About the Author: Rev. Dr. Velda Love
Rev. Dr. Velda R. Love currently serves as Minister for Racial Justice in The Justice and Witness Ministries of The United Church of Christ. Velda has a working knowledge of critical race theory and creates comprehensive and strategic approaches for UCC national conferences, congregations, and staff colleagues to explore and understand the intersection of racial justice with other justice issues. Velda brings an African-centered approach inclusive of biblical and theological knowledge in liberation and womanist perspectives.
The church is not now nor has ever been monolithic in its mission, vision, doctrines, and missional intent. As an educator, I wonder if you’re disappointed because the Christian Church has been influenced by Western ideology and Eurocentric beliefs in supremacy and not justice for all of its citizens.
On April 16, 1963, while sitting inside a jail cell after being arrested for protesting and demonstrating peacefully in Birmingham Alabama, King wrote a response to eight white Alabama clergymen. The eight clergymen wrote a letter criticizing his presence in Birmingham and the aggressive approach to securing civil rights for black people in the state of Alabama.