My husband, Art, is an African American man who was born in 1927.
When he was a young boy living in San Francisco and attending Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church, he asked the priest if he could be an altar boy. “I’m sorry,” the priest said, “but we don’t have colored altar boys.”
Later,as a young man serving his country in the army in Joplin, Missouri, he was asked by a sick friend to fill in at his job at a near-by protestant church, which involved turning the furnace down after the Sunday service. He arrived early and, not being familiar with the layout of the church or aware that the service had begun, he opened the door to the main area and was looking directly at the minister and two deacons who sat on either side of him. The minister stopped in the middle of his sermon and said “What are you doing in here, boy?” Before he could process what was happening, the two men on the altar came rushing down the aisle, grabbed him by each arm and escorted him out, telling him “You don’t belong here!”
Later,as a young man serving his country in the army in Joplin, Missouri, he was asked by a sick friend to fill in at his job at a near-by protestant church, which involved turning the furnace down after the Sunday service. He arrived early and, not being familiar with the layout of the church or aware that the service had begun, he opened the door to the main area and was looking directly at the minister and two deacons who sat on either side of him. The minister stopped in the middle of his sermon and said “What are you doing in here, boy?” Before he could process what was happening, the two men on the altar came rushing down the aisle, grabbed him by each arm and escorted him out, telling him “You don’t belong here!”
When Art told me about this, several years into our marriage, he cried. I had never seen him cry before, and my heart broke as he asked, in an anguished wail, “If I couldn’t be safe in the house of God, where could I be safe?”
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