Intolerance

Around half of adults across the world hold antisemitic beliefs and deny the historic facts of the Holocaust. This is according to the latest edition of the largest global study of anti-Jewish attitudes by the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based advocacy group.

The study surveyed more than 58,000 adults from 103 countries and territories representing 94% of the world’s adult population. It found that 46% of them—which when extrapolated to the global population would equal an estimated 2.2 billion people—display antisemitic attitudes. A fifth of the respondents haven’t heard of the Holocaust, during which six million Jews were killed, while 21% believe it has either been exaggerated by historians or it never happened.

According to the survey, the level of antisemitism in the global adult population has more than doubled since it was launched in 2014. The report is the latest among a number of surveys charting a steep rise in antisemitism across the globe.

Ah, how the heart is bent towards self-righteousness! Even criminals look down on other criminals. That's what happened in a strange story from Spain. According to the First Thoughts blog a 64-year-old man in the city of Jaén reported a home burglary. The victim, who happened to coach a youth soccer team, listed several electronic appliances as stolen.

Days later, police received an anonymous call from a payphone. It was the burglar, informing them that he had left three videotapes in a brown envelope under a parked car. Apparently, the stolen tapes were evidence that the soccer coach was also a criminal. The thief included a note stating that he wanted the police to do their job and "put that (expletive) in prison for life." Nine days after the burglary, the police arrested the soccer coach.

The article concludes: "There is a well-worn adage that evangelism is one beggar telling another where to find bread. (But) so often, I live out my Christian faith more like a criminal telling the cops where to find the crooks. This should not be. When I find myself picking up the phone to report that others have fallen short, may I instead speak the words of another thief: When you come into your kingdom, remember me (Luke 23:42).

Two days after the attempted assassination of former President Trump, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the following title:

“‘I’m Tired. I’m Done.’ Nation Faces Exhaustion and Division After Trump Assassination Attempt, Americans express dismay about the state of the country: ‘The world has gone to Hades in a handbasket.’”

They spoke to four dozen Americans across the country and gave the following summary:

Nearly to a person, they expressed a sense of dread, saying there seems to be no good news on the horizon. Their list of concerns is endless: The lingering effects of a socially isolating pandemic; violent protests over disagreements about war; three election cycles of increasing polarization; and decades of escalating gun violence. That is not to mention economic turmoil and inflation. And unlike other times of crisis, after 9/11 or Sandy Hook or George Floyd, this event left few Americans hopeful that any good might come out of tragedy.

Towards the end of the article, they quoted Clement Villaseñor a 32-year-old electrical maintenance, who said, “There’s a hole in the country, and this is a part of that. We’re not sticking together,” he said. “There’s so much separation, it makes me feel far apart from people.”

More than a century ago, 110 Black soldiers were convicted of murder, mutiny, and other crimes at three military trials held at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. Nineteen were hanged, including 13 on a single day, December 11, 1917, in the largest mass execution of American soldiers by the Army.

The soldiers’ families spent decades fighting to show that the men had been betrayed by the military. In November of 2023, they won a measure of justice when the Army secretary, Christine E. Wormuth, overturned the convictions and acknowledged that the soldiers “were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials.”

In January 2024, several descendants of the soldiers gathered at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery as the Department of Veterans Affairs dedicated new headstones for 17 of the executed servicemen.

The new headstones acknowledge each soldier’s rank, unit, and home state—a simple honor accorded to every other veteran buried in the cemetery. They replaced the previous headstones that noted only their name and date of death.

Jason Holt, whose uncle, Pfc. Thomas C. Hawkins, was among the first 13 soldiers hanged in 1917, said at the ceremony, “Can you balance the scales by what we’re doing? I don’t know. But it’s an attempt. It’s an attempt to make things right.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

We all long for justice, for the day when things will finally be made right. In this life, justice happens slowly, haphazardly, and sometimes not at all. But when Jesus returns, all things will be made right.

The northeast Portland location of Pho Gabo, a family-owned Vietnamese restaurant, was forced to close after the restaurant received an anonymous complaint about the smell of the food. The closure prompted swift condemnation from five state representatives of Vietnamese descent in the Portland area.

In response, Portland city commissioner Carmen Rubio instructed the Bureau of Development Services to pause investigating any more odor complaints until the city’s regulations can be evaluated.

The problem stems from the fact that, as currently written, if an inspector travels to the location and can smell anything food-related, they’re required to write it up. The city’s enforcement structure privileges the complaint of one anonymous person over the legion of satisfied customers patronizing the restaurant, which has been in that location for over three decades.

Five Vietnamese American state representatives issued a joint statement: “We believe that, as currently written and enforced, the city’s odor code is discriminatory and not objective by any known standards. We stand ready to work with Commissioner Rubio and ensure that city code is fair and reasonable, and ultimately the city of Portland retains the vibrant food culture celebrating our diverse community.”

A statement from an organization advocating for Asians and Pacific Islanders read, “Long used as a tactic for displacing and removing Asian communities, olfactory racism has deep roots in this country dating back hundreds of years. With this closure, our community is losing a vital small business and reinforcing harmful stereotypes and tropes around Asians, our food, culture, and right to belong.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Selfish behavior can potentially generate great loss for a community; generosity and humility, however, can multiply the blessings within a community.

In 1939, Lloyd Dong and his family were having difficulty finding a place to live. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1884 and the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 were part of a series of racially exclusive laws and ordinances designed to prevent Chinese immigrants like the Dongs from being able to successfully settle down. But the Dongs did eventually find a place, thanks to Emma and Gus Thompson, two Black entrepreneurs who first rented and then eventually sold a house in Coronado, California to the family.

That act of kindness helped the Dongs become a part of American society. Now, generations later, the Dongs want to honor the Thompsons by donating $5 million of the proceeds of the sale of that property to a scholarship fund for Black students. Lloyd Dong, Jr. said, “Without them, we would not have the education and everything else.”

Ron and his wife Janice are both retired educators who understand the value of education, which is why they’re also working to have the Black Resource Center at San Diego State University named after the Thompsons. Janice said, “It may enable some kids to go and flourish in college that might not have been able to otherwise.”

The Thompsons initial gesture of hospitality seems even more miraculous when you consider the context. Emma and Gus Thompson originally traveled to Coronado from Kentucky to work at a local hotel, and built their house in 1895, before many of the restrictive racial housing covenants were enacted. The Thompson’s property in Coronado originally featured a residence and a small boarding house on the upper floor of a barn, intentionally created to house vulnerable people with no other place to go.

Jo Von McCalester, a professor at Howard University, said, “It was just something understood that marginalized people in San Diego had to rely very heavily on one another. One family’s sacrifice can shape the lives of so many.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we pass on the generosity that we’ve received from others, we model the generous love of God who lavishes on all without regard for status, heritage, or bloodline.

In a YouTube video, political commentor Konstantin Kisin reported:

They did an experiment with a group of women and they put scars on their faces. They told these women that they were going into a job interview and that the purpose of the experiment is to find out whether people with facial disfigurements encounter discrimination. They showed the women the scars in the mirror and the women saw themselves with the scars.

Then as they led them out of the room, they said, “We are just going to touch it up a little bit.” As they touched it up, they removed the scarring completely. So, the women went into the job interview thinking that they are scarred, but actually were their normal selves.

The result of the experiment is that those women came back reporting a massively increased level of discrimination. Indeed, many of them came back with comments that the interviewer had made that they felt were referencing their facial disfigurement.

This is why this ideology of victimhood is so dangerous. Because if you preach to people constantly that we’re all oppressed, then that primes people to look for that.

You can view this 60 second video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible does recognize the reality of innocent victims, but it stops short of affirming a victim mentality. While the Bible promises that we will experience innocent suffering for the cause of Christ, it nowhere speaks of our being “victims” in the contemporary sense of the word. Rather, the Bible speaks of us as “victors.” You can overcome victim mentality through a relationship with Christ and the Word of God. Christ (1 Pet. 2:22-23), Paul (Phil. 1:12-14), and Joseph (Gen 50:19-21) all show us an example of someone who was victimized but overcame a victim mentality.

Community leaders in the Kansas City area have been breathing sighs of relief after the news that Ralph Yarl is expected to make a full recovery.

Sixteen-year-old Yarl was shot in the face after ringing the doorbell of the wrong home in an attempt to pick up his younger siblings. His plight went viral on social media, sparking outrage because local police initially declined to charge the shooter, 84-year-old Andrew Lester. After a series of local protests and national media coverage, Lester was charged in connection with the shooting, which prosecutors believe involved a “racial element” because Lester is white and Yarl is black.

Still, many were in high spirits after a photo began circulating of Yarl seated next to attorney Lee Merritt on an outdoor patio, smiling in the sun. Despite being in recovery from a traumatic brain injury, Yarl was referred to as “a walking miracle with a head of steel.”

Yarl’s mother said her son had a bullet in the left frontal lobe in his brain until it was removed by a team of surgeons. She said, “Had the bullet hit his head a fraction of an inch in any other direction he would probably be dead right now.”

Yarl’s aunt also provided an update: “Ralph is currently at home with his family. He can ambulate and communicate. A true miracle considering what he survived.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even in the face of overwhelming wrongdoing and injustice, God can heal, renew, and restore.

Best-selling Muslim author and renowned critic of Islam, Irshad Manji shook the religious world with her ground-breaking and highly acclaimed book The Trouble with Islam Today. Translated into more than 30 languages, Manji writes about the lack of inquiry and freedom of thought and speech that pervades across the entire Islamic world.

In 1972, her devout Muslim family immigrated from East Africa to a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, when she was four-years-old. She writes that she came to believe in the basic dignity of every individual not from Islam, but "It was the democratic environment to which my family and I migrated." A couple of years later, her always frugal parents enrolled her in free baby-sitting services at a Baptist church when her mom left the house to sell Avon products door-to-door.

There the lady who supervised Bible study showed me and my older sister the same patience she displayed with her own son. She made me believe my questions were worth asking. The questions I posed as a seven-year-old were simple ones: Where did Jesus come from? When did he live? Who did he marry? These queries didn't put anyone on the spot, but my point is that the act of asking always met with an inviting smile.

She cites another example at her junior high school and her evangelical Christian vice-principal.

[The majority of students] lobbied for school shorts that revealed more leg than our vice-principal thought reasonable. After a heated debate with us, he okayed the shorts, bristling but still respecting popular will. How many Muslim evangelicals do you know who tolerate the expression of viewpoints that distress their souls?

Of course, my vice-principal had to bite his tongue in the public school system, but such a system can only emerge from a consensus that people of different faiths, backgrounds, and stations ought to tussle together. How many Muslim countries tolerate such tussle? I look back now and thank God I wound up in a world where the Quran didn't have to be my first and only book.

When Rose Wakefield pulled into a gas station in a Portland suburb to purchase some gas nearly three years ago, she left feeling that she had been racially discriminated against. In late-January, 2023, a jury agreed in her favor. After successfully suing the corporations involved, Wakefield was awarded one million dollars in damages.

The damages were so high because the behavior Wakefield encountered was so egregious. This was not only from the gas station attendant who refused to pump her gas because he said he doesn’t serve Black people, but also from the representatives at the corporate complaint line who failed to take her report seriously.

During closing arguments, Wakefield’s attorney Greg Kafoury convinced the jury that a large judgment would force the corporate defendants to explain their failure to respond appropriately. This included failing to record Wakefield’s initial phone call (and subsequently deleting a follow up voicemail), and doctoring the employee personnel file to make it appear as though he was fired for different, unrelated conduct.

Her attorney added, “A cop who erased evidence would go to jail for it.”

The Oregonian, Oregon’s most prestigious and longest-running newspaper, recently launched a special project entitled “Publishing Prejudice,” examining its historic complicity in reinforcing white supremacy in the state of Oregon. According to editor Therese Bottomly, the project was launched in the wake of the 2020 public demonstrations against racism after the murder of George Floyd.

Bottomly said, “Some institutions, including a handful of newspapers, responded to the moment with sustained examinations of their histories in pursuit of strengthening the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion, The Oregonian looked inward as well.”

Part of the problem is that many residents aren’t aware of Oregon’s history. Bottomly continues, “Oregon was founded as an exclusionary state openly hostile to people of color, and Portland today remains the whitest major city in America.” Investigative reporters were dispatched to review the archives and document the various ways that the paper has reinforced the ugly stain of racism as part of its legacy. The series of articles reviews the paper’s coverage of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the Japanese internment camps of the 1940s, and many other contentious issues in its more than 170 years of existence.

Bottomly said, “I thought we would find the newspaper had missed stories, ignored major cultural movements, and been behind the times. And, yes, we found sins of omission, to be sure. But the gravest mistakes were sins of commission.”

It was surely a difficult decision for Bottomly and her staff to delve this deeply into such sordid chapters of their history. But she has no regrets. “This has been a painful and necessary exercise of self-examination. This history is hard to read but you must. And you must hold us to our pledge to always do better.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Each of us bear a responsibility to tell the truth about our history and the roles we play, not just as individuals but as members of families, organizations, and nations. In situations where we've inherited a godly legacy, we should rejoice. Where there is a legacy of sin, we should repent.

Viola Davis has been hailed as one of the greatest actresses of her generation. According to one film critic, watching her act is to watch someone draw on “private hardship” and then “witness a deep-sea plunge into a feeling.” Davis claims that there is one memory that defines her “private hardship.”

When she was in third grade, a group of boys made a game out of chasing her home at the end of the school day. They would taunt her, yelling insults and slurs, throwing stones and bricks at her, while she ducked and dodged and wept.

One day, the boys caught her. Her shoes were worn through to the bottom, which slowed her down. The boys pinned her arms back and took her to their ringleader, who would decide what to do with her next. They were all white, except for the ringleader. He identified as Portuguese to differentiate himself from African Americans, despite being nearly the same shade as Davis. Unlike her, he could use his foreign birth to distance himself from the town’s racism: He wasn’t like those Black people.

“She’s ugly!” he said.

“I don’t know why you’re saying that to me,” she said. “You’re Black, too!”

The ringleader screamed that he wasn’t Black at all. He punched her, and the rest of the boys threw her onto the ground and kicked snow on her.

Davis went on to be nominated for two Oscars. But she realized that not only had she remained that terrified little girl, tormented for the color of her skin, but that she also defined herself by that fear. All these years later, she was still running. … Davis’ early life is dark and unnerving, full of bruises, loss, grief, death, trauma. But that day after school was perhaps her most wounding memory: It was the first time her spirit and heart were broken.

A Chicago teacher thought he was doing something helpful for his students, but his refusal to receive constructive feedback ultimately resulted in a swift suspension. According to Principal Joyce D. Kenner, the White teacher, unidentified pending an investigation, hung a black doll by its neck with the pull cord from the projector screen at the front of the class.

The White teacher told Principal Joyce D. Kenner that he thought dangling the doll in the center of his classroom would help its owner claim the item, Kenner told students and parents last week in an email.

Because of its visual similarity to lynching, the teacher’s Black colleague approached him to inform him that the doll’s hanging was potentially offensive. That initial interaction devolved into a shouting match, which one student recorded on video.

Parents were subsequently told via email that the administration had spoken with both teachers, and the teachers themselves also discussed the situation at length with their students. Meanwhile, the incident was referred to the district for a formalized discipline process.

The Chicago Teachers Union wrote in a subsequent tweet “We understand the investigation is ongoing, but practices that mitigate the harm of racial biases must also be ongoing and consistent, in our schools.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Mature believers are those who can receive criticism and apologize for offenses, rather than stonewalling and counterattacking.

While rumors of racial slurs and other untoward behavior continued to encircle New Jersey mayor Sal Bonaccorso, he steadfastly denied any involvement, calling the accusations offensive. But once evidence proved otherwise, the mayor was forced into a quick about-face. Mayor Bonaccorso said in a YouTube video, “It was wrong. I am embarrassed and ashamed to have spoken that way about a race of people.”

His swift admission was prompted by the release of several audio recordings as part of an investigation. It unearthed not only the racial slurs themselves, but the fact that the city of Clark Township had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements and other legal proceedings to prevent them from being found.

The recordings were part of a lawsuit that had been drafted by Antonio Manata, previously a lieutenant with the Clark Police Department. He had complained for years of rampant racism and sexism in the department, but felt his progress at reporting the troublesome behavior had been stonewalled by the mayor and other top leaders. To document the behaviors, Manata made a series of secret recordings of the mayor and other high-level CPD officers. When he threatened to expose them, the town agreed to pay large sums of money to get him to drop the lawsuit and relinquish the recordings.

At a town council meeting after the story came to light, Bonaccorso tried to plead his case with the community, saying he disagreed with the decision to settle. But Clark resident La’Tesha Sampson, said she was disappointed at the mayor’s lack of apology. She called his initial response “really, really disturbing.”

The criticism after that council meeting is what prompted the mayor’s YouTube apology. Bonaccorso says he’s learned a lot from recent protests for racial justice, especially those that occurred in the wake of George Floyd’s killing during the summer of 2020. He just hadn’t learned enough to be truthful about his mistakes … at least not until he had no other choice.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus reserved his harshest criticisms for leaders who made a show of respectability but gave voice or thought to evil in private.

Spokane County prosecutor Larry Haskell has been put on the defensive because of increased scrutiny surrounding his wife and her online commentary. According to the Spokane alternative weekly The Inlander, Lesley Haskell has been outspoken in her beliefs on the social networking platform Gab, which was established as an alternative to sites like Twitter and Facebook that have rules prohibiting hate speech and/or threats of violence.

Leslie Haskell was reported as using several slurs for Black, Jewish, Latin, and other ethnic groups, which she defended under the banner of free speech. She also referred to herself as a “white nationalist,” and defended the Ku Klux Klan as an example of “white culture.”

On the official prosecutor’s website, Larry Haskell was forced to disavow these views. He wrote:

I do not and will not tolerate racial bias or discrimination in any form. People that know me fully understand those are not my views. I do not tolerate racial bias or disparate treatment of any kind as proven by my words, deeds, and treatment of others during my tenure as prosecutor.

In their defense, Larry and Leslie Haskell have good company. Plenty of high-profile couples on differing sides of the political aisle have prospered over the years, like former Trump administration spokesperson Kellyanne Conway and her husband George, who co-founded the anti-Trump advocacy group The Lincoln Project.

Still, critics point out that public confidence in Larry Haskell’s ability to be unbiased is undercut when his wife spews out racist rhetoric. William S. Bailey of the University of Washington Law School agrees. He said: “There is no doubt in my mind that if Larry Haskell was a judge and this information about his wife came out, he would have to recuse himself from any case if asked to do so by an attorney for a party.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Regardless if we agree or disagree with other’s political and social views, we must never descend into racial slurs and judging others. We should be careful that the negative views of those we associate with do not affect us.

The National Football League has been embroiled in lawsuits for nearly a decade from former players alleging that the league knew that its sport resulted in brain damage but failed to take appropriate action. In response, the NFL has pledged nearly one billion dollars as part of a class-action settlement for former players who’ve experienced brain damage playing pro football.

But there’s a wrinkle in the way individual brain injury claims have been adjudicated, and many former players and/or their families are claiming it results in unfair racial bias. When assessing players’ current capacity for cognitive function, doctors tend to apply a process that neuro­psychologists refer to as “African-American normative corrections.” This is more broadly known as “race-norming.” When these corrections are enacted, many players’ claims are denied on the basis that their lack of cognitive functioning is closer to the baseline readings of African-American players without brain damage. The unstated conclusion is that African-Americans are not as smart as White people.

In June of 2021, the NFL pledged to do away with race-norming as part of its settlement methodology, but plenty of former players and their families say they were unfairly cheated out of settlement money they deserved. Lawyers for those families claim that race-norming is “discriminatory on its face” and that it makes “it harder for Blacks to qualify for the settlement than whites.”

Chris Seeger, the lead attorney for the class of approximately 20,000 former players eligible for money under the settlement, apologized for not picking up on the practice sooner. He said:

I am sorry for the pain this has caused Black former players and their families. While we had fought back against the NFL’s efforts to mandate the use of “race norms,” we failed to appreciate the frequency in which some neuropsychologists were inappropriately applying these adjustments. Ultimately, this settlement only works if former players believe in it, and my goal is to regain their trust and ensure the NFL is fully held to account.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Every human being is made in God's image and deserves dignity and respect. When we fail to offer that, we are liable to succumb to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Purdue University recently announced the renaming of two of its residence halls after two extraordinary alumni, Freida and Winifred Parker. In 1946, they were accepted to Purdue University, but were not allowed to live on campus. According to historian John Norberg, Purdue “had an unwritten policy that African Americans couldn’t live in the residence halls.” And it wasn’t just the university, either. Norberg said, “African American students couldn’t live in West Lafayette at all. It was a sundown city. African Americans had to be out by sundown."

This inhospitable setting made campus life difficult for the Parker sisters as they insisted on attaining a collegiate education. Norberg said, “They didn’t have a shower or a bathtub. They only had one desk for them to share … it was a long commute that involved buses and they had to leave early so they missed a lot of opportunities.”

And yet, despite such hardship, the Parker sisters did not give up. Norberg said, “(They) weren’t the first to be denied access to the residence halls. They were the first to stand up to the university and say, ‘No, you can’t do that.’”

Through a winning combination of dispassionate logic, strategic networking and unflagging endurance, the sisters engaged in a year-long campaign to reverse the unwritten policy. They wrote letters, they visited dignitaries, and they rallied support wherever they could get it.

Eventually they found support from Indiana governor Ralph Gates, whose pressure broke the stalemate. In 1947, Freida and Winifred Parker were among the first African American students to move onto campus. All of the students at Purdue today benefited from what Frieda and Winifred did in 1946.

Renee Thomas, of the Black Cultural Center at Purdue, hopes the gesture will help to send a positive message to students who might be struggling. “We hope that today’s students will use their story as inspiration.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Trusting in God gives us the power to persevere under difficult circumstances. Even though we work inside institutions to change laws and practices, ultimately our hope is not in people or institutions or laws, but in God's eternal truth and power.

Edward Matthews had a problem with some of his neighbors, and it seemed based on his language and demeanor that he didn’t like their race. At least that’s how it appeared when a video of a confrontation went viral between Matthews, a middle-aged white man, and several younger Black men. Unfortunately, Matthews’ inability to keep his temper got the best of him when he blurted out his home address during the filmed confrontation, taunting his neighbors to “come [bleep]ing see me.”

In a way, Matthews got what he asked for. Before police eventually charged him with bias intimidation and harassment, hundreds of people gathered outside his residence to demand his arrest. As police led him from the house into a cruiser, Matthews was pelted by the crowd with water bottles and other foreign objects. Neighbors said that this behavior was common with Matthews and that they had been pleading for police intervention for months.

Kyle Gardner, a spokesman for the local police department, deplored Matthews’ behavior. “Nobody is as upset about this as we are. This is not what we want in our town.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

There are consequences for the words and ideas that we put out into the world. Our words have the power to uplift or tear down; we must use that power wisely.

The PBS documentary titled, GI Jews: Jewish Americans In World War II is about the 550,000 Jewish Americans who served their country in World War II. There was remarkable heroism, but also great loss endured by the Jewish soldiers and nurses.

As American forces marched through Hitler's Europe in the winter of 1944, rumors that the Nazis were murdering Jewish prisoners of war continued to spread. Hearing news that Jewish soldiers in the Soviet army had been singled out and shot, some American officers encouraged their men to destroy their dog tags.

On December 16, deep in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, the Germans launched a massive assault on American forces. This became known as the Battle of the Bulge. 19,000 Americans died in the Battle of the Bulge, and 15,000 more were captured.

The documentary then focuses on Sergeant Lester Tanner and his unit as they were taken prisoner in late January. He and the other officers were moved to a prison camp called Stalag IX A.

Lester Tanner said:

When the Germans came at us in force, I threw away my dog tags, which had my religion on it. The (Germans) announced that the Jews had to form up in front of the barracks the next morning, and those who did not would be shot.

Narrator:

Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a Protestant from Knoxville, Tennessee, was known for his strong leadership and deep moral conviction. He was the commanding officer in charge of the 1,275 American prisoners.

Tanner continues:

Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds said, “We will all be there in the morning in formation, and I will be at the head.” The next morning, we were lined up. German Major Siegmann marched over. “Roddie said to him, 'We're all Jews here. Siegmann said, 'You can't all be Jews.’”

The German took out his Luger, pointed it at Roddie's forehead, and said, “You will order the Jewish-American soldiers to step forward, or I will shoot you right now.”

Edmonds replied “Major, you can shoot me, but if you do, you're going to have to shoot all of us. We know who you are, and this war is almost over, and you will be a war criminal.” The major spun around and went back to his barracks, and Roddie dismissed the men.

Edmonds saved nearly 200 Jewish-American men that day. They would never forget the extraordinary risk he took on their behalf.

You can watch the video here (timestamp: 55 min 31 sec –58 min 49 sec).

Back in 1912, Willa and Charles Bruce were one of the first African-American landowners in Los Angeles County after purchasing a plot of oceanside property and opening one of the only non-racially-segregated resorts in the area.

Despite the grateful patronage of Black visitors, “Bruce’s Beach” eventually became a target of racist attacks from a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Family historian Duane Shephard said, “They started harassing my family around 1920. They burned a cross. They threw burning mattresses under the porch of one of the buildings.”

By 1924, the city used the process of eminent domain as a pretext to seize the property from the Bruce family and turn it into a public park. L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn said, “These people were terrorized and kicked out of a community where they were trying to live peacefully. Here were some Black lives, and they didn't matter 100 years ago. But I think they matter now.” Hahn made those comments in a news conference announcing the decision from the local city council to return that land to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce.

Local resident Malissia Clinton wonders what her community would look like had that injustice not taken place: “This community might be teeming with Black folks if we had not destroyed that family. It changed the trajectory, not only of their lives and their offspring but of this community.”

The county plans to give the property back to the Bruce family descendants, then lease the property from them, in order to keep it accessible to the community while providing income for the family. It also authorized $350,000 to spend on public art commemorating the family.

When asked what the original couple would’ve thought of this gesture, Shepard was emphatic. "Oh, they would have loved it. I'm sure they're proud of us right now for fighting to get that back.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even as the righteous pursue justice, let them not lose hope that injustices can be made right again, for with God all things are possible.