African-Americans for life
Black Baptist pastor speaks
at Catholic Interparish Council
The Mobile Interparish Council -- an ecumenical group composed largely of black Catholic churches in the bay area -- sponsored a pro-life banquet last month, inviting Rev. Johnny Hunter as the keynote speaker.
Hunter, a Baptist pastor in Virginia Beach, is also national director of Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN), a newly organized coalition of black pro-life groups from around the nation. His talk caught Mobilians up with one of the more significant developments spreading around the country these days, an increasing pro-life sensitivity in the African-American community.
God put Joseph, Esther, and Daniel into slavery, Hunter told the audience of about 150 people, for a reason that eventually served His purpose. Enslaved blacks, though wronged, will serve God's purpose, too. Alerting others -- including South Africans -- to the wrongs in abortion is one of those purposes.
Hunter has been arrested several times, including once for preaching in front of an abortion clinic for six hours. He received the Martin Luther King Award for his pro-life activities from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Eerie County Chapter; and has been given numerous other awards.
After the talk, which sparked a standing ovation, Hunter agreed to discuss the fledgling pro-life movement in the black community with Gulf Coast Christian Newspaper.
GCCN Is this something new in the black community?
Hunter You would almost think it is. Let me tell you a little something about ourselves.
About three years ago we had a meeting in Houston, Texas. Some people in Washington DC informed me that there are some other prolifers around. I was in charge of the Western New York Clergy Council of 75 pastors -- 25 active, if you know what I mean.
We had clergy of different denominations -- Presbyterian, Baptists, Episcopals, Methodists -- everybody working together for pro-life issues. But I only had a few black brothers with me.
Anyway, this person told me there is another group that thinks like I do. I didn't know there was anybody else. But there was, and we met in Houston Texas. Sure enough there were six groups of African-American pro-life groups that had been around for years and had been doing things. We all suffered from what I call the Elijah syndrome each one of us thought we were the only ones.
We were inspired. We felt if there is six of us across the country, there had to be more. So we decided to hold a major conference the next year for leaders to see if we could identify more groups. By the next year, in Orlando, we had identified 17 groups. We hooked up with the Texas Blacks for Life, the African-American Life Alliance, the Front Line Outreach, groups we didn't know existed.
Then we decided that if there are 17, then there must be more. So we decided we would have another conference, but open it to not just leaders of groups, but reach out a little further to people who may not have a pro-life group, but wanted to have one. Last year we registered 27 groups, and from that it's growing.
GCCN What is the attitude in the African-American community regarding abortion?
Hunter Actually nobody pays it much attention until groups like ours bring it up.
We also see what the media is doing, trying to paint the pro-life movement as people who are white, Christian, conservative. People who had to be crazy, just a bunch of racists and bigots.
In the black community, when you say the word "conservative" and start talking about states rights and getting the government off our backs -- because of what happened under Civil Rights times, many blacks had a bad problem with the state. When they talked about state's rights, they were talking about promoting segregation, separating colored from white, and there's a real bad taste in people's mouth when they hear that. We figured that has to be undone in order to save the children. When we say conservative, we're saying we mean family values.
But the majority of the black community is more pro-life than anything else. Blacks were never taught to destroy their children; even in slavery they tried to hold onto their children.
GCCN But the black community still votes overwhelmingly for pro-choice candidates.
Hunter Yeah, unfortunately. But they're not voting for that issue. When you see the African-American voting for the Democratic Party, it has more to do with the Democratic Party having a real presence during the Civil Rights movement than the Republican Party.
When you look at history, blacks were originally Republicans. Abraham Lincoln was one of the first Republicans, and he understood everybody was free. Up until Roosevelt, I think most blacks were Republicans. Along came the Depression, and other things, but the Civil Rights era was the major change. The Republican Party came in on the side of states rights, and states rights was Jim Crow laws. Now, even when the Civil Rights struggle is over, there are blacks who look at the Democratic Party and say they are the party of the working class.
GCCN Should blacks let the Civil Rights past, and perceptions about the working class be the overriding issue?
Hunter The life issue needs to be the most crucial issue of all.
GCCN Blacks should make a decision based on how candidates feel about abortion?
Hunter Yes. While one party may say to you, "Hey, we're going to give you better job opportunities; better education; we're going to help keep your streets safe, and we're going to give you abortion" -- that party has just denied an individual every one of those things they said they would give, because a safe playground means nothing to a dead child. Better job opportunities mean nothing to a dead child. If the Democratic Party wants to support abortion and the killing of the children, any other thing they have to offer is moot.
GCCN Isn't this new in the black community -- this lifting of consciousness regarding abortion?
Hunter Yes. But even before we all got together, I used to speak sometimes in black communities concerning abortion and I had to stop. I would get people too riled up.
I had to speak at Manhattan College for the African-American Student Association, because I had gotten the Martin Luther King Award. I spoke about the genocide policies of abortion, and why blacks need to start looking out for the next generation. The Civil Rights struggle was about looking out for the next generation.
When I finished talking that day -- and I only spoke for 15 minutes -- everybody was in an uproar. They didn't know Planned Parenthood targeted the African American community. Margaret Saenger (Planned Parenthood founder) founded the American Birth Control League. She believed in pure races, and the black community just didn't fit into her plan. She started the Negro Project, which tried to persuade African Americans to become sterilized, use contraceptives, and also abortion, because she felt that was a way to decrease what she called the unfit.
I explained what abortion was all about. I talked about how they ripped their arms and legs off. How they squashed the baby's head and pulled the baby out. How they put all the parts on the table to make sure they've got everything. A lot of people don't know abortions are legal all nine months. They were ready to go out and burn down an abortion clinic. It took me three hours to calm the crowd down. I mean, those brothers were mad.
I realized, then, how do we get this message out without starting a riot? And I literally took off for about a year from speaking in the black student bodies until I could learn how to bring this with the love of Christ.
GCCN Were you pro-choice at one time?
Hunter As one writer put it, I was pro-life by conviction, pro-choice by default. But I realized the opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is indifference. Thirty million babies died in America alone, and there are Christians who just don't care. Love has action to it; love speaks out; love provides, love saves lives. And I had to find a way to get that message out to the black community without starting a riot.
GCCN Pro-lifers have talked to some of the black pastors in this area, not all by any means, about getting involved in some pro-life activity. It seems that in many cases the pastors are indifferent.
Hunter You have several kinds of pastors. Some are out-right scared. There are pastors that are not pastors. At the same time, you have inner-city pastors who are dealing with members of the congregation being gunned down in the streets, or trying to get someone off of drugs -- they have so many other battles already, that they feel like they have their hands full.
But the scairdy cats, the pastors who are not really pastors, are some of the biggest problems and this issue brings out who is who. I had one pastor who was honest enough to tell me, "Brother, I love you, but if I get involved in this thing, tithes would go down; people would stop paying tithes in my church. But I'll be praying for you."
GCCN What would you say to a pastor who's dealing with the killing and the drugs and all these pressing problems as far as the abortion issue goes.
Hunter That is all the more reason he needs to be involved. Fighting for life. If life is not valued while its in the womb, there is nothing that could allow life to be valuable after the womb. If we can't look out for the very least of these, we can't look out for the others. Once we devalue life, life is devalued. If you're dealing with a generation who thinks they're optional, you're dealing with a generation that already has low self-esteem. That has a lot to do with how these children end up in gangs. I encourage inner-city pastors, if anybody needs to be standing for life, he needs to be standing for it because it will show his teenagers especially in the Church that he cares for them even before they were born.
GCCN Is abortion higher in black community than it is in the white?
Hunter Proportionally. In 1985 blacks made up 12 percent of the population of the United States and yet we accounted for well over 33 percent of the abortions. And when you're talking about a minority group, we just can't keep taking that kind of hit. We're talking about over 30 million abortions total in the United States so we're talking about over 10 million who were African-American children. Ten million. I think our total population right now is up to 30 million, and when you say we've lost 10 million, we've lost a big chunk. Just give us a generation or two and we'll be on the endangered species list.
GCCN Doesn't the pro-life issue look like a white issue to the black person?
Hunter Yes, but only because of the media. If you were at an abortion clinic and a black woman was coming to get an abortion, you almost have an easier time talking her out of an abortion than you do with a white sister, because there's a sense of life that's really there. There's an old African proverb, "No one knows whose womb holds the chief." Things like that they really hold in the black community. Because of that, if you have the right person out there, you can stop her.
What usually happens is the abortion clinic workers and the media -- they won't show that blacks are involved. They didn't even show that we were one of the main groups coming up against Foster (Dr. Henry Foster, President Clinton nominee for Surgeon General) because they wanted to make it look like it was just white pro-lifers trying to stop this black man from becoming surgeon general.
Anyway, the clinic workers will tell a lady, "Listen, they're just a bunch of racists out there. Don't pay them no mind." And sure enough, the girl sees white's trying to stop her, and all she sees is someone else interfering with her rights again.
But we have learned that when we (blacks) come out to the clinics, it makes all the difference in the world.
GCCN Such as.
Hunter Such as Barbara Bell. She's black and she's the kind that will stand right out in front of the abortion clinic, saying, "Come out here, baby; come on out, sugar. Let's talk before you go in there. You'll always be a mother; you'll just be the mother of a dead child if you go in there. C'mon, lets talk, honey." And girls will talk to her. If the girl's boyfriend is with her, trying to pull her in, she says, "That's the father of your baby? Dump him, honey, not the baby."
She's so good she has complaints filed against her. A judge in Brookline, Mass, banned her 50 feet from the abortion clinic. Now, 50 feet from the abortion clinic, they still claimed they heard her inside, so as of a couple weeks ago, she was banned from the entire town of Brookline. February 10th, she has a trial. They want to put her in jail for two days.
GCCN What would you say to the black girl planning to go into an abortion clinic, who sees a bunch of white faces encouraging her to let the baby live?
Hunter I would say, that's God sending the last Christian along before she makes the worst decision she'll ever make in her life.
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