“Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,” 1 Corinthians 15:1-3 NRSV
I like that Paul unites the people of Corinth in his opening words of chapter 15. Most of our bibles will include “Resurrection” as the headline of this chapter, and with good reason. Paul talks of the past, what he proclaimed to the Corinthians, what they received from him, and what he himself had received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture. Your footnotes for verse 3 might point you back to Isaiah 53:5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” Paul reminds us what Christ accomplished with his life was once proclaimed by the prophets. It’s an important history lesson for the Corinthians, and Paul wants them to remain committed to this good news, in which also you stand. I pray we all receive this good news, as we strive to remain committed to this truth in our lives as Christ’s disciples in the world today.
Now, ride with me for a moment, as I drive past the 1847 Camden County Courthouse. It’s a beautiful building and as the marker says in the above photo, it’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Because of it being on my route anytime I am called to travel, it has become an ordinary thing to see every day. With all of it’s simple Greek Gothic style beauty, I confess it sort of blends in, as I anticipate the approaching intersection of 158 and 343.
But it’s not ordinary. County leadership and staff call this their work home every day, serving the citizens of Camden County. County business is conducted on this campus. County history is found here, current realities are faced here, and future vision is cast here.
It’s the history I want to take a moment and consider with you. I recently finished reading James Cone’s The cross and the lynching tree, available in our Conference Media Center, and was overwhelmed by the heartbreaking stories told in its pages. Cone writes about the connection between the suffering of Christ and the suffering of all those hung from the lynching tree. The descriptions of the lynching scenes shared by Cone were painful to absorb, and I was distraught by the ways people would often celebrate these horrific moments as events in their communities.
Lord, in your mercy.
Cone’s reflections prompted many moments of pause throughout my reading, as I struggled to comprehend the anguish and suffering inflicted upon so many. I wondered why I had not previously sought to seek more about this troubling truth of our nation’s history, and kept turning the pages to learn more. I then remembered learning about The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, where a memorial structure houses “800 corten steel monuments, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place. The names of the lynching victims are engraved on the columns.” [1]
One of those names is Joe Barco of Camden County, NC.
According to A Red Record: revealing lynching sites in North Carolina we learn: “Joe Barco allegedly raped and murdered Mrs. Frank Sanderlin on September 13th, 1892. He was arrested and confined to the Camden County jail until a coroner’s jury found him guilty — at which point he supposedly confessed. On the night of Saturday, October 5th, 1892, a mob numbering around 500 abducted Barco from the county jail, emasculated him, and hanged him and shot him.” [2]
Lord, in your mercy.
Mercy for the Sanderlin family, the Barco family, and all those on the grounds of the county jail. I kept reading Cone, and he taught me about Billie Holiday’s, “Strange Fruit,” [3] a haunting song which describes the lynching tree. Cone taught me about the reactions to the white supremacist bombing in 1963 of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, referencing James Baldwin’s frustration with the white majority of the city not speaking up in the midst of four children being killed. Cone linked Baldwin’s frustration with the words of Rabbi Joachim Prinz: “When I was a rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime…the most important thing I learned under those tragic circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problems. The most urgent and disgraceful, the most shameful, the most tragic problem is silence.” [4]
Silence
Who did I neglect when an injustice
occurred and I stood frozen in
silence?
What opportunity was lost
when I failed to stop a friend
from sharing a racist joke,
and my response was
silence?
Where was my heart
when I witnessed another
face discrimination,
and I looked the other way in
silence?
When will I have the courage
to speak up,
instead of surrendering
shamefully in
silence?
How will I change
my habits of comfort
and challenge myself
to speak out from my
silence?
Why am I so willing
to take the easy road,
rather than facing
the unease of my
silence?
Lord, in your mercy, hear my prayer, 
David
1 .https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial
2. https://lynching.web.unc.edu/the-map/
3. https://youtu.be/bckob0AyKCA
4. James Cone, The cross and the lynching tree, page 55.
If you would like to view past editions of Driving with David, follow this link:
https://beacondistrictnc.org/category/from-the-ds/