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Rev. Charles Stovall: On the
Battlefield for Justice
By: DR. PAMELA HILL
African-American News&Issues
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
Rev. L. Charles Stovall is one of very few
grass roots preachers in the City of Dallas. As the pastor of the Camp
Wisdom United Methodist Church for thirteen years, his work goes beyond that
of ministering to his members. He believes in standing up for those who are
too weak to stand, and speaking out for those whose voices fall on deaf
ears. It is not unusual to see Rev. Stovall out in the community, marching,
protesting and picketing. As the chair of United Organizations for Justice,
Stovall is often called upon by citizens seeking justice, in an unjust
system.
Born in Lexington, Mississippi, and raised in Georgia, Stovall graduated
from Clark College (now Clark-Atlanta University) and received a Masters of
Divinity at the Interdenominational Theology Center, also in Atlanta.
Stovall says while attending seminary school he received a strong dose of
social gospel, because theology was seen as something that needed to be made
practical in the community. Being in an environment where there were the
likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, who was assassinated when Stovall was 14
years old, and others such as Hosea Williams, H. Rapp Brown, CT. Vivian,
Andrew Young, and Joseph Lowery, Stovall says he was exposed a lot to the
civil rights movement, to the labor movement and also to the peace movement.
He was among many who protested the conditions in South Africa and went to
jail for the cause. He was also chosen as one of twelve people from the
United States to go under the umbrella of the National Council of Churches
to monitor and observe the elections in South Africa and attended the
inauguration of Nelson Mandela.
Unified Organizations for Justice (UOJ) came into existence in response to
the murder of two African American unarmed men by members of the Dallas
police department. On July 1, 2002, Keenon Forge was strangled by members of
the Dallas police department, and on July 2, 2002, Tomell Hurd was shot to
death in the back by members of Dallas police department. Stovall says that
the murder of two young African American men in a span of two days sent an
alert to him that something was not right when it came to policing in the
City of Dallas, “I knew the Forge family, but I did not know the Hurd
family. I simply called both families, in the capacity of a minister, to
share with them my concern, and as I talked to Mrs. Hurd, I realized that no
one in the community was saying anything about the fact that within two
days, two African American men had been killed. I could not understand that,
and I made a commitment to Mrs. Hurd and Mrs. Forge that I would bring some
people together in the community to look at these issues to and see what our
response needed to be.”
Stovall says the first person he called was Lee Alcorn, who was already
active in the community and had shown the ability and the willingness to
stand up against the popular position that most people had taken, and Alcorn
had proven to be a good strong organizer. Stovall called others in the
community who did not want to be involved, “ I was on a radio show talking
about what had occurred and one of the most “prominent politicians in our
community”, actually said to another politicians that they should not get
involved in this issue, I was taken aback by that. The fact that two unarmed
African American men, both in their mid twenties where murdered, should had
sparked some serious response from the African American community, and it
just was not happening. We met with the families to see what we could do to
begin to address the issue. We set up a series of meetings with then chief
of police, Terrell Bolton, and his command staff to talk about our issues.
We publicized our concerns through the press that the deaths were
unnecessary and unwarranted and that the police department needed to be
accountable for members of its department that violated the civil rights, as
we believed, of these young men.”
A number of community activist, the New Black Panther Party, a
representative of the Muslim community have and continue to support these
efforts. Stovall maintains that the whole philosophy was and continues to be
that this issue is not something that we can be partisan on, therefore
people will do what needs to be done within their own organization, but
unite on the issue of police misconduct, brutality and deaths in custody in
our community. The UOJ began to monitor the newspapers and discovered that
there had been deaths in custody, which had been put in the metropolitan
part of the paper, as news briefs. According to Stovall, “The lives of
African Americans who died in custody did not warrant a story, they were
just news briefs, and we begin to follow up on these. Since the deaths of
Keenon Forge and Tomell Hurd, we have been able to document at least 12
deaths in custody of African Americans. We do not believe it is by
coincident, as the Police department would try to have us to believe, that
in the city of Dallas all of the deaths in custody have been African
Americans”.
UOJ has been accused of adding fuel to the fire of the people who are
working against former police chief Terrell Bolton, because of the
organizations criticism of the police department not dealing with these
officers who killed these young men in our community, and the most recent
victim, Tony Vernon. Stovall maintains that UOJ developed a strong working
relationship with former police Chief Bolton, and whenever he fired officers
that were obviously in the wrong, the city manager would come and overturn
his decisions.
He also says folk need to be reminded that some of the same people that are
in UOJ put forth to all the major mayoral candidates during the election to
complete former Mayor Ron Kirk’s term, that the number one thing was they
needed to keep hands off of Chief Bolton. “We supported Chief Bolton then,
and we still support him now. We must understand that African American
politicians have to be on the side of the our community, this does not mean
that they should not do their job as being, for example mayor of all the
people, or commissioner or representative of all the people, but there has
to be a sensitivity in the hearts of African American politicians that links
them to the community in such a way that there are things that they will not
tolerate. To whom much is given, much is required, is also true of people
who have leadership in our community. They cannot cease being accountable
and responsible to the needs of the poor, to the needs of African Americans
and other minorities, just so that they can maintain some type of image in
terms of the larger community. The concern has to be that our communities
are cared for, particularly those communities that tend to have less of a
voice, those communities that tend to be ignored when it comes to where
dollars are placed, where development is encouraged, those communities that
bare the bunt of the lack of educational dollars for our children, lack of
health care and other issues. When we have people that get into positions of
power they need to make sure that whatever business deals they work, what
ever kind of stands they have in the community, they became the voice of the
people in those arenas that don’t have a voice.”.
Stovall says he believes that pro-activism is a part of his calling. He
acknowledged that not all ministers are called into social and community
activism, but feels that all ministers are called to search the scriptures
to see what is says about how we are to relate to the widow, the orphan, the
poor, to the stranger, and to marginalized, and maintains that every social
and domestic policy is addressed somewhere in the gospel. “I believe that
the passion of community activism comes out of an understanding that God
demands that of you. That it is part of who you are as a pastor and that
way, you don’t get caught up into the politics of the situation. I believe
that ministers need to learn the issues of our communities and know the
issues of our communities and give leadership to our people, without putting
their fingers in their mouths and lifting their fingers in the air to see
which way the wind is blowing. We need to have prophetic ministers who are
not afraid to face the powers that be, just as Jesus did, if we are serious
about what it is to be Christian For example, Jesus stood up to the
political powers of his day and he didn’t mince his words, he didn’t try to
tailor his words to appease those who were in positions of power, but he
called power into accountability, and that’s really what the moral force of
any religion, whether its Christian, or Muslim, whether its called by any
other name, that we have to understand because we have to be about a moral
conviction and a moral force. Somebody has to say something, that’s the
bottom line.
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