Shortly after the Civil War, there was a happening that helped shape the future of the battered United States. During July of 1865 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, VA, a lone black man came from the rear of the church down the long isle and slowly knelt at the altar to receive Holy Communion. The congregants were astonished and didn't know what to do in response. The people were frozen and so was the minister.
Realizing this situation could suddenly turn for the worse, a white bearded man in a gray suit rose from his pew and slowly walked toward the same altar. Most thought he would tactfully remove the black man so that the rest could come and receive communion. He didn't. He knelt beside the black man and nodded to the minister to administer communion to both. The bearded man was Robert E. Lee.
Just a few short months before that day, Gen. Lee, ranking General of the Confederate Army, was fighting to insure the negros would remain slaves and be considered less than his white neighbor. Lee, came to realize that the war was over and the future of America was to take a better direction, a direction that would make all men equal. May we, as Martin L. King, "never judge a man be the color of his skin, but by the content of his character." May we never go back to the days before the summer of 1865!
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