Civil Rights Pioneer Leads March

Rev. John M. Perkins helped to organize and lead a series of civil rights marches and protests in Mendenhall, Miss. that led to his arrest and a severe beating in early February 1970.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, he led another march on behalf of civil rights — this time on the campus of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

About 170 people accompanied Perkins on the march. As they walked in chilly weather, King’s famous "I Have a Dream” speech played in the background.

Monday’s march, following Perkin’s presentation at the Calvin January Series 2014, came in a different atmosphere and time than when he was arrested and severely beaten in 1970.

Today, the relation between the races is not plagued by the same level of oppression and violence as it was 25 years ago, said Perkins in a presentation entitled "Love is the Final Fight.”

Also in the presentation, he spoke about King and his inspirational leadership, about the greed and narrow-minded political ideologies at work in the U.S. today, and about some of his own struggles.

But his talk highlighted how crucial it is for Christians to be engaged in bringing about social change, especially wiping out racism.

While racism may have been more overt 25 years ago in Mississippi, it still festers among us, he said.

 "Racism is contradictory to God's purpose of the gospel,” he said. “We don't know the depth of our racism. We need to examine our hearts and look deep down. Jesus came to get rid of that sin, that bigotry, that hatred."
 
Only love, born out of a keen understanding of other people and their hopes and struggles, can help to purge us of racism.

"We need to be listening to other people. Listening is really prayer, and we need to feel another person's pain," he said.

"We need to see sin for what it is and respond in love. We become light and people see our behavior. That's the way it works."

In speaking about King, Perkins said the slain civil rights leader’s overarching and enduring message was based on Declaration of Independence, which he said is “the greatest statement in the history of the world” with its claim that all humans are created equal.
“We’ve got to believe that God has given us some light, some deeper knowledge,” Perkins said. “King understood that what was needed was renewal.”

Today, Perkins is president of John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development of Jackson, Miss. and the author of several books.

Perkins spoke about being born into Mississippi poverty, the son of a sharecropper. He fled to California when he was 17 after his older brother was murdered by a town marshal.

While in California, said Perkins, he met a group of Christians who helped him to "overcome my love deficit. They helped me to embrace my God. Those people loved me."

Through them, he converted to Christianity, experienced the miracle of forgiveness, and realized he needed to bring this message of reconciliation back to Mississippi.

In 2013, Calvin College established the John M. Perkins Leadership Fellows program, which is made up of a group of students who are selected to participate in a series of leadership development opportunities during their first two years of college.

Perkins praised Calvin College for establishing the program and said that participants are preparing to serve in various ways in important areas of community development.

"I am grateful. Now we have people who are ready to take on the responsibility" of using their Christianity to help create a true, multi-racial society, he said.