The following story first appeared in the Spring 2000 Glenmary Challenge.
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Healing Comes to Todd County
Ecumenical cooperation overcomes prejudice,
promotes reconciliation
By Jean Bach  

Ecumenical leader Evelyn Boone (far right) joins in celebrating community diversity at St. Susan Catholic Church.

On the surface, those at St. Susan Catholic Church in Elkton, Ky., seemed to be gathering for an ordinary prayer service. But on this October 1999 evening, the service was extraordinary as were the participants. They were black, white, Latino, Catholic, Protestant and Mormon. They were—and are—a living example of how racism and religious intolerance can be overcome.

When the Rev. Dewayne Golightly drove into Todd County, Ky., five years ago as the new pastor of Philip’s Chapel CME Church, one of the first images he saw was a Confederate battle flag waving in front of a home along Rt. 68, the main thoroughfare through the county. For the African-American minister, the site was disconcerting. “I didn’t know what was meant by those who chose to fly the flag,” he says. Was it a sense of Southern pride? Or support for the local high school team, nicknamed the Rebels? Or was it an underlying symbol of racism?

This flag and its ambiguous connotations were at the center of what has become known locally as “the incident.” A racially motivated shooting in 1995 had the potential to destroy this community. But, “because of concerned, level-headed people from the community leadership and churches the fuse was never lit,” according to Evelyn Boone, the former owner of the local newspaper and long-time Todd County resident. Glenmary Father Tom Charters, pastor of two Glenmary missions in the county at that time, was part of that “level-headed” leadership that helped lead the community through a very dark period and into a future where ecumenical and interracial gatherings are now part of who this community is.

Impressions
The Rev. Golightly soon realized the Confederate flag was not a racist symbol for the community he has come to know. Just a few years after his arrival, he was asked to give the baccalaureate address at Todd County Central High School—the first in the school’s history delivered by an African American. His message was about looking at each other as people made in the image and likeness of God, looking past the outside to the real person. He would have never been asked to preside 20 years ago, maybe not even 10 years ago, according to Evelyn Boone, because of the color of his skin.

Todd County, located in southwestern Kentucky on the Tennessee border, is much like any other rural county. Elkton, the county seat, has a town square surrounding the courthouse. There is a local diner that fills at lunchtime as the waitress calls the customers by name. Robert Penn Warren, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born in Todd County in 1905. Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, was born in the county in 1808. A 351-foot concrete obelisk now marks his birthplace.

Churches of various denominations are spread throughout the county. Glenmary Father Mike Caroline now pastors the two Glenmary missions: St. Susan in Elkton and St. Mary and St. James in Guthrie. It’s a rural area, with crops dominating the landscape during the growing season. It’s a community that is friendly, welcoming and caring. It’s also a community that has faced its fair share of pain and turmoil in the past five years.

The ‘Incident’
That’s how local residents refer to the shooting that took place five years ago in Guthrie. In January 1995 Michael Westerman, 19, was fatally shot as he and his wife, Hannah, drove toward Nashville for an evening out after the birth of their twins five weeks earlier. Westerman was white. His assailants were black.

Westerman was flying the Confederate flag from the bed of his pickup truck.

There are conflicting stories of the events leading up to the shooting. The African-American youth claimed racial remarks were yelled at them by Westerman. Hannah maintained in her testimony during the trial that her husband did not issue such remarks.

But the flag, not just words, may have also contributed to the shooting. Tony Andrews, then 17, was in the front passenger seat of the car from which the shot was fired. He was quoted in an article published in the Lexington Herald Leader, that “It’s a flag for people that like slavery.” He also said he and his friends set out only to scare someone they assumed was a white racist.

Hannah said her husband flew the flag for the Rebels, the local high school’s mascot. Westerman graduated from Todd County Central High School in 1993. The African-American teens accused and later found guilty of the shooting attended the same high school.

The shooting set in motion events that were potentially explosive. National and local media converged on Todd County, fanning the flames as residents tried to deal with the situation. Crisis counselors were called in for the students at the high school, who were also dealing with an unrelated suicide of a fellow student that same weekend—Martin Luther King, Jr., weekend.

The community was publicly divided and tempers were flaring, especially over the issue of the high school mascot. Discussions of replacing the mascot because of its negative connotation were ongoing prior to the shooting but heated up significantly following the shooting. After many open forums and debates, the decision was made by the school board to keep the mascot.

Most importantly, immediately after the shooting, work began at area churches to help the community come back together.

Fifth Sunday Service
Father Tom Charters described the after-effects of the incident in an interview with Glenmary communications staff a year after the shooting. He talked of seeing the Ku Klux Klan demonstrate on the town square; of the many meetings, sometimes very angry meetings, in which people voiced their opinions about the school mascot issue; he talked of the tense atmosphere at the school in the weeks immediately following the shooting as students were searched “like in an airport.” Things were far from ordinary in Todd County.

“The ministers and civic leaders responded immediately following the shooting,” Father Tom Charters said. He was part of the leadership team that reached out to the community and the high school students.

Out of all those negatives, the members of the local ministerial association met and decided to hold an ecumenical service on the fifth Sunday of the month to help bring the community together. The first service was held at the Baptist church with a black minister as the speaker. That was in 1995, and it was standing room only.

Since that time, every month with a fifth Sunday means a gathering at one of the Todd County churches. If, for example, Petrie Memorial Methodist Church hosts the event, the speaker could be Father Mike Caroline with Rev. Golightly’s church members providing the music and Bishop Paul Addison of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints delivering the Scripture reading.

Evelyn Boone, involved in Fifth Sunday since its inception, is a member of Petrie Memorial Methodist which has the largest congregation second to the Baptists. “It’s a sad thing,” she says. “We talk about unity, love, working together, but on Sunday morning we are so segregated. It’s not something unique to our area, but it’s something we need to work on.”

They have worked on it. Last summer, Petrie Memorial and Philip’s Chapel held a very successful combined Vacation Bible School which “would not have happened eight years ago,” Evelyn Boone says. Rev. Golightly was asked last summer to preach at a revival of a predominately white Methodist Church in northern Todd County. “We’re actually getting out there and getting to know our neighbors through our churches,” says the Rev. John Reilly of Petrie Memorial.

It’s not all been easy, though. There are some people, Evelyn Boone says, who think people “like us” are crazy and wouldn’t step foot into a church of another denomination let alone in a church of another race. “But people are going to feel that way until they meet someone, sit down with them and talk to them,” the Rev. Golightly says.

Three-Pronged Approach
A three-pronged approach has developed from the Fifth Sunday Service to help people sit down, listen and talk. The first is the ministerial association, which has become larger and stronger as ministers have gotten to know each other and plan the Fifth Sunday Services.

Father Mike Caroline, who has led the Elkton and Guthrie parishes since August, has been very impressed with the ecumenism he has witnessed. “The crowd that we had at the October service was very diverse,” he says. “We’ve had larger crowds, but not quite so diverse. The diversity represents what we’re trying to do, in blending cultures.”

The second is the Interfaith Center which serves those in need in the community. The Rev. Reilly says there are seven churches which sponsor the center. Prior to the Interfaith Center, he says, those in need literally went from minister to minister seeking help. Now, assistance is more organized with all requests for assistance referred to the Center. The collection taken at the Fifth Sunday Service goes directly to the Interfaith Center.

The final prong is the Diversity Community Committee. In place before the shooting, it has been utilized extensively in the years since the shooting. Now the committee, which includes Father Mike Caroline and other clergy representatives as well as community leaders, parents and students, works to raise the awareness of students as well as the community at large about diversity issues. This awareness is fostered through speakers and programs in the elementary and high schools as well as in the community.

“Awareness has been heightened,” according to Charles Ed Wilson, superintendent of the Todd County Schools. “We feel the diversity committee is a community organization that serves, listens and educates the community.”

The Future
For this community, the worst is behind it, and the best lies in its future. “We’re not pushing people to join us because we know this isn’t for everyone. Some attitudes are just held too strongly,” Father Mike Caroline says. “We’re just doing what we feel is right.”

That means continuing Fifth Sunday as well as the diversity programs and education. Long held beliefs and attitudes are being chipped away little by little.

“We’re a better community today,” Evelyn Boone says, “because of the quality of the people who live in Todd County, and the Christian commitment on the part of a whole lot of people. We care together, work hard and are honest with one another.”

“It took a lot of strength of character—especially from the white community—to get where we are today,” the Rev. Golightly says. “If there are not white leaders in the community who speak up on behalf of unity, then the black community is up a creek without a paddle. We can talk about unity all we want, but without leadership to implement what we’re talking about, it’s an impossible situation.”

The situation in Todd County is far from impossible as is witnessed at the celebration of each Fifth Sunday Service. The steps toward healing and reconciliation taken in this community can be implemented anywhere there is openness of heart and mind, Evelyn Boone says.

“We are not competitors in the Gospel,” Father Mike Caroline says of the many churches in Todd County. “But we are cooperators and coworkers helping to build the reign of God in the county and in the world.”