Skill Builders

Home > Skill Builders

Preaching on Racial Reconciliation

Preaching on race is necessary if we are to preach the whole counsel of God.

Bryan Loritts

Introduction

The historical narrative of racism in the city of Memphis is a pictorial tale. Head west on one of our major arteries, on a street called Poplar, and a few blocks from downtown is Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, a park in honor to a man who served as the Grand Wizard of the KKK, and was one of the largest slave owners in the midsouth. Drive a little further west and you'll run into Confederate Park, a park that commemorates the efforts of the South to maintain her way of living, a living that was built on the backs of my forefathers. Turn left on Front street headed south and you'll run into the backside of the National Civil Rights Museum, what was once the old Lorraine Motel, the place where Dr. Martin Luther King was slain. The museum ends across the street at the boarding house where James Earl Ray assassinated the Civil Rights leader. Stand in Mason Temple and you can still feel the echoes of Dr. King's last sermon, a message of hope and inspiration as he beckoned ...