A Mourning Walk in the Heart of Orlando

The public had been invited by the African-American clergy of Orlando to come, walk and pray together with our fellow citizens of this metropolitan area in the midst of a pandemic. And so we assembled at the Citrus Bowl stadium just as the rush hour - as much as still remains of it in our pandemic stricken cities - subsided. With a double entendre of a name, (the gathering began at 9 AM)  this Mourning Walk was designed to commemorate the lives of people of color who have died at the hands of police violence across our nation over the past two months.

I was conflicted about attending given the reality of the COVID19 pandemic but at another level only too happy to go. The ominous context of this assemblage was the stark potential for contracting the Coronavirus. We know it is more likely to be spread in crowds like this one. And Florida is currently reporting its highest numbers of new cases since the pandemic began here three months ago even as it plunges ahead with its second phase of reopening bars, restaurants and theme parks. That awareness was reflected by the vast majority of the crowd arriving with masks and the local black fraternities who passed out snacks, bottled water and masks to those without them.

To people like me, who will be 67 this September, this virus is a potential killer. And we know it is, sadly, more prevalent among people of color than people who look like me, winners of the genetic lottery in a racist culture. There was more than a little risk being borne by this assembled crowd this day. 

But some things are more important than one’s comfort with the circumstances. Indeed, some things are more important than one’s life itself. This day, I made the choice to answer the calling justice has imposed upon this time in our history as a people and upon me as a human being with a deep conscience and a broken heart.

And so I donned my clerical shirt (the crowd was asked to wear black for mourning) and my industrial mask (more to protect others from my own potential infection of them than me from them) and took off for the newly refurbished Citrus Bowl, the massive stadium in which numerous games bearing corporate logos are played each year.

After a few moments of instructions from the organizers, most of which were inaudible due to the heavy presence of helicopters overhead, the procession began. Having been in El Salvador during the “civil” wars (could any description be more oxymoronic?) that my government funded and organized in the early 1990s, I was more than a little on edge as this walk to call out evil and mourn its casualties began.

Soon I was joined by three mask-wearing parishioners from St. Richards. And shortly thereafter, the mask-wearing daughter of a lifelong friend came flying up to join me.

Clearly, we all were where we needed to be this day.

We were asked to remain silent during the procession and not display protest signs. We were there to mourn, to lament, to remember the dead, not to raise hell about the injustice. There would be plenty of time for that later.

The silent march proceeded a mile and a half down Church Street, a site deliberately chosen by the religious organizers of this event, along this four laned street named for the prevalence of churches that once graced this major east-west artery many years ago. Today those churches have been replaced by office buildings, bars and, in the “gentrified sections” transformed by corporate moneys, multimillion dollar sporting arenas and multi-story housing. Little but the name remains of its history.

The destination of the procession was Division Avenue. There the 1000 strong procession crossed over a tasteful engraving in the brick pavement that provides entry to the multi-million dollar arena where the Orlando Magic basketball team, Solar Bears hockey team and a wide array of concerts make their home. This, too, was an intentional choice. In years past, the Division Avenue of Jim Crow Orlando meant exactly what it said – here ends the “white” section of town to the east. Division was the de facto perimeter beyond which African-Americans could not create businesses and, more importantly, could not be present after sundown.

This gathering comes in the midst of a world-wide uprising over the slaughter of people of color, many in the streets of our nation and some in the sanctity of their homes. From the young black jogger chased by a pickup truck and shot in the residential streets of Brunswick to the young black woman aroused from her sleep in her Louisville home only to be shot down, to the middle aged man who died under the suffocating knee of the police officer in Minneapolis, there is much to be mourned this day. And we were here to share in that mourning.

What was striking about the procession was its racial composition. Unlike the civil rights marches of the 1960s, where little black girls wearing their “Sunday go to meeting” church clothes were blown down onto the hard concrete of Birmingham streets by heavily armed white policemen bearing fire hoses, this sea of black clad marchers was a reflection of the rich diversity of the Orlando metropolitan area. The speakers at the service at the march’s end included black, white and Hispanic leaders (who addressed the crowd in Spanish and English) and in the crowd the Asian population that reflects this majority-minority city were also represented.

Another aspect of the gathering that was striking was the role the local governments played in its happening. Rather than opposing the march, city and county officials marched with the crowd to a currently unoccupied city block scheduled for construction. There the city had erected a stage complete with sound system from which the mayor read the proclamation of the city council of this Day of Mourning and Restoration. The City Councilwoman representing the Paramore District, the historically black neighborhood of Orlando, spoke about redemption, an important idea in a country only beginning to grapple with its original sins of genocidal conquest and chattel slavery. And both the county sheriff and the city chief of police spoke of their support of demonstrators demanding the end to police brutality.  

The highlight of the morning was the moment when the Latino police chief for the city asked the crowd to take a knee together, in solidarity with all those who were fighting for justice and to ask for forgiveness for the harm that has been done to people across this country that gave rise to this uprising. He followed the white county sheriff who apologized for the harm done by law enforcement and assured the people that his force was intent upon not repeating those mistakes.

There are days when I dare to hope that the world we were given to make of as we saw fit can still be made the better place of which we are capable of making it. There are days that I am hopeful that the children our generation has brought into this troubled world may yet find the ways to heal the racial divisions we inherited largely unquestioned from our posterity.

For today, however, I give thanks to a gracious G-d for the city and county in which I live, in many ways an oasis of sanity, compassion and mindfulness amidst a sea of anger and fear. And I give thanks to those who organized this opportunity to march, pray and stand with my fellow Orlandoans in this day of mourning and restoration. May it become the first of many  steps down the long road to justice. 

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Harry Scott Coverston

Orlando, Florida

frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 © Harry Coverston, 2020

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