Urban Affairs Report; James Forman In The Riverside Church

[wind and microphone noise] [kids playing] [kids playing] [kids playing] [music starts] "[Host]: Urban Affairs reports each weekend this time VWRVR Urban Affairs Unit examines the issues that effect urban life. Tonight, communion Sunday at Riverside. [music cont.] Goodevening. The ?ferment? of our time

spilled over into riverside church this week. It happened on Sunday morning when black militant leader James Forman, accompanied by a group of associates, disrupted the morning communion service. By yesterday, Riverside Church had joined the schools and colleges and their troubles on page 1 of the New York Times. WRVR, the radio station the Riverside Church, will devote its urban affairs report tonight, to this incident on it's home ground. First, the background. Last Saturday evening, Mr. foreman called on Dr. Ernest T. Campbell, preaching minister, to reside and ask permission to read during the Sunday services, a series of demands aimed at the church and refer to as a black manifesto. Mr. Foreman, who was the first executive secretary of SNCC, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, was representing the national black economic development conference. Dr. Campbell denied the request, saying that it was a communion Sunday, but old Foreman that he could pass out his manifesto before the service, and to all intensive purposes, that was how it was going to be on

Sunday morning. What finally happened came as a complete surprise. WRVR was on the air as usual, that is, we were broadcasting the service live as we do each Sunday morning at 10:45am. Organist, Frederick Swan had played the usual Oregon Prelude and ?swung into the long opening hymn?. The congregation was nearing the end of the hymn when our engineer heard a commotion. Dr. Campbell began to speak, then his voice trailed off. The organ began again, loudly, but Mr. Foreman was heard through the music, and eventually the music stopped. Mr. Foreman had come up to the ?chancel? and Dr. Forman had stepped down and he, the other participating clergyman, the choir, and some parishioners left the ?inaudible?. Mr. Forman then spoke to the remainder of the congregation. Here is what our machines recorded." [organ music] [choir joins in] [organ and choir music cont.]

[organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.]

[organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.]

[organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [organ and choir music cont.] [inaudible background speaking] "[speaker]: I'd like to invite the

the attention of the congregation. [ruffling papers] [inaudible background speaker interrupting church service] [inaudible background speaker interrupting church service] [inaudible background speaker interrupting church service] [inaudible background speaker interrupting church service]

"[speaker]: We asked him to give us time to read the Black Manifesto. He refused stating that today May 4th 1969 was a day of communion. We asked him for another date because we understood that it was a day of communion, and that we did not want to interrupt this day of communion. [to someone else] Just a moment. [to everyone] He refused to give us another date. He refused any date and stated that after all this was a theological question, and that the Black Manifesto was a socialogical paper. The Black Manifesto has been adopted by the general board of the National Council of Churches, which met just Friday, representing all of the different nominations. It was accepted by two of the highest episcopal bishops in this city, on May 1, 1969. The Riverside Churches in the heart of the Harlem community as are a few other racist institutions. The demands for black people are relevant to any church which is operating in or near a black community or anywhere in the United States, for that matter. Based upon the refusal to grant us the privilege of publicity reading the manifesto, we have

resorted to making this statement: incidentally he said, he would most likely have us arrested if we attempted a ?lock-in? on any church property. By these words, he is showing his true white racism regardless of the facade that he tries to present that he is SO liberal he really wants to help the negro. In conversation he told us about his black girlfriends that he used to have in Harlem to indicate how liberal he really is. We have tried to be very reasonable. [fades out] [?inaudible?] - quietly in Harlem, so that Harlem black community will become aware of the racist nature of the Riverside Church and its leadership, especially its leadership. And we are assure you that if these demands are not met, the Harlem

community will begin to take appropriate action. But, no church has the right to exist if it cannot respond to the needs of black people if its located near a black community. We demand 1; rent free office space for the black economic development conference, with unrestricted. rights to use a telephone for local and long distance. telephone calls. This demands to include the use of classrooms for educational purposes for the Harlem community. 2; The unrestricted use of radio station use of WRVR for 12 hours a day, and it operates 24 hours a day and all day. Saturday and Sunday except for those times when the sermon broadcasts on Sundays. The director. of programming shall be selected by the. national Black Economic Development Conference who in turn shall select a staff. The purpose is, is that this radio station is right in the Harlem community, and should be responsive to it and have programs geared to the black community of Harlem. 3; 60% of the yearly income from all church

stock, property, and real estate to be given to the National Black Economic Development Conference on January 3rd of each year. The first payment shall be made January 3rd 1970. 4; A list of all church assets including real estate and stock holdings, pension, retirement, and investment funds, the proportion of these funds to be donated to the National Black Economic Development Conference shall be negotiated once the assets are no music you know

i mean you just listen we need more people and this week in debate with anybody, the Chase Manhattan bank is run by the Rockerfellers, and that bank is all over the world exploiting people. Moreover, the Riverside Church located, as it is, directly across the street from the center of power, in the protestant religion, must serve notice of 475 Riverside Dr., that we are dead serious about our demands, and that we are prepared to die.

We are prepared to die for their implementation, while we did not place a time limit on when we wanted $500,000 in reparations to be paid, let no Christian or Jew think that we are going to string out this matter or that payment of this reparation can be evaded. Time is running out fast, and it behooves the Christians and Jews to get together and decide to meet these modest demands. We have tried to be reasonable and patient, not withstanding, our long years, 349, of servitude in this country. In New York alone, on My 1st 1969, we talked to the two most powerful bishops of the Episcopal church. They agreed that the church was racist and would consider our demands. The general board of the nation council of churches, adopted on May 2nd 19- 69, a resolution calling upon all churches to consider ways to implement the resolution. And the Riverside church is apart of that. And we say that this minister was trying to usurp the power of the general board, and was not willing to let us do that. We regret very much that we have had to come here in this manner. But, the day has passed when black people are going to allow any white man to

stop us from presenting our demands. Jews are demanding and getting reparations for 6,000,000 Jews killed in Germany. 50,000,000 black people have been killed in the slave trade in this country and not 1 penny in reparations are being paid. Moreoever, black people were slaves in this country, built the industrial base of this country, built the agricultural base, from which the surplus profits was made, and we're not getting 1 part in reparations. So we say that we are new black men and black woman. And that is expressed in the National Black Economic Development Conference. And we have some slogans and I thank your for time, those of you who stated here. I apologize again for the corrupt behavior of your minister, and I think you should retire him from the church. And I say therefore, our patience is wearing thin, time is running out, we have been slaves too long. The church has profited from our labor, the church is racist, we are men and woman, proud black men and women

our demands shall be met. Reparation on no church, victory or death, thank you." "[host]: You have just heard a recording of the interrupted Sunday service at Riverside Church. A form of service did however take place later. After James Foreman left, Dr. Campbell returned, together with the other ministers and the choir. The organ swelled into a mighty fortress as our god, choir, and congregation joined in. Then, Dr. Campbell spoke to the congregation. Here now is that part of the service." [background noise] "[speaker]: ?Inaudible? [noise]

?inaudible? [organ music] [choir joins]

[church music cont.] it's b i feel like my first word this morning to be one of appreciation to you, the members of the congregation for responding as intelligently and cooperatively as you did. It has been one of my preaching points for the last 4 or 5 years that most of us, who might be regarded as being with the establishment in one way or another, have not yet learned how to cope with ferment.

And this morning we responded according to the best lights we had, I'm sure that there are those who would second guess us and perhaps with the gift of hindsight, which is almost unfathomable, indicate another course that might have been taken. I'd like to believe, without becoming overly pious about it, that and in a way this could be one of Riverside's greatest mornings. There's a sense in which a sermon of tremendous power has already been preached out in the ?inaudible? as folks wondered whether there would or would not be the resumption of worship. It seemed to me as I overheard snatches of conversation, that the hearts of many of us were revealed. Some of us who perhaps have inwardly felt that the black man was pushing too

fast and too far, surfaced in our reactions. Others of us who might call ourselves liberals regarding this movement, are wondering about our solidarity and what one does ?visa via? group that recognizes only that the structure is decadent and that revolution, is the only cure. I think I owe it to you and to our friends who may be sharing these remarks, by way of WRVR, to indicate just the plain physical sequences; they are not many and this will not take long. I was working in my study last night, confessing publicly now that I had some finishing touches to do on today's meditation and received the phone call from Mr. Foreman at 9:15.

He said he would like to see me and see me that night. I suggested that I could give him an hour and no more, because of the kind of day that awaited me. Even then I suspected and I guess that it would be a long day. In the meantime, I telephoned a member of our board of ?dickens? who has worked very closely with members of the black and white community and who happens to be an attorney at law, trying to get an initial feel from him on what our response should be. I had tried first to reach our minister of urban affairs, only to find that he had committed himself to preaching out of the city this weekend. This attorney offered to come up and visit with my guest but I suggested that since the man had indicated that he was coming more or less by himself that I thought it best that we meet

one to one. When Mr Forman arrived he was accompanied by another, which would indicate that he had an opportunity then to perhaps put a construction on our time together and I would not subscribe to. My impression of last evening was that it was cordial and affirmative. He was kind enough to acknowledge that our record and the ministry has been one that has shown a keen sympathy for justice and several times he mentioned that in a way, he wished that the preaching ministry here we're not of that order because then the assault could be more direct and wholehearted. The substance of what this group was trying to convey is found in a manifesto that I had never seen before until last night.

Being a faithful reader of the New York Times, I wondered why if a document is of this scope and magnitude, it was not printed up in full. And so this was fanned through, rather carefully, a manifesto to the white christian churches and the jewish synagogues in the United States of America, and all other racist institutions. It was presented by James Forman and delivered and adopted by the National Black Economic Development Conference in Detroit on April 26, 1969. It was the desire of Mr. Foreman to read this manifesto in the service, in lieu of a meditation or a sermon. Feeling somewhat the worship has a little more integrity to it than this, and that ten o'clock at night is hardly the time to propose this kind of a change, I assured him that

we would be careful to give this manifesto the input that he wanted it to have at Riverside Church. My impression was that he would then agree to distribute copies of the manifesto outside, this morning, leave the service uninterrupted, so that we could go on together in good faith and search out the best way in which to get the substance of this manifesto before the officers and members of the Riverside Church. There was never any intention on my part to keep Riverside Church from hearing and responding to this manifesto. I guess, where we differed was on the question of how, and not so much on the question of whether. This manifesto is too lengthy for me to read to you just now, but the basic plank is that reparations are in order to the black community because of

the suppression of the black man in this country for hundreds of years. The figure of 5 hundred million is the figure, and over and beyond that there are specific requests that are to be made of particular local churches and those churches in responding will not be making up the 5 hundred million. So that actually the 5 hundred million is a base figure and the ultimate figure, if all other churches who are overtured, respond the way they are asked to respond would be well beyond that figure. When I got here this morning, I found that i must have been a different meeting from the one that Mr. Foreman and I and his friend were at last night. There were several accusations made that I will not pick up here, because I think they are self-evidently both absurd and impossible.

But the insistence was that something be read this morning. Overnight there had been a change of strategy. Perhaps Mr. Foreman felt that he had conceded too much and that being a national leader of this movement, in order to save face, must make a renewed effort to be heard in this service. Feeling that this was a response in bad faith because of arrangements that we had made, I refused to allow this to happen. And so far as it was in my power to make the refusal, and we agree among ourselves rightly or wrongly that we would not see the worship service here desecrated by shouts, encounter shouts, and make a travesty of the lord's body and blood, here today. And so when the move was made shortly after 11:00,

as agreed upon, we decided then and there, that the service would terminate. I'd like to read you a statement that I wrote earlier this morning as a preliminary response to this manifesto. And I want very much to have us, not to become so concerned about tactics that we lose our eye for what is really of substance here. There are abrasive aspects I'm sure, to any manifesto that comes with a kind of steam and thrust that this one has. But, we would be less than faithful to our lord if we got sidetracked on a matter of tactics and turned off people, simply because they style of their approach was not congenial to our temper. This is a brief statement to read it and then go on to say one or two more words

then we'll have a hymn and a benediction. What I fear most about the manifesto issued by the National Black Economic Development Conference, is that it will be counterproductive and retard the cause of freedom and equality toward which many have been working. The principle of reparation has sound theological underpinnings. Most Christian churches in the United States feel penitent about what the white man has done that a black man in this society. As every priest and pastor knows, restitution is a integral part of penitence. The manifesto has weaknesses. It over simplifies the problem by resorting to a good guy/bad guy motif. It is arbitrary in its determination of a fixed amount due, it fails to distinguish within the Christian community, those churches that have worked to

end segregation and all of its hideous symptoms. In so far as the manifesto has a basic commitment to revolution, it can hardly expect those who believe in radical reform to climb onboard. By further dividing the friends of brotherhood, it plays into the hands of the right wing reactionary element in this country. The Christian churches in this country had too long been concerned with private religious experience, to the neglect of basic justice. Payday has come. What the price should be and how and to whom it should be paid, are questions properly, before the house. Let me write just a brief postscript to this.

When we say that the Christian churches in this country have so long concerned themselves with private religious experience, to the neglect of basic justice, I think we are on very solid ground. It is a matter of record according to William Warren Sweet, in his book the story of religion in America. But at the time of the revolution, all other churches in the colonies were opposed to slavery. But when cotton became big business, suddenly there was a shift in the churches concern from one of opposition, to one of tolerence, and eventually to one of support. I believe that our my heart that the emphasis in most of our churches has not centered on matters of basic justice. We had been largely otherworldly and our orientation, we think of the savings

of a soul, the preparation of a man's life, of the life to come, all of which I suppose befits us who are comfortable who don't have to scramble for the bare necessities, which if we don't have, will make any soul talk, totally irrelevant. This is what I mean when I say that we ought to be penitent. Churches, by preaching this kind of gospel, which centeres largely in solitary ethical action and ignores the structures more or less baptize the arrangements in this land, political, social, and economic, that I work to the detriment of the black man. We gave these structures sanction. We ought to be ashamed and penitent. There is also a sense in which if we believe in the solidarity of the generations, we have a certain

complicity in any of the evils that have been worked in earlier times. I confess that I'm not sure how far we can extend this, somewhere along the line, the statute of limitations perhaps ought to set in, or else we'll find that we are all interlopers going back to the Garden of Eden No one, in a sense, has clear title to what he owns. And if the black man can speak with concern about having been taken then the Indiana, no less, can make his case as well. There's a sense in which there is an implied complicity when we buy an automobile tire for 25 dollars. We are in a sense in cahoots with a system in Africa, perhaps in Liberia, where the rubber trees are tapped, where the man who tapped them might make 30 or 40 cents a day. So that by implication, when I purchase a tire at

that price, in a sense, I am a beneficiary of a system that I cannot control, but which nevertheless is serving me. Chocolate beans are picked I suppose for substandard wages, wherever chocolate beans grow. Maybe to be honest about those workers who pick those chocolate beans we should pay a dollar for the kind of chocolate bar that we now pay 10 cents for. I'm not being facetious here, I'm suggesting that by virtue of the complexity and the interrelatedness of our life, especially in economics sphere, none of us, including the black community, is free from complicity in working some kind of hardship on another person somewhere. All of this leads me to feel that the posture of the church, toward any overture, should be one of attentiveness and sympathy

and openness. And I suggest that the place where any kind of confrontation or dialogue is most likely to feel the strain, will be at the point of how we can work with a group, whose basic judgment, as to the potential health of the system, differs from ours. I have been in debates with ministers regarding the renewal of the church, and there are ministers of great stature who believe that the church has had it. Epitaph for the tombstone. And if one believes that the church is really that dead, that unresponsive, that apostate, then of course, certain consequential actions and programs derive from that conviction. If on the other hand one believes that the church is suffering from

compromise with its culture, that its hands are not clean, but that god can cleanse the church and renew the church, then he moves from that base to other kinds of goals and programs. And so, my suspicion is that at the heart of this request for dialogue, comes a fundamental difference as to whether we do or do not believe in the system that we have inherited. It may be that we can in a sense, table that issue, in the interest of pressing needs that speak to us all. Needs regarding education, housing, business opportunities, and the like. And so, what we need is the guidance of god, we need to be delivered from as much subjectivity as god can work in us

to the end that at this point, in the nation's soothing unrest, we might be faithful, not only to our brothers, but also to our lord. I should like us now, before we sing our closing hymn, to bow our heads in a moment of prayer. eternal god our father we had come within these walls that we might gain perspective on our lives and on our world. We have calm that we might know ourselves in better knowing the. We have come that we might find new ways in which to faithfully represent thee in the life of the world about

us. We pray earnestly that thou will deliver us from every trace of prejudice, that the fact that we are in Christ may be that transcendent and dominant fact of our life. That all pety, local, suspicions were all mis- impressions might give way, before this one, whom we call Lord. To each other and to thee and grant that when we tremble for the arc of God we may have eyes to know thou art from everlasting to everlasting and that thy kingdom is sure, and that our security is in the risk we run, as

we bare thy name. All of this we pray in the strong name of Jesus Christ our Lord who's is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever, amen." "[host]: That was Dr. Earnest T. Campbell, preaching minister of the Riverside Church in the city of New York. Dr. Campbell spoke extemporaneously to a re-assembly of the Riverside congregation following the interruption and termination of the originally scheduled communion service on Sunday. Earlier, you heard the abbreviated service, including James Forman's remarks to the congregation. The Black Manifesto read by Forman, stated that white religious institutions are part of a capitalist system that has aided and abetted in exploitation of negroes and essentially a call for churches and synagogues to pay reparations to black americans. Reaction to Sunday's events came swiftly. Mayor Lindsey expressed dismay and announce that a conference of church leaders will recall that

city hall this week to discuss measures to counter what he called intimidation. Mr. Forman fired back in a press conference earlier today, he said, neither the National Black Economic Development Conference, which he represents, nor any of the participating agencies could at this point be turned aside in the pursuit of their goal by any statements from the mayor. Meanwhile, protestant church leaders reacted cautiously, while generally deploring the tactics that cause cancellation of Sunday's communion service at Riverside, many expressed sympathy with the demands of the militants. Others felt that it increased efforts by churches in the field of race relations were indeed in order. Some even endorse the idea that negroes were entitled to a form of preparation for their enslavement by this country. And today the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization also backed the Black Manifesto. The foundation is a coalition of protestant, roman catholic, jewish, black, and mexican-american organization. In a press conference this afternoon, its director, the reverend Lucius Walker said, the foundation supports both the principal and the problematic aspects of the National Black

Economic Development Conference and he urged that the churches provide $275,000 to help launch the program. This Saturday evening at 10 o'clock, Riverside Radio will broadcast a report to the congregation by Dr. Earnest T. Campbell, preaching minister of Riverside Church. Dr. Campbell will outline the church's response to Mr. Foreman's demands. Until Saturday evening, church leaders are silent about their plans. Urban affairs report was written by Rene ?kaiser? and edited by Jean Temple. Producer was Barney Quinn. This is Harry Joseph for the w r v r urban affairs unit." [guitar music] [music cont.] "[host]: Urban Affairs Report; a weekly hour in which Riverside Radio examines the issues that effect urban life. This is the Eastern Educational Radio

Network." [music cont.] [music cont.] [music stops] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence]