Over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, a group of evangelical Christians met together in the dilapidated Chicago YMCA on Wabash Street.
On the Way
Jim Wallis 1-01-1994
The widespread popular discontent that so defined the 1992 election campaign continued unabated into the first year of the new president's term. It would not have mattered who won.
Jim Wallis 6-01-1992
The room was bathed in soft light as spirituals quietly played in the background. More than 100 people came to see the one many called "a good friend" and to say their last goodbyes. It was the first wake we'd ever had at the Sojourners Neighborhood Center. The next morning the funeral was held here too. It was the appropriate place—the place where James Starks had come almost every day for many years. It was where he had become part of a family and found a home.
About 10 years ago, James was sitting out on the stoop one Sunday morning when someone invited him to come to worship with Sojourners Community. After a few more weeks of invitations, he came—and he stayed. Before long, James became involved in the food program and soon was one of its most tireless workers. Many stories were told at James' funeral. We cried and we laughed and decided that James would have been glad for both. Mostly we were very grateful, even in our sadness, for the life of one who had touched each of ours.
On most days, James would go out to pick up food wherever we could get it. Someone said, "Whenever you saw the van, you saw James." Another co-worker told of a pickup at the food bank one winter day in an absolute blizzard that dissuaded everyone but James. He made it all the way there and back and didn't stop until the van came to an abrupt halt in a snowbank in the center's driveway. The next day 300 families had food to take home.
But James' favorite thing was to take the food back out to people who most needed it. He was known to make up to 13 deliveries in a single day, mostly to senior citizens who could no longer get out. He brought more than food, he brought his famous smile and the comfort of good company. He so loved to visit people and stay to talk that one co-worker testified at his funeral, "I had to go with him just to make sure he didn't stay all day!" When there wasn't food to pick up or deliver, James would do whatever else needed to be done around the center. He was the ultimate volunteer.
Jim Wallis 8-01-1990
On the first day of Nelson Mandela's visit to the United States, a million people came to see him. Massive numbers of people, especially from New York City's black neighborhoods, gave the South African leader the warmest and most amazing welcome anyone could remember. Gov. Mario Cuomo said it was the most emotional event he had ever seen in all his years in politics.
In the few short months since being freed from 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela has come to symbolize more than the hope of a free South Africa. He has become an inspiration to people seeking freedom and human rights all over the world.
"To have a black man imprisoned for so long and emerge with such strength and power strengthens black people everywhere," said a black woman in the sea of humanity that lined the streets for Mandela's ticker-tape parade. Many brought their children, saying they wanted their sons and daughters to be a part of this historic moment and to be able to tell their grandchildren that they saw Nelson Mandela. When a television reporter asked a 12-year-old boy what Nelson Mandela said to him that day, the young man paused to think and then replied, "He loved me."
I was staying with friends in the South Bronx that night in order to attend a meeting the next morning of Nelson Mandela and a hundred U.S. religious leaders. I arose early and made my way across the center of Harlem en route to Riverside Church on New York's Upper West Side. When I came to the intersection of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Malcolm X Boulevard, I smiled at the thought of how happy the two great American leaders would have been on this day.