Sitting Tall
Theme of the Week: Restoring Relationships
Henry Mitchell
Sunday, October 12, 2003
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Key Bible Verse: Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy (James 1:2). Bonus Reading:Lamentations 3:34-36
The year was 1945, and the place was a moving train in North Carolina. A trainman had ordered my seminary students to stand in a half car to the front rather than sit in another half car with four white soldiers. There were plenty of vacant seats for whites farther back. So I issued a counter-order: "Sit right where you are! Even by North Carolina law, this trainman is dead wrong."
He wanted to know if I was a lawyer. When I refused to answer, he disappeared to the rear, returning shortly with 20 or so soldiers in uniform—the leading four being military police with .45 caliber revolvers in their hands. The trainman wanted to know what I had to say now.
As the guns waved about in silence, I thought, I'd rather die now and see our [expected] son for the first time in heaven than surrender to this white man now. "Do whatever you think you have to do," I told him.
The trainman's face turned red, and he and his troops slowly retreated and took seats. They rode with us all the way to Greensboro without another word. I was stunned, realizing the strength hadn't come from me—and overjoyed.
—Henry Mitchell in From One Brother to Another
Adapted from From One Brother to Another (Judson, 1996) by permission.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
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