I took piano lessons for five years from a lady named Mrs. Boone. She had a green lamp above her piano so she could read her sheet music at night. Everything in her house was perfectly placed. The colors in her piano room were all from the same palette and she kept everything fairly symmetric. But what always caught my attention was the green lamp. It was this charged, bright green lamp with one of those old-fashioned pull strings. Its color made it stand out against all of the tones in her house. Another thing about the lamp was that it was always on. Never did I walk into her house when the green lamp wasn’t scorching my corneas. I felt like it mocked me. It was a reminder that Mrs. Boone had this passion and dedication to her music that I would never have. She worked for hours under the green lamp, cultivating her skills in order to bridge the gap between the realm of music and the people who heard her in the audience, which made the work all the more worth it.
When I walked into Dr. Frank Anderson’s office, it was the first thing I noticed in his room, too. Against all of the coordinating colors of his books and furniture, the same bright green lamp hung over his desk.
Around 2008, Union University recognized the problem that looms over not only our country, but over the entire body of Christ: We have race issues. New to the Jackson campus, Anderson is the director of the Center for Racial Reconciliation and has been a member of the school of theology and missions faculty since 2010. The Center for Racial Reconciliation can help the university think through how to increase the diversity on campus in relation to faculty, staff and students. It was becoming the Director for Racial Reconciliation that brought Anderson to the Jackson campus this semester.
“The university has acknowledged there is a race problem,” Anderson said. “We want to be impactful in a God-honoring way, both in the university community and beyond. I think what it means for me is to help the university community in terms of our understanding the theological implications of racial reconciliation, racial and ethnic diversity and racial unity. We also need to create as many opportunities as we can for the university community to demonstrate that we are a loving community to the glory of God with this appreciation of racial unity.”
Anderson grew up in Memphis during the sixties in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement. In his childhood, schools were given the federal order to desegregate, and Anderson followed his mother, who was a teacher, to an all-white school prior to the order.
“I think it’s gone a long way to prepare me for this particular role. I have had the opportunity to see a lot of the problems up close and in a personal way. I’ve had the blessed opportunity to see a lot of change. I see where we were, I am here where we are and I think I have an understanding in the gaps of what we need to do. I’m not sure I have the answers, but I’ve lived through much of the problem.”
1968 was a rough year for the country. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and violet race riots broke out all over the nation. I asked Anderson if he knew the history he was living through.
“By the time I was about 9 years old, I was keenly aware that I was in the middle of it. There were several situations that heightened my awareness. By the time I’m in the fourth grade, I know. I know I’m in a sick situation.”
One of these situations involved Anderson’s father. As a high school dropout, he started a church in 1964. He decided then that he needed to complete his education, so he went to night school and got his diploma.
“I still remember him in his cap and gown,” Anderson said.
His father decided soon after to apply to seminary. He got accepted, and on his first day, he was turned away at the door because of his color.
“I will never forget the look on his face when he, as a high school dropout, who had graduated from high school, left home one morning thinking, ‘This is unbelievable. I’m going to college,’ and then came back.”
The property that was owned by the school at the time was given by a grant. One of the stipulations was that no black students were allowed to be enrolled.
“I didn’t understand how people of God could make a decision like that on the basis of race,” said Anderson.
Ten years later, Anderson accepted his call to preach. Following in his father’s footsteps, he decided to go to seminary. The best option for him at the time was to go to that same institution that turned his father away.
“To make a long story short, I ended up working for that institution and the very person who turned my father away thirty years before. Our offices were actually next door to each other for a while. I had a real difficulty, both in terms of the notion of going to seminary and working at that institution because of that history. I really had to give my racial chip over to the Lord to get to a point where I was willing to embrace the opportunity that was set before me, and I’m glad that I did.”
After quickly swallowing the sob I had almost emitted there in his office, I asked about the man who turned his father away.
“One of the finest, most Godly men I’ve ever worked with,” Anderson said. “I had to understand his background. And that’s a big part of racial reconciliation.”
“Not in a thousand years did I think I’d end up in a role like this,” Anderson said. “I’ve been doing racial reconciliation all of my life. But trying to put it in a center or deal with it in an academic context, that’s a different kind of process. My overall thought process on racial reconciliation is, ‘Let’s just do it.’ We are in an academic environment, so we engage in the dialogue and read books and this that and the other, but—and I think you’re white (I am)—how hard is it for Elizabeth and Frank Anderson to sit here and talk and try to understand each other? How hard is it for us to appreciate that we are both a part of God’s creation? How hard is it for us to get together when we both love Christ?”
It’s a question that we should all be asking and one that I have rolled around in my head since I walked out of his office Friday afternoon. Why is it so hard? Why don’t we have the courage to break down the barriers that were set up by the people before us?
“If I have a racial predisposition as a member of the body of Christ, it affects you,” Anderson said. “It’s in your best interest as a citizen of the kingdom that I be healed of my racial sickness.”
The green lamp made its way into my mind again. Not to mock me so much this time, but to remind me. It reminded me that Dr. Anderson and Mrs. Boone actually have a lot in common. They both work tirelessly for their goals, each cultivating their God-given gifts in order to bridge the gap between people. It is this kind of dedication that it takes to break the barriers between the 38305 and the 38301 society of Jackson. It is a mindset that has already impacted me. I hope it continues to impact the students of Union, who will then spread that mindset to the far reaches of our country.
Photo Courtesy of Campbell Padgett
