Two great NFL Playoff games yesterday! I am firmly ensconsced on the Pittsburgh Steelers bandwagon in deference to my great friend Toney Stowers. In fact, I expect Toney's blog to lose the Marshall green theme in favor of the black and gold sometime today.
Yesterday's Steelers/Colts game was yet another reminder in the long history of NFL playoff reminders that physical beats finesse just about everytime.
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I grew up in a segregated town. Benton, Arkansas during my youth was a city with a clear line of demarcation: the "coloreds" lived across the railroad tracks in the Southside community.
The movie theatre in my hometown was a clever two-level, two-screened cinema. I say "clever" because the two-level, two-screen setup of my youth masked the fact that when my parents were young, it was two distinct theatres, the bottom level for the white folk and the upper level for the black folk.
The Civil Rights Movement, led by Martin Luther King among others, helped to rectify some of the sad heritage of racial discrimination. Still, though, some of that heritage remains, even if unspoken in the way the races still remain relatively segregated according to communities in my hometown.
When I was a youth, along with a couple of other guys in the Northside church, we determined to befriend and include the youth of the Johnson Street Church of Christ--the church located in the Southside community in my hometown. And what a blessing that has been in my life!
W.K. Hannah, Charles Cunningham and Onterria Richardson, the three fine elders of the Johnson Street church, have been wonderful mentors to me. At a time when my home church was reticent to allow us young guys to preach on Sunday, the Johnson Street church always welcomed us with open arms. Willie Ray Hill and Cedric Finley were the two preachers at Johnson Street during my youth and college years and they always welcomed me to their pulpit. It was a wonderful experience for me many times to preach in the same place where Marshall Keeble once preached. I still have fond memories of preaching a gospel meeting at Johnson Street back in 1996.
Today, as our nation pauses to honor the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, I pause to thank God for the brothers and sisters at the Johnson Street Church of Christ.
