by Staff Writer
Several Asbury students will be traveling to Memphis next month to attend a national conference on racial reconciliation from April 2-4.
The conference, dubbed MLK50, is sponsored by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the social policy wing of the Southern Baptist Convention. e ERLC, led by Dr. Russell Moore of Southern Baptist eological Seminary, advocates for “moral and ethical concerns in the public arena.”
The Asbury students are currently in a six-week course discussing race relations and the church’s position toward diversity. e students come from varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds, providing each other with new perspectives.
“There was a lot of racism in my hometown,” said junior Austin Blevins, “and I wanted to learn how to combat it.”
Blevins is from Greenup, Ky., a small town on the eastern border of the Commonwealth. He agrees that the course has already opened his mind.
“[I’ve learned] that we cannot turn a blind eye to slavery, even though we live in a country where we think we’re past it,” Blevins said. “ e legacy of slavery didn’t end after the Civil War.”
at legacy persisted in Kentucky for at least a century after the War Between the States ended; the Commonwealth did not ratify the thirteenth amendment, which delegitimized slavery, until 1976.
Freshman Demarion Johnson is from Maysville, Ky., and he hopes the conference will give him valuable tools for racial reconciliation. He said, “Over the past two semesters, I have learned about racial reconciliation and ways to help in alleviating racial tensions. e MLK50 conference will be beneficial because it will allow me to be equipped to continue facing this touchy subject in a godly manner.”
The conference memorializes the ftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. King was murdered in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
Photo by Sean Davis/Foter
