Beyond Sacred Ground
Maree Gauper
Grace Episcopal Church, Wheatland
1st photo: Maree Gauper (right) with Charlese Harris who came down from Washington State for the 25-year anniversary of the march she started.
2nd photo: MLK Unity March in Marysville on January 13th. Photo credit: The Marysville Appeal-Democrat newspaper.
Twenty five years ago, a young woman named Charlese Harris started a new tradition in Marysville, California. She launched an annual Unity March in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday weekend. Every year a small crowd gathers in Yuba City, then marches together across the Fifth Street Bridge armed with placards and signs. Following the march, there is usually a reception in Marysville hosted by one of several participating churches, with speakers, entertainment, refreshments and so on.
Over the years my husband, Bob, and I have become regular participants and have made friends with several of the other “regulars.” One such friend is Pastor Marcia Chambers who took over the organization of the event after Charlese Harris moved to Washington State. This year Marcia texted me in late December to see if I wanted to be part of this year’s program. She said I could say whatever was on my heart and I could speak for two to three minutes. I said yes.
As a fortunate coincidence, I was deeply immersed in The Episcopal Church’s Sacred Ground program at that time, a dialogue series on race, grounded in faith. This 11-part online series is built around a powerful curriculum of documentary films and readings that focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American histories as they intersect with European American histories. Sacred Ground is part of Becoming Beloved Community.
We had just completed the Sacred Ground session in which we learned about the church’s complicity in America’s history of slavery and its aftermath. Since this had made such an impact on me, I felt I should talk on that topic for the MLK program. Also, I wanted to offer a prayer of repentance on behalf of the church.
