Working on a foundation of diversity established decades ago, several coalitions and organizations are leading efforts in Bartholomew County to oppose hate.
The Rev. Nic Cable, minister at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus, spoke Wednesday night on the need to continue efforts to confront hate by building bridges of respect and understanding in a diverse community.
His remarks were as keynote speaker at the Columbus/Bartholomew County Area NAACP Branch’s 30th Annual Freedom Fund/Scholarship Banquet.
Cable’s observations to more than 130 people during the NAACP event at Columbus East High School were linked in part to the killing Saturday of 11 worshipers at a synagogue service in Pittsburgh, and the Oct. 24 killing of two black residents during a shooting in a Kroger store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky. The shooters accused in both incidents were white males.
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“Our shared burden of resisting and defeating hate will be a long and treacherous road before us,” Cable said.
Part of that road must include creation of hate-crime legislation in Indiana, Cable said, a declaration that elicited strong applause from listeners, and one that has drawn the same response at community meetings since late last year.
Besides many community leaders and folks from all walks of life, the audience included Jeannine Lee Lake of Muncie, the Democratic candidate for the 6th Congressional District in Tuesday’s general election.
Cable spoke of the work of Black Lives Matter of Columbus, formed two years ago, fighting racism and standing for a variety of minorities in the process. He highlighted Not In Columbus, a coalition of 12 local organizations formed a year ago, fighting ethnic threats and hatred. The group mobilized after after two white supremacy groups came to the city.
The Traditionalist Worker Party, labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist group that advocates racially pure nations and communities, conducted a practice march down both sides of Washington Street in downtown Columbus in September 2017. The following month, a group called Midwestern Alliance distributed posters at public locations in Columbus in support of its stated goal to establish a white ethnic state in Midwestern states.
Cable is among organizers of a just-forming coalition of religious groups to aid the cause, still working on details before making an official announcement.
Long before such groups were launched, Columbus became the first city in Indiana to establish a Human Rights Commission, which occurred in 1962.
Cable mentioned that Bartholomew County’s history of welcoming ethnic, cultural and religious diversity can be found in industrialist and human rights leader J. Irwin Miller’s 1964 local speech about creating the “very best community of its size in the country.”
Miller was a strong advocate for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and worked with people such as Martin Luther King, Jr. to organize the Aug. 28, 1963 March on Washington.
Cate Hyatt, who introduced Cable before his remarks, lauded him for his courage in being a bridge builder among diverse groups.
“The times that we are in demand it,” Hyatt said.
Toward that bridge-building perspective, attendees closed the gathering by singing the 1985 hit, “We Are the World.”
Longtime Columbus resident Shirley Trapp, who met Cable shortly after he came to town in July 2017, praised him in front of the crowd after he finished.
“He’s dedicated to love and peacemaking in our community,” Trapp said. “And the words he shared tonight were obviously from his heart.”
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The Columbus Bartholomew County Area NAACP Branch is seeking new members in its mission "to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination."
President Stella Collins outlined that that work is as significant as ever, given developments nationally in recent months. She referred to people calling police on blacks for doing everyday things such as walking in their apartment complex, shopping and other mundane actions.
Membership is $30 per year. People can enroll at naacp.org. The number for the local chapter is 3071.
Information: 812-314-2708.
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