Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of meeting Lawrence and Beatrice Soublet of East Point.
They are a delightful couple who share a mission to change the way we view issues of race.
Yes, they realize that’s a tall order but are nonetheless dedicated to doing their part to effect change.
A lot of us believed, at least in the beginning of the Barack Obama presidency, that we’d put our racial differences behind us and had overcome our differences as the civil rights song of old predicted.
Someday. Someday.
Well, that hasn’t happened.
And, if you had any doubt about that, recent protests on our nation’s college campuses are proof we still have a long way to go.
And yet we don’t want to talk about the distance still left to travel.
I suggested in my last column that perhaps we could have a little talk with ourselves and promised to introduce you to a group of adults who reject the notion that racism doesn’t exist and seem to understand the importance of a little soul searching, of speaking their truth even if it means exposing their prejudices.
They and the Soublets want to “ERACE” racism.
In fact, it was Beatrice, 71, and Lawrence, 69, who decided the time was ripe for change, and they didn't have to look further than the pews of their beloved Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Atlanta.
It wasn’t that Our Lady of Lourdes’ services were segregated as so many places of worship are. They aren’t. The membership is almost evenly split between blacks and whites.
People in her native New Orleans “didn’t interact with people of other races,” Beatrice said.
But by the time Katrina hit the Big Easy in 2005, people were talking a lot and they were talking about race.
The conversations began in the summer of 1993 soon after The Times-Picayune published "Together Apart," a yearlong series examining race relations between whites and blacks in the metropolitan area.
The series received a flurry of reader comments and then something wonderful happened.
A white reader wrote that the hatred that had saturated many of the responses didn’t reflect her views. Moved by her letter, a Times-Picayune employee wrote to thank her and suggested they work together to develop some kind of symbol to “let the world know that all of us aren’t infected with hate.”
The symbol the women came up with was “ERACE,” but it became far more than that. It provided a forum for people of all races to talk and get to know one another in an informal setting.
The Soublets quickly joined the conversation. They were encouraged by the change of hearts they witnessed.
And so soon after being chased to Atlanta by Katrina, it occurred to them that perhaps ERACE could help here.
They approached the pastor about their idea and he granted his blessing. They moved quickly spreading the news, inviting members to come. Let’s talk.
“People carry so much underlying baggage regarding race it just eats at us,” Beatrice Soublet said. “We knew it would help to talk.”
One night in the summer of 2006, they gathered at the church. Twelve people showed up. About half were members of Our Lady of Lourdes.
The group hasn’t grown much larger than that, but they keep meeting and talking. Every second and fourth Saturday morning. At Our Lady of Lourdes.
“What I have found is that outside this dedicated group, most people in our parish do not want to talk about it, black or white,” Lawrence Soublet said. “It’s disappointing.”
It isn’t an argument session as some might imagine. That isn’t to say that they don’t disagree, they just do so respectfully, without assigning blame or malice.
Suzann Settle, 74, of Atlanta joined the discussion about two years ago because she realizes racial healing will continue to elude us until all of us get involved.
She’s tired of hearing people say it will get better with the next generation.
“I thought the same thing when my daughter was in kindergarten nearly 40 years ago,” Settle said. “It hasn’t.”
But she sees a sliver of hope in the campus protests, particularly at the University of Missouri.
“I’m so proud of those kids,” she said. “The racism needs to stop.”
The Saturday conversations, she believes, will help.
“My only thought is instead of a dozen people, I wish we had 100 people,” she said.
On a recent Saturday, it was Settle who was charged with facilitating the discussion.
In addition to her and the Soublets, there were Jack McBride, a retired hospice director from Mansfield, and John Laurich, a Wells Fargo business analyst from East Point. The rest, Stuart Cashin, a retired CPA; Dorothy Walker, a senior technical writer for an insurance company; Cheryl Odom, a retired federal employee; and Debra Lewis, a psychologist, were all residents of Atlanta.
As they munched on homemade pralines from the Soublets' kitchen, they laid bare their hearts on a range of issues all laced with racial differences. The recent protests at Mizzou. The "Black Lives Matter" movement. The recent police shootings of blacks and whites.
For nearly 10 years, they’ve been meeting, engaging one another’s perspective in a way that has made talking about race less formidable.
You, too, can join the conversation. This group (http://lourdesatlanta.org/erace/) will welcome you, not just with open arms, but hearts ready to accept you as you are. Your prejudices included.
