BY JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
In the spring of 1968, a new stadium began to rise along Cincinnati's riverfront, peace in the Middle East was a faraway goal, and the Tristate religious community created the Metropolitan Area Religious Coalition of Cincinnati (MARCC) to fight problems associated with race and poverty.
Thirty years later another stadium is about to rise, peace remains elusive in the Middle East and MARCC is again gathering to address the divide between races.
In a 1 p.m. ceremony today, leaders of 19 religious bodies will march from St. Peter in Chains Cathedral to Cincinnati City Hall to urge their congregations to work on race.
In 1968, religious leaders were reacting to a crisis caused by longstanding discrimination and the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avondale was the scene for the second round of civil strife in as many years, and protests against the war in Vietnam contributed to a sense of chaos.
Today, a robust economy and domestic peace make it harder to convince people of the need for social action. But with black unemployment still substantially higher and black household income much lower than they are for whites, some think the time for a new effort is now. "We shouldn't have to wait for a crisis to occur to address problems. We never solved all the human social problems" from a generation ago, said Eugene Ruehlmann, who was mayor of Cincinnati 30 years ago and will join former mayor Theodore Berry and Mayor Roxanne Qualls at today's ceremony. "My own personal feeling is the crisis atmosphere isn't present today but that doesn't mean things shouldn't be done. All you have to do is look at the rest of the world -- as a society we're still trying to get along together."
Mayor Ruehlmann and others started programs in the late 1960s, as the struggle for civil rights raged on, to address problems such as unemployment and housing discrimination. Discussion groups brought blacks and whites together, and clergy came together to form an interfaith group to help in the effort.
"There was a lot of tension and I felt we could reach out to various religious groups in the community and see what we could do about civil rights and particularly black rights," said Albert Goldman, rabbi emeritus of Wise Temple, who will be at today's ceremony. "Otis Moss (a Lockland pastor and civil-rights leader) referred to Cincinnati as the Upper South. There was a lot of tension and anger." Rabbi Goldman and the Episcopal bishop, the Rt. Rev. Roger Blanchard, met with other Catholic, Jewish and Protestant clergy March 28, 1968 -- a week before the King assassination. In the wake of the Rev. Dr. King's death and the ensuing riots, the religious leaders worked to keep the city calm and afterward continued their efforts to lobby Cincinnati's decision-makers.
"Rather than protest and march, which is what I'd been doing in Mississippi and Rochester, I said, let's figure out a way to provide people in power with information. . . . We tried to help people we assumed were trying to do good to do better," said the Rev. Paul Long, a Presbyterian minister and early MARCC participant. The organization "has been in the middle of things but in a quiet, non-controversial way, which I think in Cincinnati is the only way to get things done."
Long after similar groups formed in the late 1960s withered away, MARCC has remained a force in debates over school desegregation, welfare reform and access to child care. When Mayor Roxanne Qualls, in the wake of fresh tensions in the 1990s over relations between the police division and the black community, asked religious leaders last June to speak out on race, the leaders turned to MARCC.
"She said, "I think the religious community needs to make a statement because the religious community is the only one left with the credibility to make a statement,' " said MARCC executive director the Rev. Duane Holm.
The group made its first statement Jan. 1 to mark Emancipation Proclamation Day, and today each religious leader will pledge to work on race based on his or her theology. They will also present a list of ways congregations can improve race relations, such as joint worship, prayer and study. The event is timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. King's death and with a week of holidays for the three Abrahamic religions: Holy Week and Easter for Christians, Passover for Jews, and Eid al-Adha for Muslims.
"All this effort is aimed at increasing, continuing or beginning work in congregations. That's the end product," the Rev. Dr. Holm said. "These two events, in January and April, supply ways of encouraging or improving stuff that's already in motion."
The Rev. Taylor T. Thompson, pastor of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Forest Park, points to corporate America and Cincinnati Public Schools for evidence that race still divides.
"Statistically we can talk about the closing of the economic gap between majority America and minority America, but there's still a glass ceiling stopping African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans from getting to the top," said the Rev. Dr. Thompson, who is also vice-president of MARCC and president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance.
"Cincinnati Public Schools are now predominantly black and the care and concern for education is not as present as it is elsewhere. There's a tendency of the majority to look to suburban or private schools for the education of their children."
As for solutions, the Rev. Dr. Thompson looks to pulpit exchanges and programs that bring blacks and whites together for socializing and fellowship. When he was pastor at a Roselawn church, his congregation worshiped at Thanksgiving with a Jewish congregation, and eventually the familiarity extended year-round.
"It no longer became somebody they passed by," he said. "Friendships developed, and they were lasting."
