1963 – Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer and other civil rights activists are arrested on false charges in Winona, Mississippi and severely beaten by police while in jail.

June 9th

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If you’re not familiar with the U.S. Jesuit publication America, I hope you use today’s post as an opportunity to become acquainted with their thoughtful, insightful and hopeful writing about Catholicism today in the U.S.A.

Most of their materials are free for readers (although you have to create an account to read the main articles) and even if you’re not Catholic, there is excellent thinking and writing to be found on this site.

Three articles, with a common through line of racial justice caught my attention tonight.

The photos for today are from the three articles. I’m also including one central quote from each of the three.

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“An Open Letter to My Fellow White Americans” by Matt Malone, S.J.

And while it might seem that we are always talking about race, are we?

Do we white people really talk honestly with each other, let alone with our black brothers and sisters?

I do not mean posturing or moralizing, or tweeting or giving lectures or writing op-eds, but talking candidly about our lives—the kind of candor that hurts.

For if we find it easy to talk about race, then we are probably not really talking about it, not in an honest way, for that kind of honesty often hurts.

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/06/08/open-letter-my-fellow-white-americans

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“Fordham’s Fr. Brian Massingale: White Catholics Need to Sit with the Discomfort of Systemic Racism”

White people should feel discomfort when confronted with the reality of white privilege in the United States, Father Massingale said, and sit with that discomfort.

“Let it be agonizing, let it be overwhelming because frankly it’s agonizing for me, too. It’s overwhelming for me, too,” he said.

“It’s only when we become agonized enough, angry enough…that we begin to be invested in change.”

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/06/08/fordhams-bryan-massingale-white-catholics-need-sit-discomfort-systemic

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“Pope Francis on the Death of George Floyd”

My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life. – Pope Francis, June 3, 2020

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/06/03/pope-francis-death-george-floyd-we-cannot-tolerate-racism-and-claim-defend-life