withoutsanctuary.org

[Grayson]

I have visted this site the last couple of days and I can't get rid of the images.

I stumbled across this site while researching for a feminist theology course, and I'll can say is that I feel like a just society will never exist b/c it can never redeem the past.

how can I hope for hope?

[Tim]

I downloaded the photo of the 1935 lynching of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Why? I'm going to paint it. I'm so haunted by this photo - the man casually leaning against the tree where Rubin hangs. Especially the little white girl, looking at the camera.

I started reading about lynchings when doing a painting in rememberence of Rosa Parks - that photo of her holding the 7053 number for her mug shot. I had read that some lynchings had happened not too long before her bus action, and I wondered if she thought about that as she was arrested. God! Imagine, Rosa Parks could have been lynched.

So, I just finished my paining of Rosa, with that haunting look on her face - there were so many ideas expressed in that look, as the mug shot was taken, and lynching was there. Now, I'm going to explore that face of the white girl at the edge of the Rubin Stacy photo. What is in her mind? Where is she now?

We have to remember. That's how you hope for hope. You have to look at their faces and elicit what is good and defeats the evil that we do.

[grayson]

thank you for sharing your insights.

But as a seminarian student, these images serve as a counter testament of a loving God. The power of the human spirit is something I see most deeply when the victims gaze stares down in a noble dignity, but can humanity as a whole account for one lash, one cut, one bleeding wound of a single human?

Can remembering their faces undo the injustice? We can redeem the victim, but can we redeem humanity? god?