Pilgrim Race and Equity Team
On February 6, 2022, the Pilgrim congregation voted to accept the Pilgrim Confession and Covenant Against Racism that the team had worked on during the second half of 2021. The Pilgrim Race and Equity team is grateful for the vote of confidence and for blessing this path for our church. We’d love for Pilgrim to know more explicitly who we are, what we’ve been up to, and how you are being invited to join in on the work.
The Race and Equity Team members are Nancy Donny, Maggie Dolbow, Tom Harris, Susan Barco and three members who joined us this month: Lucy Rozier, Kate Bartlett and Millie Myers. Rev. Lindy also stays in touch with our work. Our mission is to continue Pilgrim’s history of work for racial justice. We became more organized after the George Floyd tragedy, and also as a response to our Lenten Series Race & Our Stories.
In 2021, In addition to writing the statement, team members participated in a 10 week study of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson with members of Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church and other churches. This was a profound experience, continuing to explore our own attitudes about race and hearing directly from Black people of faith about their experiences.
We also explored ways to address problems related to race in Durham. Susan began to volunteer for Durham Community Land Trust, helping with landscaping at permanently affordable housing owned by the Land Trust during their spring work day and then was joined by more team members during their fall work day. Maggie Dolbow has been attending Zoom meetings of the Coalition for Fair Housing and Transit and invited Stella Adams to speak to Auxiliary – she is hoping to invite more activists to Pilgrim. Tom Harris has kept us up to date on Durham CAN projects, including legal issues. Felix has led us to engage in phone banking with You Can Vote. For Nancy Donny, the most meaningful event was participating in the Caste book discussion, particularly the exchanges in her small group when they met in person outside the regular meetings.
For the future, we are taking a hard look at our projects and plan to set priorities for 2022. We are going to continue our inner work of increasing our understanding of racism. We are using a tool for predominantly white congregations on the path to becoming an antiracist congregation. We are also planning projects for community building and policy change to build a more loving and equitable Durham. There may be more opportunities to worship or study with the Mt. Level Community Partnership, and many of us would love to participate in more CAN activities.
We would love for you to join our work! We invite you to come to events we sponsor, to tell us your ideas, or to join the team. These are exciting times for people of faith, and we welcome anyone with the heart and energy to tackle these longstanding problems with us.
Sincerely,
Susan Barco (on behalf of the Race + Equity Team)
Pilgrim Confession and Covenant Against Racism
In love God calls us to affirm the inherent worth, dignity and equality of every person. We believe each person is a child of God, deserving of love and respect.
When we remember that white Christians viewed enslaved people and Native Americans as non-human, as not made in the image of God, to justify brutality, separation of families, and all kinds of violence, we are deeply grieved. When we remember that white Christians participated in lynchings, Jim Crow and massive resistance to racial equality, we are filled with regret and remorse. When we realize that this resistance and violence continues today, along with the effects of past injustice, we are outraged and ashamed.
Our Christian faith requires us to confront and change this as a part of our salvation.
We confess to our racist history as a formerly whites-only congregation. We acknowledge the grave wrongs done to people of color by white people via past and ongoing forms of oppression and stigmatization. We understand that our church and the white members of our congregation have benefited from these injustices, and continue to benefit, even when we are not aware of it, and even when we manage to avoid engaging in explicitly discriminatory practices in our current lives.
With God’s help and grace, we dedicate ourselves to dismantle individual and institutional racism in all its forms within ourselves, our church, and our community.