Episode 69: Gerald Britt on Local Advocacy for Racial Justice

What's all the fuss in Dallas about Confederate monuments? What do they mean? Why should we care? We'll be talking with Gerald Britt from CitySquare about just that and other matters of race and public life in Dallas on Good God.

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason: Would you like to have a short history of race in the city of Dallas? Gerald Britt grew up here. He's a black pastor and works for City Square in Dallas and he knows personally that history and will share it with you on Good God, coming right up.

George Mason: Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host George Mason, and I'm here with my friend Gerald Britt. Gerald is the Vice President of external affairs for City Square which is Dallas's premiere agency for the public good, I would say. Benevolence work of course in part but also interested in good government, in advocacy for the poor and for opportunity to be equalized in the community. I'm not sure how else you would describe it Gerald.

Gerald Britt: That's not a bad description.

George Mason: All right.

Gerald Britt: Yeah.

George Mason: Very good. Well, Gerald and I have been friends for nearly 30 years as we've been- first, we were pastors together, and we're both Baptist by the way.

Gerald Britt: Right.

George Mason: And it's a really important thing probably to recognize that when people talk about the American church, they often talk about the American church as if it's one thing, or Baptist as if we're one thing.

Gerald Britt: We come in all flavors.

George Mason: And we come in all flavors, and it often reminds me, Gerald, of how often people talk about evangelical Christians, and what they really mean is white evangelical Christians.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. Yeah.

George Mason: They don't really take account of the different dimensions of all of that. But you've been in Dallas a long time and grew up here.

Gerald Britt: All my life.

George Mason: So, third generation preacher too.

Gerald Britt: Yep.

George Mason: So, what was your call to ministry like? Was it the kind of thing where you almost had to figure this is the family business or was it something that you knew God was specially drawing you apart?

Gerald Britt: It's interesting that, for me, it initially kind of started out as running away from the family business. I had thought first of all about being a professional football player, then I wanted to be a lawyer, then I wanted to be engaged in what at that time was the social justice movement. I had gone to hear Angela Davis at SMU, Dick Gregory at Bishop College. I think I frightened my mother and my grandfather to death because they didn't know what I was doing because I hadn't talked it over with them but it was wanting to be of service to my people in a substantial way but at the same time, if I could've avoided the ministry, I would've done that. And I had a couple of coaches who had- because after my senior year, I hadn't received any scholarship offers although I got a lot of letters before then, and a couple of coaches got me a scholarship to Tuskegee Institute.

Gerald Britt: And I had filled out all the paperwork and was ready to sign it, and my parents were on board, and then something just spoke to me while I was getting to ready saying, "If you sign this, you're committed," and I couldn't sign it. And after that, I began thinking that it was an impression upon my soul which is the only way that I can explain it that made me know that the only way I would be settled and have peace was to go into the ministry. So, I preached my first sermon on April 20th of 1975 about three weeks before I graduated high school.

George Mason: And then you went on to where?

Gerald Britt: Bishop College, and was at Bishop College for about a year and a half, and then I was Associate minister and my grandfather's Assistant Pastor for about close to 7 years. And then joined New Mount Moriah Baptist Church because that was kind of a neutral safe place for me. I didn't want to go join my father's church, and I didn't want to stay at my grandfather's church. I tell people I didn't know if I was good because the family kept telling me I was good or because I was good. And so, New Mount Moriah, the pastor and I there became great friends over a course of maybe a couple of years. I would go over and talk with him. He would then tell me stuff about the church that you would not figure any pastor would tell a young preacher.

George Mason: And it didn't scare you off?

Gerald Britt: No, it didn't. Then I joined there. My wife and I joined there. And he began to show me even more. And May 15th of 1982 about 9 months after we had joined, he was killed in a car accident, and the deacons asked me to be interim pastor that night. They ordained me because I wasn't ordained at that time. Ordained me so that I could carry out the sacraments and do baptism. And from May until September of that year I served as interim pastor. And then they called me in September to be pastor.

George Mason: Wow. And how many years were you there?

Gerald Britt: I was there 22 years.

George Mason: 22.

Gerald Britt: 22 years. And I tell people that it started out as a very traditional pastorate. All of the trappings and all of the routine of a normal pastor in a relatively poor setting, although we didn't think of it as that, and then after a while I got involved with Peter Johnson. Peter invited me to or I was encouraged to go to a meeting that Peter Johnson had called for pastors who were concerned about the floods that had happened at that time in what we called Bon Ton.

George Mason: Bon Ton, right. We should stop and say Peter Johnson by the way is a sort of legendary Dallas Civil Rights activist who was part of Martin Luther King's group and marched. Did he work for the Southern Leadership Conference?

Gerald Britt: He did. He worked with Southern Christian Leadership Conference as an organizer, field agent?

George Mason: Right. And he's still around?

Gerald Britt: He's still here. Still a very good friend of mine.

George Mason: Good.

Gerald Britt: And he got me involved there. I was writing speeches to go before city hall. I was writing press releases. And I myself was presenting at city hall at the time, and just kind of finding out what the- And then he got me involved in the protest to stop the city council from appealing Judge Buckmeyer's ruling that the city had to have single member districts. And I remember the very first action that we had, he pushed me in the front to help lead a march of 900 people from the Kennedy Memorial to City Hall. And so, it was me. It was Zan Holmes. It was Roy Williams. It was Martin Luther King III.

George Mason: Marvin Crenshaw maybe?

Gerald Britt: Yeah. Marvin Crenshaw. And so, we led that march, and that's kind of how my foray into public life began.

George Mason: You know, it's interesting you say that because that would have been back probably around 1990 or so, somewhere in there?

Gerald Britt: Right.

George Mason: And the decision about the 14-1 versus the 12-4-1 plan which was, the four at large districts was the other thing, was probably the first public issue I stepped out on as well in my pastorate, and I was really surprised at how much push back I got because it seemed only logical that if we were going to change the sense of full participation that had been denied to people in various districts in their city that we needed to end up with the single member districts; otherwise, everything still looked like the old oligarchy was going to continue to exercise undo influence over other folks. And their argument was this is just going to create ward politics and all that kind of thing. Well, what is democracy anyway?

Gerald Britt: Exactly.

George Mason: I mean really. And so, but I remember that being a challenging time when I realized okay George, if you're going to step out on these things, this is the way it's going to be.

Gerald Britt: Yeah. And we got push back from the black community as well.

George Mason: Did you really?

Gerald Britt: Oh yeah. Yeah.

George Mason: Why is that?

Gerald Britt: There were those who had benefited from the status quo.

George Mason: Well, that gets into the whole accommodation too, doesn't it?

Gerald Britt: Exactly. And there were preachers that admired and respected and had followed for years who were challenging us on the wisdom of doing this. And so, yeah, we got push back from all around. I think that A, we were too young to know any better. B, we had a sense of justice that told us that this had to happen. And so, Peter was an excellent mentor, and he allowed us to grow into leadership while giving us a sense of the flavor of what the Civil Rights Movement had been before. And so, it was a challenging, harrowing time but again the results were worth it. And if it had not been for 14-1 passing, we wouldn't have single member districts on the school board. We would not have single member districts in county government which means there would have been no John Wiley Price, which means there would not have an Yvonne Ewell or Cathleen Gilmore, any of the ones we see today.

Gerald Britt: And so, yeah, it has its draw backs. It has not produced the type of leadership or politicians, frankly statesman I call them, that I had hoped it would produce but that political maturity takes time. And I think it's going to take time for the electorate to grow even though it's been 20 something odd years but it's going to take the electorate to grow to understand the type of leaders that we need, and it's going to take a new level of respect for that maturity for it to grow.

George Mason: So, I think for those who are listening or watching who are in the white community of Dallas and throughout the United States this is very common in cities, there's a sense from some that the black community thinks as one.

Gerald Britt: Right.

George Mason: That it has a single mind about public issues and that sort of thing, but we know that's not true.

Gerald Britt: Right.

George Mason: And I think it's probably helpful to be able to recognize that there are elements who are more progressive and more conservative both in the black community just as well as in the white community, and that's true in the churches too.

Gerald Britt: Exactly.

George Mason: When you look at how the black church, per se, in Dallas, it has evolved over the time you've been here, what observations do you have?

Gerald Britt: Well, I think that frankly the political influence that the black church has in the black community is overestimated and has been for some time. There is still political influence that it has and is recognized and respected as well as it should be but as you said, the black community itself is not monolithic. And so, there are more liberal voices out there, more progressive voices, one might say, who don't agree with stances that are taken by the church. There are some stances frankly that the church should take that it hasn't taken. And so, we've got to work on that. I think that there was, during the time when I was growing up as a pastor as well as before, there were more structures in place for political thought and to give birth to politicians. The structures that gave birth, if you will, to a Zan Holmes.

George Mason: Ministerial Alliances being one of them.

Gerald Britt: Exactly.

George Mason: Which now, instead of being one or two, they're all broken up into different kinds of coalitions.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. And when I became a pastor there were two national baptist conventions, three state conventions about 19 or 20 district associations. Now, there are like 5 national conventions. I don't know how many state conventions there are or local. And then, there's the rise of the non-denominational churches. All of which have kind of zapped some strength away from traditional Protestant African American denominations. So, there's a fracturing that takes place that calls for a new type of coalition building. And there is this reluctance I see on the part of many pastors, that I would have thought we'd overcome by now, to address issues substantively that impact our community.

George Mason: Well, it's not just in your community. It's in ours too. And I hate that we continue to have to say your community and our community when this is our community altogether but let's take a break and come back and address some of those things that we'd like to see the church address more distinctively.

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George Mason: We're back with Gerald Britt. Gerald we were talking about the black church, and its role in Dallas but that also goes to a question of why we have to be talking about a black experience in Dallas and a white experience in Dallas. Why can't we have one city of Dallas? And there's a long history to this tension and how we have accommodated this in order to have a city. The phrase "the accommodation" is one that you hear in the wind a lot in Dallas but it has a very specific history to it. Can you describe what that is?

Gerald Britt: Yeah, accommodation is the title of Jim Schultz's book. Jim Schultz who writes for the Dallas Observer. And it reflects upon a time late 50s into the 60s and 70s where leadership particularly in the black community was an accommodation to the desires of white community not to disrupt, if you will, civic life in Dallas. And so, desegregation in Dallas happened not through protests and demonstration but by fiat and a recognition that Dallas would not be an attractive place to visit or to live if we had the same type of disruption that you had in Birmingham or Selma. And so, there was leadership in Dallas that had ties to white leadership that would allow the selection, if you will, of leaders who they found acceptable and un-troubling to rise to be candidates for city council and the like, and that did not- it didn't produce altogether the lack of tension because even on school boards and city councils these were leaders who had to fight for credibility and fight for respect and fight to have their voices heard but that's kind of the way it happened.

Gerald Britt: And I don't know if you remember when the Brown vs. Board of Education came down from the Supreme Court, there was a film that was made that was supposed to have gotten Dallas ready for desegregation, and the film does not have one black or brown face in it but it speaks to whites actually telling them to act respectable and to understand the law had changed or whatnot but didn't have any pictures of black or brown children, didn't have any voices of African Americans talking about this change. It was directed towards whites. That is kind of the way accommodation worked. And so, what it produced is what a lot of us referred to, in Dallas, as a boil that hasn't been lanced in Dallas. And people are still afraid of lancing that boil because they're afraid of the ugliness that might spill out.

George Mason: Well, so, the urban institute came out with its study that said that Dallas came in 274th out of 274 major cities in America in terms of its inequalities that are mainly racial and economic inequalities here in Dallas. So, the net effect over time of the way we have done business in Dallas, the way our politics has been structured, the way our neighborhoods and our schools have been structured, the consequence of all of that has not been just to create a society in which everyone participates well and eagerly and flourishes; but instead, a deep divide that exists.

Gerald Britt: Right.

George Mason: In my 30 years in Dallas, I haven't seen a time that has been more precarious. I don't think that the white community in Dallas understands just how much seething, anger, resentment, and frustration exists because of this long history and this lack of willingness to address directly the things that are about the everyday life of black Dallas folks, and not just the African American community. I think it's felt in the Latino community as well, but as we try to look at what happens at City Council, as we try to think about issues of affordable housing and about education and about all these sorts of things, there is a racial factor to almost everything we do in Dallas.

Gerald Britt: Yeah. I mean the idea of white supremacy that literally seeps through our entire existence, unknown and unbeknownst to many of us in terms of how it affects our everyday living, be it from confederate monuments to the meager attempts at equity in the city council and the school district. All of that has to do with white supremacy and whites feeling as if they're giving something to ...

George Mason: Right. It's about our charitable instincts but we created a structure, a system of life together that disproportionately advantaged and disadvantaged another, and then we also are asking for credit when we give generously certain kinds of gifts back in some way which is not the way it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be that everyone is deserving of their own place.

Gerald Britt: At City Square we have a book club every month, and there have been some older white supporters who have come from Dallas, and when we would talk about race, their complaint would be, "You talk about this as if there has been no progress," and when you stop and think about it, the hundred years from the period after slavery ended to just say 1963 - 1965 was one of the most brutal periods of segregation and Jim Crow in which people were lynched with impunity, raped without accountability, economically deprived in some of the most heinous ways that you can figure, and to say that you don't give us any credit for- you mean you want credit for being human. You want credit for treating me as if I'm a human being which does not inure to any type of benefit that suggests my equality or equity, equity of opportunity. And so, that is where we've got to move to now.

George Mason: Well, it's where we have to move to, and it seems to me that we're in a place where now we can't continue to just ignore these realities that you've talked about and to pretend that we can just make small incremental progress. We have to take on structurally what is wrong inside of us and what is wrong outside of us, and do this as a complimentary matter. I feel like the white church has said, and elements of the black church as well, change a person's heart and then everything will change.

Gerald Britt: Right.

George Mason: Well, you know, that's actually not the way the biblical profits spoke of it. It's not the way Jesus spoke of it but it is the way the church has largely avoided getting in trouble with each other and with people in public but it doesn't seem to connect. You change your heart with God, and we don't see the net effect of that in terms of the way we do business, the way we choose our schools, the way we have our children integrate. It stays the same.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. Yeah, and I had a friend of mine whom I love dearly and she was saying that I'm trying to change the world one person at a time. And I told her, I said, "We'll all be dead by then".

George Mason: Yeah. Right.

Gerald Britt: There has to be some substantive change that takes place over time but we all have to be made somewhat uncomfortable, and you know you and I talk a little earlier-

George Mason: Let's go ahead and hit me with it Gerald. Go ahead and hit me with it because we go way back, and so there is a conversation that you and I have in my office years and years ago, right?

Gerald Britt: Yeah.

George Mason: So go ahead and talk about this.

Gerald Britt: You know, I'd come over and talk to you about becoming a member of Dallas Area Interfaith and explain to you what we do and all of that, and I think we drifted into a conversation about race and challenging congregations and whatnot. And so, at a certain point you said, "Well, Gerald, you know, nobody wants to be uncomfortable," and I thought about that, and I said okay that's where he is, and that's fine. You and I have remained friends over the years. I've watched you grow in that regard.

George Mason: Thank God.

Gerald Britt: And I've watched a number of your sermons that you've preached, and I said, "Well, looks like he's trying to make people uncomfortable now."

George Mason: Yeah. That's what they would say too I'm afraid.

Gerald Britt: But I think to build substantive relationships that last over time where neither one of you go away from the table, neither one of you stop talking, neither one of you stop talking about the things that are important to one another, neither one of you- where you get to the point where you're actually listening to someone and not just waiting to hear somebody else talk, that's where this begins, and that happens over time. The idea that you talked about when you talked about one segment of the population exercising its dominance to the disadvantage of another, that is the definition of racism, and people don't get that. People think that racism is just simply you don't like me because I'm white or you don't like me because I'm black. Racism has to do with power.

George Mason: Right.

Gerald Britt: Racism has to do with the ability to impact through policy, through economics the way another person lives. And to the degree that we begin to take that seriously is the degree that which we'll see just how badly a whole segment of our population is doing. The lack of not only economic resources but the lack of educational opportunities, the lack of jobs, the lack of transportation, the lack of healthcare. All of that is sourced out of racism, and if we don't get that straight, we'll be able to put some bandaids on this wound but again, we'll never be able to fully lance this boil and let this poison out so that we can all be better.

George Mason: Well, I want to thank you for hanging in there with me over the years. And you know, we laugh about that but it's not really a laughing matter. This is part of what our duty is to each other in part as fellow Christians, as brothers in Christ, in part as ministers, part as just human beings who are neighbors who have to pay attention to one another, and unfortunately, we do find ourselves in a position right now I fear in our country where we aren't being patient with one another. I understand the impatience but if we fall out of relationship with that patience, we don't give anybody a chance to grow.

Gerald Britt: Exactly.

George Mason: And God knows we want things to change quickly, and maybe there are strategies for that to happen of course but over the long course of time, we have to know one another.

Gerald Britt: Right.

George Mason: So, thank you for your patience and for your deliberate consistency over all these years. We have a lot more to talk about. We're going to do another episode, so thanks for being with us on Good God.

Gerald Britt: Well, thank you.

George Mason: We'll come back.

Gerald Britt: All right.

Announcer: Good God is created by Dr. George Mason. Produced and Directed by Jim White. Guest coordination and social media by Upward Strategy Group. Good God, conversations with George Mason is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God and faith and the common good. All material copyright 2019 by Faith Commons.

George Mason: What's all the fuss in Dallas about Confederate monuments? What do they mean? Why should we care? We'll be talking with Gerald Britt from CitySquare about just that and other matters of race and public life in Dallas on Good God. Stay tuned.

George Mason: Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host, George Mason and I'm pleased to welcome back to the program Gerald Britt. Gerald is the vice president of external affairs for CitySquare. And I think Gerald, maybe we should just stop at this point to give you a chance to talk about what you do and what CitySquare really does, because it's such an important player in Dallas.

Gerald Britt: Well, CitySquare is an organization that works to fight poverty from the standpoint of direct service and advocacy. So we've got a number of different programs that address direct service. Food pantry, job training, housing and the like.

Gerald Britt: And then in terms of advocacy, that's work that I and my team do. And so we do any number of things to both accentuate the programs that we have. But also to work to build relationships with other nonprofits and other programs that we hope will enhance our work, and that whose work we can enhance as well.

George Mason: Well, I do think it's important that we always help people to recognize the distinction that is not a difference that we want to have to choose from. And that is charity or justice. They are two different modalities of how we care for the community.

Gerald Britt: Right.

George Mason: But one or the other always leaves a gap, right? And so I would say if we go back to the whole concept of give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime. That's one way to look at that.

George Mason: But of course, if somebody builds a fence around the pond and then locks it, so you can't, even if you know how to fish, you can't get there so you can do that. That turns into a matter of justice. That's more than just a strategy of helping create personal responsibility and helping create skills that make a person. It is about, do we all have opportunity and access here that is God-given and a right for us to participate. And so the advocacy part of that really focuses more on that question of what happens to that fence.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of people either know it or don't associate this work with CitySquare, or may ask what does this have to do with CitySquare? But we work on issues of public education, we work on issues of job training, we work on providing access.

Gerald Britt: And as a matter of fact, we are organizing right now a forum, a mayor's forum for after the election in May. Because we believe that politics is an important part of citizenship. And we're not just trying to... We're, trying to recalibrate a little bit of way CitySquare talks about itself. And I heard a phrase the other day in a meeting that I really liked. We're trying to provide people with pathways out of poverty. And one of those pathways is by participating in government. In participating in meaningful ways in government, not just getting people to vote, but to getting them involved in politics. Because I think that is going to be a way that people are able to help determine their own future.

George Mason: Right. Well, so when we talk about addressing matters of advocacy. We've had one recently here that has been very public and it's been something we've been working side by side about. And that is to take down the Confederate monuments in Dallas that are presided over our city in a symbolic way. It always makes me smile a little bit and then frustrates me when I hear people say, well, what's the big deal? They're just statues. They're just symbols.

George Mason: And I say, wait a minute. So is baptism, so is the Lord's Supper. They're not just, they're not mere symbols. They represent something. They mean something about who we say we are and that sort of thing. So you have been passionate about the inappropriateness and really the wickedness of continuing to defend the symbols of the Confederacy and injustice that took the lives of black Americans with impunity. And made it a cause that these represent a kind of cultural amnesia and an intentional offense to a part of our community. The speech you made at our church actually was a dramatic one in which you addressed that. What were some of the key points that you would want to say to people as to why this has to change?

Gerald Britt: Yeah, because A, I think it's very important that we understand some of the basic historical facts. A, the Confederacy lost the war. I think that's very important place to begin. They were not, at the time that they were fighting, Americans. They were citizens of a foreign country.

George Mason: They seceded.

Gerald Britt: Exactly.

George Mason: Exactly.

Gerald Britt: Nobody forced them to secede, they decided to secede. So that's one thing. Which means in effect, they would trade us. They would trade us to the American government. It is only by... I know that some of them may hate to hear this, it's only by the compassion of Lincoln that they weren't treated as traitors after the Union won the war. So that's one thing.

Gerald Britt: The other thing, too, is we have to understand what the true legacy of the Confederacy is and that war was. The true legacy is not valiant soldiers or of valiant and people who fought for ideals like state rights. The true legacy is Jim Crow and segregation. A period during which 4,000 people were lynched. A period during which our rights were taken away, were given, taken away, and barely acknowledged after a period of a hundred years

George Mason: And these monuments all over the South were put up every time progress was being made.

Gerald Britt: Exactly.

George Mason: As a way of reinforcing white supremacy and, and continuing to make the claim that black people would never have the same opportunity to participate fully in local communities.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. And I am proud of my people, in the sense that they have persisted throughout that period. And so, one of the things I said it in the speech was, when black people would not be able to be buried in cemeteries or prepared for a burial in funeral homes that were owned and operated by white people, we built our own. We bought our own cemeteries. When we weren't able to shop in stores, we developed our own. When you wouldn't provide us with the insurance, we developed our own insurance companies.

Gerald Britt: Every area that roadblocks were thrown up to prevent us from participating, and prove our competence and our ability to participate in public life. We proved just the opposite by building our own. Not because we thought it was right, but because that's what it had to be.

Gerald Britt: And so those monuments are structures that harken back to a day when we were determined to be less than you. They are reminders of a period during which our ancestors were whipped and beaten with impunity and were literal property by law and by custom of a people. It shouldn't have been, but it was.

Gerald Britt: And so why do you want to keep those reminders up? I hear people talking about using them as teaching tools. Well, they've been up now for a hundred years. When are we going to start to listen? And if they are such great monuments, why don't we have anybody calling to put them in the middle of Prestonwood? Or why do we have them in Highland Hills? Why don't we move them out to North Dallas, where those people who claim that these are such great teaching tools can use them. We don't need those monuments as teaching tools. We've got hundreds of thousands of books, documentaries, and other types of legitimate teaching tools to tell, to teach people the truth about the evils of slavery, the dangers of Jim Crow and segregation and the horrors of that period of our lives. And so that's why I think they need to be taken down.

George Mason: Well, and the claim is often made that you can't erase history. You can't rewrite history. But what's ironic about those claims is that these very monuments were attempting to do just that, right? They were attempting to reinterpret the whole cause of the civil war. And the whole point of the Confederacy, which was to maintain white supremacy and the legacy of slavery and the predominance of this idea that God had established an order in the universe, and that human beings were a hierarchy. And maybe even black Americans were not fully human to begin with. So it kept reinforcing, that's the statement that those monuments reinforce. And instead of the noble cause of the South and States' rights and the like.

Gerald Britt: Yeah. The various statues themselves are denials of history. And so it is ironic that they say that by taking them down, we are trying to erase history. We're not trying to erase history by taking them down. We're trying to redeem history. And we're trying to present a clear, factual basis on which to judge history so that we don't do this. This never happens again.

George Mason: Well, and if we really care about about history, we're not going to just take these down. It's time for monuments to people who were lynched in Dallas, too. So Allen Brooks, for instance who was lynched at Main and Akard. And who is represented in Montgomery in Brian Stevenson's tremendous museum there to American lynching.

George Mason: I mean, maybe it's time... If we want educational moments in Dallas, let's be honest about the history of how we've functioned there, and not just say, we want to remember this part, but we don't want to remember that part.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. And you hear these arguments for what's called contextualization, whatever that means. I don't get that. There can be no contextualization that puts a statue that includes Robert E. Lee, Jeff Davis, next to Juanita Craft or a Martin Luther King, or an Al Lipscomb for that matter.

Gerald Britt: There's no contextualization that can present those two characters or those characters on equal footing. And before we do anything like that, I will call for no monuments. Because what it shows is that we are still trying to appease people who by and large have latent or obvious racist tendencies and sympathies. And what it means is for all of Dallas's pretext, we've been wanting to be an international city, we will be a caricature of an international city and not a real substantive international city.

George Mason: Well, I think we want to get into a little more about how we move toward a new Dallas, and how we do politics together differently. Because the day has come when it's time for us to work together and figure out what is needed from each of our communities so that we can trust one another, that we can build a sense of all being in this together to prosper together. And so when we come back from the break, let's be constructive about that and see where we go.

Gerald Britt: All right. Okay, good.

John Seibert: One of the challenges we face in the fight against poverty is that it is such a big, broad problem, that it can be overwhelming to people. Can I really make a difference? Is that something I can really impact? And the answer is yes. My name is John Seibert. I am president and chief operating officer at CitySquare.

John Seibert: The mission of CitySquare is to fight the causes and effects of poverty through service, advocacy and friendship. The service takes the form of about 17 different programs. Advocacy takes the form of different forms of community organizing and really speaking up for neighbors in poverty. And then really the key, the secret sauce to who we are at CitySquare is friendship.

John Seibert: CitySquare is really in the people business. And so our fight against poverty is all about relationships and investing in people. There are no clients, there are only neighbors, and we're all in this together as friends and in community as one. And so I think when we focus more on recognizing our shared humanity, that's when poverty doesn't stand a chance.

George Mason: We're back with Gerald Britt of CitySquare. And Gerald, before the break, we got to talking about how we work together in the future to create a new Dallas. And I'll tell you what you already know and that is, we've been together in various organizing events for social change in Dallas through the years. But pretty much every time I do, I hear from people in my community about, why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you out there? You know, it makes them uncomfortable as we've said, uncomfortable in the past. It's too much politics. We need to just be doing religion, not politics. Leave the politics to the politicians.

George Mason: And sometimes it's a feeling of somewhat betrayal of the white community that you're out there. What would you say, first of all, to people in white churches in Dallas about, a lot of my colleagues, I think, would like to do more. And they feel somehow that they are constrained by their sense that they have a congregation that is, they're going to lose their trust if they're out there on the front lines in this way. What do you want them to hear?

Gerald Britt: A, I'd like for them to listen to some George Mason sermons, because I think you make the case just as well as anybody does. I would tell them pretty much what I even tell black churches. Black churches that are concerned about being too political and whatnot. I tell, you know, politics has the lights on. We don't pay the light bill for new Mount Moriah Baptist church to heaven. We have to pay that to a company that is regulated by politics. You know, we, we have, we run water in the baptismal pool to baptize people. There is no heavenly outposts where we go to pay that deal. That's paid downtown and regulated by politics. Everything our parishioners come to us for, whether it be healthcare, whether it be jobs or whatnot ultimately it's regulated by politics. So we have to talk about politics because it touches our everyday life.

Gerald Britt: Then you also have to understand that politics is the means by which in the public square we settled... Or it should be a place where we settle the arguments about how we're going to live together. And so everybody doesn't go to church. And so everybody won't understand what the Bible says about divorce or what it says about in a number of the doctrinal issues that concern us as people of faith. But they do understand when it comes to issues of gun control, when it comes to issues of jobs and economic development. And as we are talking about that, we've got to talk not just to one another. We've got to be able to talk to the rest of the world. And we've got to be able to talk to the rest of the world in a language that makes sense to them.

George Mason: Without losing our faith at the same time. Well, when we talk about getting involved though, politically, the usual way that people in the white community do that is by having relationships with politicians, people we've supported, people we know, people we go to church with, people we go to the country club with and all of that. All of these things that I'm saying are part of my experience.

George Mason: So the truth of the matter is, I can pick up the phone and call or text a lot of people in public office and they will hear from me, and we will be able to get in touch with them and we'll be able to talk. Well, that access is something that is not a reality for everyone in Dallas, Texas. Even if it should be, it's not.

George Mason: So the idea of organizing, of protesting, of bringing people together to make claims of public officials. That's something that's somewhat foreign to people who have the privileged access to officials and so it makes them very uncomfortable. But it really is democracy, isn't it?

Gerald Britt: Exactly. Yeah, it is. It is what I refer to as advanced democracy. It goes beyond just voting and it goes beyond just going to listening to a speech or reading a position paper by a politician. It is substantive engagement at a very important level. And what I will tell people all the time is that if I go down to city hall with a Michael Waters or Edwin Robinson, or any number of my other friends who are engaged, politically, they pretty much know what to do with us. They pretty know what to say with us. But if I go down there with you and I go down with Jeff Warren and I go down with any number of white.

George Mason: Andy Stoker.

Gerald Britt: And we go down there together and we're all saying the same thing, that gets a different kind of reaction. And that's because they know they can't just hand us the same old line. And think that it now, is that the way it should be? Actually, it is the way it should be. And so that's why I've challenge even white pastors during the Botham Jean shooting to come out and to have a talk with somebody. I said, white pastors need to have their own press conference about this. Not under the safe covering of heaven, me and Brian Carter and some others stand behind it but have their own, because they need to see that these men are standing for justice and that is important to their community. Just like it's important to ours.

George Mason: You know, it's sometimes difficult when you are trying, in the white community to, as the white pastors, when I talk to them, there's a feeling of if we only do something ourselves, does that say that we think we're... We don't need you, or we're going to solve this problem without you and what not.

George Mason: And then there's the other side that's confusing. When we'll say to you, Gerald, what do you need us to do? As if that's the great mystery.

Gerald Britt: I'm glad you're saying that. Cause I've gotten tired of saying it.

George Mason: Well, it is sort of ridiculous. Like hello. Just say the truth, speak the truth and be there. But we need to ask permission somehow or ask instructions because we're... But part of that is just that we're looking for ways always to protect ourselves while we're also prophetic and it's very difficult.

George Mason: It doesn't work like that. And if I had a nickel for every time someone said, be careful George. Yeah, be careful. With some of these relationships you're getting a little too far out there. Well, what does that mean, out there? Like out there in where Jesus is? Out there where God is at work. Out there where it makes us uncomfortable.

George Mason: But because there's a difference, there's a gap between the way the world is and the way God has called us to make the world. And in that gap is where we live. And we've got to acknowledge that, and that's going to cost us something.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. And I think that's exactly right. You cannot take a prophetic stance and have it call it not cost. It just does. Old preachers used to say, you can be prophetic or you can be a pastor. You can't do both.

George Mason: We dispute that.

Gerald Britt: Yeah, it's kind of a harsh thing. But what I think what they mean is you can have the dynamic and the dynamism of the prophetic ministry, Or you can have a comfortable pastoral ministry. But you can't do both.

George Mason: But if you love people, and if they know you love them, and you are there for them over a long period of time, there may be rifts that happened between you. But our call is not just to make life comfortable for each other.

Gerald Britt: Well, yeah. And Larry James says the same thing. And I've experienced that as well. If you spend enough time baring enough people, baptizing enough people, visiting enough folk in the hospital, making sure that people are taught, they'll give you a tremendous amount of license to do some of the more... What people might consider the eclectic stuff that we were talking about. They understand when the pastor has to go out and speak at city hall or speak about a controversial issue, and they will support that. And so I think that to the white pastors I would just say, the water's fine. You just need to come on in.

George Mason: Yeah. Come on in. Exactly. Well, the waters have to be troubled sometimes too, in order for them ever to be calm. And you can't do it the other way round. But I understand the critique also in that it's hard to do both things well and it's necessary to do both things well. That people need to know that we care about their souls. We care about their relationship to God. We care about their confidence of their spiritual life and their capacity to pray and their families, the way they care for one another. But it's also necessary for us to keep the second part of that great commandment. And that is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. Exactly. And I think that understanding that it's important to be that. I explained to one friend of mine, sometimes I have to be Martin Luther King, sometimes I have to be Billy Graham. And so the people that I preach to need both. And it's important for me to keep that balance in mind.

George Mason: Right, right. And I think it's fair to say that you can go into most black churches in Dallas, Texas and hear that very same thing taking place. And it's not like it... I think sometimes the white churches have the sense that it's all politics all the time in the black church in Dallas, Texas. And that's certainly not true. In fact sometimes to the frustration of the people in the pew.

Gerald Britt: Exactly. Yeah. You hear a number of complaints that my pastor isn't political enough or engaged enough. Some of those pastors are engaged in levels that we don't know about and are doing work that we don't know about. So we have to be fair about this. But at the same time, they have to understand that there are a number of people who come there to be comforted. A number of people who are in grief. A number of people who are suffering through any number of types of losses that you can't imagine. They have to be spoken to as well. And so you have to preach that prophetic word, yes. But you also have to preach a pastoral word.

George Mason: Well, and I think people often mistake politics and partisanship. It's not about getting up in the pulpit and naming all the ills of the opposing party who you might not like. So that you are in a position where you're only leveraged with one sort of people, with one sort of political approach. No, politics, every politician has to be held accountable regardless of party for are they seeking the common good in our communities and in our country.

Gerald Britt: Which is one of the reasons I've never endorsed a candidate. I tell people, my job when I was a pastor is to be more like Nathan than to be...

George Mason: The Biblical Nathan.

Gerald Britt: Yeah. But who stands alongside the King, telling the King what the Lord wants him to hear versus what he thinks he needs to hear.

George Mason: Well, Gerald, I think you've spent a lifetime of ministry in Dallas doing just that. And you've also helped me learn to do that. And if to whatever extent I succeed, it's in part because of your friendship.

Gerald Britt: I appreciate your friendship and I appreciate the work that you are doing here at Wilshire. Not just the traditional pastoral work, but the prophetic work as well.

George Mason: Thank you so much. Glad to have you on Good God.

Gerald Britt: Thank you so much.

Jim White: Good God is created by Dr. George Mason, produced and directed by Jim White. Guest coordination and social media by Upward Strategy Group. Good God, conversations with George Mason, is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God and faith and the common good. All material copyright 2019 by Faith Commons.

George Mason: The Good God program is a project of Faith Commons, a nonprofit organization I founded in 2018 to help promote the common good. Doing public theology across faith traditions and across racial and ethnic lines is an important thing today in our communities. We hope you'll continue to enjoy Good God, but look at some of the other things we're doing also through Faith Commons at www.faithcommons.org.