On July 19, 43-year-old Samuel DuBose was shot dead by University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing during a traffic stop. On July 29, a grand jury indicted Tensing on charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter. Body camera footage was also released, showing the officer had lied about being dragged by DuBose’s car and was not being threatened when he fired the fatal shot. In the words of the Hamilton County prosecutor, “This is without question a murder."
Reaction to this shooting was heightened by the fact that Cincinnati previously experienced unrest after another unarmed African American, Timothy Thomas, was shot and killed by police in 2001. The University of Cincinnati campus was closed and police presence was heightened to temper the public’s response. At the same time, churches all over the city gathered to pray, including University Christian Church and Peoples Church, both less than a mile from the incident.
We asked Mandy Smith, lead pastor of University Christian Church, and Oneya Fennell Okuwobi, the director of cross-cultural education for Peoples Church, to share their experience as they became aware of the news and attempted to minister to a community impacted by injustice.
In the aftermath
Mandy Smith: I had just returned from vacation and my first response was disbelief. Another police officer and another black death?! But this time it had happened within a few streets of the church I lead, so it felt a little different. We’ve been talking during services, in small groups, and in personal conversations about the ongoing violence all summer, but this seemed to require something more.
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi: Given the steady stream of killings over the past few years, I’m sad to say it wasn’t unexpected, but it was hard to see one so close to home. Even so, I wasn’t prepared to see the video footage that was released.
This feels personal in a way that can be hard for those who aren’t African Americans to understand.
Seeing the apparent disregard for life, I exhaled sharply as though I had been punched in the gut. This feels personal in a way that can be hard for those who aren’t African Americans to understand. Seeing so many black lives taken with such thin justification makes me feel as though I cannot protect myself or my family, that we are endangered just by being black. I’ve been out of tears for months, so I simply started to pray for our city and our church.
The church mobilized
Smith: Last week, when the University of Cincinnati closed its campus in anticipation of the grand jury decision in this case, our cafe (housed in our church building), just a block from campus, remained open. It was filled with a sense of unease as we awaited the decision.
My former co-lead, Troy Jackson, who now leads The Amos Project (a network of congregations engaging issues of justice in our city), called to ask if we’d keep the building open through the night as a safe place, in case things got violent. So I made some calls to church folk to volunteer to be in the building to pray with and for the community.
When the indictment was announced at around 1 p.m., we were thankful to see there would probably not be a violent response and planned to gather the church folks in the building to pray for peace for our city.
We didn’t anticipate how our cafe and church would be wrapped up in the events that night. A student justice group had planned a peaceful rally and the leader of that group is a regular in our cafe. When he heard we were keeping our doors open, he gathered his people in the cafe to pray and process before and after their march. What I had expected to be a group of 10 church folks praying for an hour became about 75 church and community folks enjoying the space together for four hours.
Okuwobi: Our church has been focused on the DuBose shooting from the beginning. Our lead pastor, Chris Beard, has been one of the voices calling for the release of the body camera footage since the shooting. As a white pastor, he intentionally joins hands with black pastors around the city to draw attention to racial justice issues. This includes speaking out in the media, reaching out to elected officials, and participating in peaceful protests. The congregation and staff add prayer and active support to these efforts.
The day of the indictment, our church sent out an email asking everyone to pray for three things:
- Peace – that unrest would not overtake our city
- Justice – that the proper outcome for this case would come to fruition and that our nation’s criminal justice system would be reformed
- Unity among believers – that this oneness would lead to racial reconciliation
We came together that evening to pray over these points with services for both the adults and the youth. Those who didn’t attend prayer gathered in small groups to strengthen each other. I was with the youth and heard students as young as 12 praying insightfully about our tendency as humans to distrust those different than ourselves, and begged God to help us see everyone as an image-bearer. I heard their frustration with the status quo and their belief that they can change things. Then they fellowshipped together across every group, just teens having fun, but a beautiful picture of everything they had just prayed. Many I spoke to came in empty and left full.
Lessons learned
Smith: Before the rally, the leader of the student justice group on UC’s campus asked the marchers to gather for instructions in one part of the room and the healers to gather in another part of the room. His recognition of different gifts and roles was striking.
I found myself among the healers. We set up impromptu prayer stations and prayed while the marchers marched. I watched the space fill with art and music as a community member offered to play hymns on the piano, an intern set up a “paint your prayers” station, a cafe barista set up a “write your prayers” station and church members set up vigil candles.
When the marchers returned to the cafe, they entered chanting, “We’re gonna be alright!” which set the tone for the rest of the night, as folks talked about their feelings and experiences, painted, journaled, and prayed. There was a sense that something significant was happening. The place was filled with hopeful determination. Around midnight, as we said our final goodbyes and gathered coffee cups, we took time to reflect on the dozens of handwritten prayers and drawings of anger, pain, hope, peace, and life that were left by the marchers.
I learned that those who work for peace can only truly bring peace when they do the hard work on themselves first. When we fight for justice, if we have first wrestled with our own brokenness, we aren’t fighting for the sake of vengeance but for something good and pure. When we choose to trust in the peace that only God can bring, we aren’t fighting in our own strength but with peace that, because we serve a good and powerful God, “We’re gonna be alright.” Then we’re not just talking about peace, we’re propagating peace.
Okuwobi: On the day of the indictment, I learned experientially the power of true community. Our church is multi-ethnic, but it was for many years a mostly white church. Our members run the gamut from conservative to liberal, and many did not grow up discussing issues of race. We have made huge strides in this area, by using small group cross-racial discussions as a tool for growth. Still, when Trayvon Martin was killed, there was a good deal of controversy within the body, and it was difficult to come together in one accord.
We have learned to walk through these injustices together and support one another. I saw this clearly on Facebook at the time of the press conference announcing the indictment. Messages of mourning, anger, prayer, and support came from our church’s white and minority members alike. This encouraged me immensely. I saw white members of our congregation willing to boldly speak up to their friends on the importance of the “Black Lives Matter” Movement. I heard it said recently that true religion is the willingness to pay attention to the claim of our neighbor, even when it has no bearing on our own self-interest. I saw in their actions true religion.
Hope for the future
Smith: It’s a temptation to set our sights low because we don’t want to be disappointed, but I hope that there is never again a death from a gun wound on any street or home of any city in this world. One of the written prayers I found at the end of the evening said, “Pain is real and God is good.” We have to keep working, hoping that the truth of “God is good” overcomes the pain. Gathering with this diverse group of devoted, peaceful, hopeful young people gave me hope for our future.
Okuwobi: My hope is that our conversations and actions will not stop at the surface level. The stories of Timothy Thomas, Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Sandra Bland and so many others could break us individually, but the wisdom that comes from God can give us strength to see the root of the issue: our nation’s racial history. Until we begin to unpack the layers of that history, I have no hope that there will not be another incident. I can only have hope that the church and our communities will have enough courage to make these incidents mean something.
Continued engagement
Smith: The respective roles of marchers and healers helped me name new ways to engage individually and as a congregation. Not all of us are natural marchers (not that we shouldn’t march), but some of us are natural healers. We will continue to open this cafe as a space for healing, seven days a week, for large events like the one that unfolded this week, but also to create a place for daily prayer and community-building and conversation. In our church gatherings we will continue to be honest about our frustrations and hope so that healing can begin.
The complexity of injustice often overwhelms me. I rarely know where to begin, either personally or as a pastor.
The complexity of injustice often overwhelms me. I rarely know where to begin, either personally or as a pastor. This week I saw that I don’t need all the answers and I don’t have to be directive. All I did was open the doors, put out the coffee cups, make a few calls, and the church made a welcoming space for healing and hope to grow. In a crisis, the church can do what it does best. We can propagate peace.
Okuwobi: As a racially-reconciling church, we will continue to bring people of every tribe, tongue, and nation together in worship, and encourage other churches to do the same. By hearing the same message on Sunday morning, talking about the difficult issues, and doing life together, we become a church that doesn’t have a white or black view on issues of race. We become the church that can be one through the power of the Holy Spirit. That oneness deeply ministered to me in my desperate need. I will continue working in the areas I lead to erase barriers, so that every person and group can find support and acceptance when they are in need.
Our church will also continue to call for criminal justice reform when it is merited. This will include speaking about injustices from the pulpit, offering opportunities to participate in peaceful protests, and speaking out in the media. Although it wasn’t an issue in the DuBose case, one area for reform is the relationship between prosecutors and the police departments they serve, which can be problematic in cases of officer misconduct. Other areas for reform are the need for collaborative agreements between police departments and communities and the need for universal use of body cameras.
The power to engage is the power of peace. When God came to earth as Jesus Christ, he was willing to do radical things like praise the poor and stand up to religious leaders. When each church uses their unique gifting to engage on issues of justice, in the face of our self-interest, the world sees the Prince of Peace, and the gospel gains credibility as the one thing that can unite us all.
Mandy Smith is lead pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her book The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry (IVP) will be released in the fall.
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi is the director of cross-cultural education for Peoples Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is co-author of the Multi-Ethnic Christian Life Primer, a guide for diverse congregations to walk, work, and worship together as one.
