Interview with Rev. Gurdon Brewster



Interview with the Rev. Gurdon Brewster -->
Originally posted at Faithfully Liberal.

By Pastor Bob Cornwall

Gurdon Brewster is an Episcopal priest, sculptor, and for 35 years, chaplain of Cornell University. But prior to his ordination as an Episcopal priest and taking up the position of chaplain, he was a student at New York’s Union Theological Seminary. While there he studied with such luminaries as Reinhold Niebuhr. While at Union, Brewster had a life changing experience, an experience that is recounted in his set of memoirs — No Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King((Orbis Books 2007).

In this wonderful book, a review of which can be found here and another published shortly in The Progressive Christian, Brewster tells the story of a summer spent as a pastoral intern at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. At the time the church was pastured by Martin Luther King, Sr. and his son, Martin Luther King, Jr. No Turning Back offers insight into a different time and place, when overt racism was still prevalent and segregation was the law in much of the South. Though the world did not change that summer, lives were changed, and we can experience something of this through this memoir.

Here then is my interview with Gurdon Brewster.
I appreciate this opportunity to share in conversation with you. Having read your book, I was moved by your experiences, which give us insight into the dark side of the church and American society, and a glimmer of hope as well. To set up this conversation, let me first note that in 1962 you answered a calling while a student at Union Theological Seminary of New York to be the summer intern at Ebenezer Baptist Church. I remember reading in the book that you were warned that such a decision could have a considerable effect on your career – even precluding advancement in your church. Whether that was ultimately the case, it appears to be a concern. And yet, despite the difficulties, you made the choice. Your book offers us a glimpse into a different time and place, providing us a truly human portrait of people we think we know, but only from a historical distance. So, to the questions:

• My first question will be fairly blunt. Why did you, a northern white Episcopalian volunteer to be a seminary intern at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1961?

I wanted to get involved in the civil rights movement. I wanted to experience a black church in the south, and in particular, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where the Kings were.


• Could you say something about the sponsoring organization – Student Interracial Ministries?

The Student Interracial Ministries was a student led group of seminarians whose purpose was to send white seminarians into black churches in the south and black students into white churches for the summer.


• Would you say something about your relationship with the King family – how this relationship helped form you as a person and as a Christian?


By my good fortune, no one in the church volunteered to house me for the summer, so I ended up staying with Rev and Mrs. King, Sr. for the summer. In talking with him, I learned how he overcame extreme hardships all his life, and learned of his passion for racial justice. Daddy King was a very powerful man and I learned what it was like to be a powerful Christian. He became like a father for me, as my father had died some 10 years earlier, and over the years this relationship meant a lot to me.

• In 1961 to be a white student serving a black church was not only untraditional, but likely extremely rare. It was an intentional act of crossing cultural boundaries. How difficult was that for you? And for the church?

The church welcomed me warmly and made the transition easier. The church seemed to welcome my presence. In a sense, I was somewhat naive, and only later began to realize how rare this experience actually was.

• You describe encounters with white Christians – some of whom were indifferent and some hostile. We’re prepared for this? And, did these encounters change how you did theology?
I was not prepared for the hostility of white church people. I had to learn how to be cautious yet strong. I had to learn how to keep going in the midst of resistance and hostility. Learning how to love the enemy was a deep challenge that I found difficult when encountering angry people.

• In the course of the book you speak of your struggles with the principles of nonviolent that Dr. King taught – especially in the context of a workshop where you felt not only out of place but singled out. At the end of the day, did these experiences allow you to embrace the principles of Dr. King?

I embraced the principles of Dr. King, intellectually, even more after the experience of the workshop. However, putting them into practice was very scary and very difficult. I was reluctant to place myself in harm’s way, and found it a challenge to love people who ridiculed me or were openly hostile. But I realized that love was the only way to solve these big issues, and I learned that I had to learn and grow a lot. I had not been prepared for this kind of struggle.

• Many of the readers of this blog are young adults who were born after the height of the Civil Rights movement. I myself came of age in the 1970s. How can we who weren’t there truly understand what was happening? Especially we who are white?

We have to open our eyes to what is happening around us and ask very hard questions and not be afraid of the answers. Such as–Why are there so many black men in our jails? Why do so many black boys drop our of high school? What is there in white people that white people can’t see that is racially biased?

• My penultimate question is this: What lessons can we learn today from the events of the 1960s?

We can learn how hard it is to change systems that support one race over another. We can realize that the issues of today are very hard and complex, and don’t have easy solutions. There are no easy answers, but that should not prevent us from moving forward and working on them.
• Finally, is there one memory of that summer that you would especially like to share?

My first sermon, on my first day. Daddy King asked me to preach without telling me beforehand, and I was greeted by a chorus of Amens, and Preach it Brewster, that made me jump in fright. It must have been a terrible sermon.

Thank you for taking the time to share something of your very inspiring experiences of a summer so long ago!

Comments

Cozetta Lee said…
How can I contact Rev. Gurdon Brewster about speaking at our Black History Program on Feb. 21. I am the President of the Atlanta Area Chapter of the Association for the Improvement of Minorities at the Internal Revenue Service. --Cozetta Lee
Robert Cornwall said…
Cozetta,

Thanks for the query about Gurdon Brewster. My suggestion is to contact his publicist at Dechant-Hughes. Here is the web address:

http://www.dechanthughes.com/

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