Darlene Miller
Not In Our Town: Bloomington/Normal
Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who shot nine church members in Charleston, South Carolina.
We too have been thinking about the '90’s church burnings as we try to digest this horrible event (this week's Charleston, S.C., church shootings).
My husband Marc and I shared an office space in our home back then: With every report of a church burning over the course of several months, we would comment to each other about how terrible it all was, and then go back to work. Finally it was apparent that we needed to actually do something if our words were to have any substantive meaning.
We set up a meeting at our local library: (Bloomington labor leader and alderman) Mike Matekja showed up with his good news -- the story of Not In Our Town. Churches, the mayor, and countless citizens stepped forward to participate. A team of wonderful people went south to help rebuild a church, including the mayor of Bloomington.
Marc designed an action step --.an act that people of any age could participate in: "Sign a Pledge Card," which served as a tool of self-commitment to fight racism and hate, and to this day is a mainstay in our efforts.
When we started the Not In Our Town In Schools in the mid-2000s, the hope was to reach families who would never on their own have the opportunity to make a statement regarding racism: The local schools were most receptive in letting us have information tables at as many as 30 events a year. We felt this was a way to possibly catch the attention of a youngster headed in the wrong direction. I so strongly feel that children need to be reached early.
So our attention turned to reaching the unreached. The annual rallies, although inspiring, tended to draw the same already committed crowds and reached very few new people. Today, (NIOT:B/N leaders and educators) Camille Taylor and Faye-Freeman Smith are leading the Education component and how fortunate we are for their skilled leadership: They are leading our most important effort in my opinion -- reaching young people.