with love.” He told the people listening
to him that they needed to end any hate they had toward white people.
While Paul was in the taxi the next morning, he noticed the cab driver’s newspaper. The headline read, “We will overcome the white man.” The newspaper made
no mention of Dr. King’s call for love. Paul decided to speak up. He said, “I was
there last night. That title is not fair. Dr. King actually said, 'We will overcome the
white man with love.’ ” The taxi driver got angry with Paul and called him an
awful name. Then he pulled over to the side of the road and told Paul that he
wouldn’t take him to the airport.
Paul looked at the man’s license in the cab and calmly said, “Are you Mr. _____?
And is this cab number ____?” Although he didn’t say so directly, Paul was letting
the taxi driver know that he would report him if he made him get out of the cab.
Without a word, the cab driver pulled the taxi back on to the road and drove to
the airport. Paul remembers, “When he let me out at the airport, and I went to
pay him with a big tip, he said, 'I won’t take a cent from any [deleted racial slur]
Yankee.’ I was shaking. . .”
Race Matters: Plenty good room
Goldie Hostetler told this story in March of 2002 about her experience as a
young woman during the 1950s. At the time she told the story, she was 81 years
old.
I went back to Eastern Mennonite College in the 1950s for a semester, or for one
year. One summer, my mother and one of my sisters was living in Delaware. I took
two of Roberta Webb’s daughters to Delaware and we worked in a seafood restaurant.
I sat on the bus on the way [to Delaware], in the back [where African-Americans
were forced to sit at that time]. I could have sat on a seat by myself, so that white
folks could sit by me. Instead, I sat with one of the girls and the other sat in the
seat before me. No one sat by her [which made for crowded conditions in the front
of the bus.] We were a little bit ornery. On the way up, we sang that song, “There’s
Plenty Good Room in my Father’s Kingdom.”
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Mennonites Today
I put this quiz together so you could learn about Mennonites today. We had
some hard times in the past, learning to deal with racism inside the church, and
we've got some hard times ahead of us. But there are also some good things
happening. Take this quiz to find out more. Just circle whether each statement is
true or false.
- Big Idea
1. There are more white people than people of color who belong to the Mennonite
church in the world.
True. False.
2. The Bible lifts up the vision of all God’s children being full partners and equal
in the church.
True. False.
3. The Mennonite church has never practiced discrimination or racism.
True. False.
4. Within Mennonite Church USA today, Spanish-language congregations account
for less than 3,000 members.
True. False.
5. Within Mennonite Church USA today, there are 57 African-American congregations.
True. False.
6. The smallest Mennonite church in the United States today is predominantly
African-American.
True. False.
7. On any given Sunday, there are only three languages spoken in Mennonite
churches in the U.S.—English, Cambodian, and Spanish.
True. False.
8. Mennonite Churches in which white people and people of color worship together
on a Sunday morning do not exist.
True. False
9. The Mennonite Church has said it wants to be an anti-racist denomination, where
all God’s children are welcome and white people do not always have the most control.
True. False.
10. Mennonites can be from any racial group in the U.S.
True. False.
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Timeline Truths
1893
First Mennonite urban home mission is started in Chicago, Illinois.
April 21, 1897
In Juniata, Pa., Bishop J. N. Brubacher baptizes Robert and Mary
Elizabeth Carter, and their 18-year-old son, Cloyd, who become the first
African-American members baptized into the Mennonite Church.
1910
Simon Del Basque is one of the first African-Americans to be baptized
into the Mennonite Church at Tuleta Mennonite Church, Texas.
April 29, 1934
The first North American Hispanic Mennonite church, Lawndale Mennonite
Church, is established with the first Hispanic pastor, David Castillo.
1943
Juanita Lark is the first African-American graduate of Goshen (Indiana)
College, after two years at Hesston (Kansas) College.
1944
James Lark becomes the first African-American Mennonite pastor. He is
appointed to serve in Chicago.
1945
Lancaster Conference sponsors an integrated voluntary service unit in
Gulfport, Mississippi.
1955
James Lark is the first black bishop in the Mennonite Church.
1955
Jeanie Hershey teaches Sunday school at what later becomes 10th Street
Mennonite Church in Wichita, Kansas. “This was while a student at Hesston
College, paving the way for rest-of-life involvement in cross-cultural work.”
November 22, 1958
Tito Guedea and Rachel Bixler attempt to integrate the
Mennonite Church through marriage.
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1961-63
Lyn Hershey works with the voter registration movement in Mississippi while
he is pastor at Wichita, Kansas.
August 25, 1964
Paul G. Landis calls for interracial fellowships in Gospel Herald.
July 23-30, 1967
During Mennonite World Conference in Amsterdam, Vincent Harding
challenges delegates with these words: “We clearly control the power,
subtle power, like the power of Mennonite prestige, the power of middleclass respectability, the power of whiteness.”
1968
“In the spring of 1968, we received our first black members in baptism at
Omaha (Nebraska) Mennonite Church”—Morris Stauffer.
October 1968
Representatives of urban interracial churches form the Urban Racial
Council. Lee Roy Berry, Gerald Hughes, Hubert Schwartzentruber,
John Powell and John Ventura are elected as the first officers.
June 7, 1969
John Powell is appointed Executive Secretary for Minority Ministries
Council.
1970
Calvary Mennonite Christian Day School in Inglewood, California, begins. It
is the first Black Mennonite elementary school.
1971
Lupe DeLeon is appointed Associate Executive Secretary of Minority
Ministries Council of the Mennonite Church to represent Hispanic interests.
1974
Hubert Brown is appointed Executive Secretary of Student & Young Adult
Services for Mennonite Board of Missions—the first African-American in a
position not directly focused on the African-American community.
1980
Wilma Ann Bailey is the first woman licensed for ministry in the IndianaMichigan Conference at Grace Chapel, Saginaw, Michigan.
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1986
Leslie Francisco III becomes the second African-American Mennonite bishop
commissioned in the Mennonite Church.
1997
Dwight McFadden is affirmed moderator of the Mennonite Church at the
Mennonite convention in Orlando.
1991
As a mixed Anglo and Native American (Seneca Tribe), Bob Tice is the first
licensed and ordained Native American in the Mennonite Church in the New
York State Conference.
June 1995
Iris DeLeon-Hartshorn is ordained by the Western District and South Central
Conference (MC) in Houston, Texas. She is one of the first Latina women to
be ordained to ministry in the Mennonite church.
—Developed from author’s research and “A Historical Timeline of Minority and Urban Ministry
in the United States, 1910-1997,” developed by John E. Sharp (www.mcusa-archives.org/
Resources/minorityministriestimeline.html). Used by permission.
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