It was the middle of the afternoon on March 7, 1992. Jim Wallis and Ken Medema were on the stage of the Palace Theater in Canton, Ohio, going over last minute details in preparation for the Let Justice Roll event to be held that evening. The theater was empty, except for the fear that our efforts to move our community to a deeper concern for justice and peace would fail.
What brought us to that night--and what that night promised for our future--is a story worth telling, because it can happen in your community.
My wife, Susan, and I are the parents of seven children, including two adopted children; and the foster parents of a toddler and a teen-age mother and her baby. Needless to say, our home life is busy, and occasionally we need to get away for a weekend to mend our spirits.
On one of these mini-retreats, Susan brought along an issue of Sojourners with the simple words "War Is Not the Answer" framed on the cover. From our point of view, blind patriotism was choking the needed dialogue on the United States' involvement in the Persian Gulf war. Our country's political leaders had already decided that war was the answer.
I was aware of a growing inconsistency between trying to raise my children in a nonviolent home environment and my lack of response to the violence in which our nation was engaging. I needed to act because I believe that children learn how to resolve conflict not by what we say as parents and adults, but by what we do.
The answer to what I might do came as I paged through Sojourners. An advertisement for the Let Justice Roll tour talked about a grassroots struggle for justice and peace in our land. When I read the word "grassroots," I knew that was me; I could make a difference in my community. But I couldn't do it alone.
I shared my desire to bring Let Justice Roll to Canton with our small faith community and asked for their discernment. We obtained further information on the tour from Sojourners, and after some discussion we decided to take the next step.
THE 15 OF US decided we could not bring Let Justice Roll to town by ourselves. Each of us knew at least one other person concerned with justice and peace issues and invited him or her to a meeting at our house. This decision was the first of many that opened us to what we believe was the guiding of the Spirit.
Moving forward meant bringing Joe Nangle, Sojourners' outreach director, to Canton so he could learn about our community's concerns. It also meant raising money, the aspect that worried us the most. A couple in our group offered to pay for Joe's flight and to put him up at their house. This delayed the fund-raising issue for a while.
When Joe arrived he gave the tour a human face. As we gathered for dinner and conversation, we began to sense a common bond, a bond that Sojourners recognized when they asked us to no longer think of ourselves as subscribers to a magazine, but as members of a community, as sojourners on the way. After meeting with various community representatives we had contacted, we made a commitment to bring Let Justice Roll to Canton on December 7, 1991.
Two weeks later everything changed. The planning group gathered in our living room as usual, and the focus of our discussion shifted from wondering whether we could accomplish the task to wondering whether we should. We were all white, middle-class, Christian, and professional; hardly representative of the actual community of Canton. Responding to the issues of our community in any real sense was impossible unless we changed.
If the true meaning and purpose of bringing Let Justice Roll to town was to be achieved, we had to become a group with diverse racial, economic, social, cultural, and religious identities. Bringing Let Justice Roll to town shifted to being the means of achieving a greater goal. It was exhilarating to be part of a group of people wanting to experience such a change.
Eventually we named ourselves the Area Faith Network for Justice and Peace. We wanted to become a way for people involved in grassroots struggles to make new connections and to keep connected--and to be able to respond, in concrete and specific ways, to the needs of our community.
We moved the tour date to March 7, 1992, and made December 7 our kickoff date for sponsoring the spring tour. We hoped that by gathering a cross-section of our community to the kickoff meeting, we could affect the makeup of the Area Faith Network.
We began to meet weekly. By now there were about 20 people involved, and new relationships were deepening while the plans for the kickoff were being carried out. We asked each member to send their friends invitations. There were many duplications, which turned out to be advantageous. As one of the individuals attending the event remarked, after receiving the same invitation from four people she respected, she knew she had to attend!
THE DECEMBER 7 kickoff was a success. More than 60 people from diverse backgrounds gathered to represent our community. We obtained a grant for $1,000 through the Sisters of Humility, who are strong advocates for justice and peace efforts. This money was truly leaven money, giving us credibility to a wider audience while helping to pay our bills.
After this meeting our numbers continued to grow. We organized four committees--finance, publicity, planning, and facility--and asked individuals to join. An executive committee was formed to coordinate efforts and maintain communications among all the members.
As each committee met for the first time, a great deal of time was spent clarifying the purpose of Let Justice Roll, the role of the Area Faith Network for Justice and Peace, and our own involvement in the process. It was this experience of sharing that brought us together, clarified what we were about, and focused our efforts.
The finance committee decided not to charge admission to the event, setting for themselves the task of raising all of the money from donations. We weren't fund-raising experts, but we shared a vision of including everyone in Let Justice Roll regardless of their economic situation.
Once again, we mailed a letter to individuals, churches, justice and peace groups, and businesses receptive to the work of social justice. Within 10 days we were receiving two or three checks daily. From the beginning, we had been most worried about raising enough money to meet expenses--but it wasn't proving to be a problem.
The planning committee added the Canton Urban League/Southeast Community Choir to the program, as well as a 15-year-old vocalist named Bethany Weisand, who like Ken Medema is a blind musician. They were also able to get more than 20 different social service groups to participate in the event--a key part of the Let Justice Roll strategy to connect individuals with the peace and justice work of the community.
The publicity committee put together a campaign and created handbills, flyers, and posters, drawing as much as possible on the gifts of the members of the Area Faith Network. We mailed out announcements to local churches and area readers of Sojourners.
We placed public service announcements and write-ups in the local papers and were on a few local talk shows. One of our supporters even paid for a newspaper advertisement. Our hopes were high and we had done all we could.
ON THE AFTERNOON of the Let Justice Roll event, it seemed like everything began to happen at once. Before we knew it, the Palace Theater was beginning to fill up. By the time Ken Medema was introduced there were nearly 1,000 people in the theater joining in the refrain, "Let justice roll, roll down like water, and righteousness like a flowing stream."
Let Justice Roll was an evening of story-telling, song, and prayer. We were reminded that we are all sojourners who perish without a vision, and that it was time for the vision to be shared again. Rev. Walter Arrington, president of a local interdenominational ministerial association, called on individuals to make a commitment to their community through the work of local groups. It was an evening to be challenged not only to talk the talk but to walk the walk.
Since that time, we have worked to forge our own network for justice and peace--remembering that it is only our faith that sustains us along the way. Together, we are a group of committed people sharing our stories, connecting with others, and ready to respond to the concrete issues of justice and peace that touch us daily.
Dick Ross was director of Community Service Programing for Walsh College in Canton, Ohio, and a member of the Area Faith Network for Justice and Peace when this article appeared.
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