“The Church in Black and White” virtual conference on Saturday challenged Mennonite and Brethren institutions to address systemic racism within their organizations and themselves. The messages shared were particularly relevant to EMU, as a Mennonite institution itself.

Joint-sponsored by EMU’s History and Bible, Religion, & Theology departments and Harrisonburg’s Brethren Mennonite Heritage Center (BMHC), the event consisted of five keynote speakers, each with a one-hour session for sharing and Q&A.

Senior Anisa Leonard, who took advantage of the free registration for EMU students, said one of her key takeaways was from Dr. Drew Hart’s session on his book, “Trouble I’ve Seen.”

“He talked a lot about the cultural supremacy within the Mennonite church and how that alienates a lot of people,” Leonard said.

Cultural supremacy, one way in which racism reveals itself, is deeply ingrained in EMU’s history. Dave Brubaker, Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Professions, noted, “EMU was founded by white, male Mennonites of Swiss German descent (like me), and the founders’ identity gets into the DNA of any organization.This means that the culture later tends to privilege those who share the founding identity and to disprivilege those who do not.”

Leonard recalled her capstone project last spring which analyzed the ongoing disparities of representation in leadership at EMU. The EMU factbook shows that Mennonites comprised roughly 27 percent of the undergraduate student body last year, while filling 85 percent of the  leadership roles, according to Leonard’s research, which investigated seven specific areas of student leadership.

In light of her findings, she said, “You can take [Hart’s words] and apply that directly to EMU’s situation…Who holds the power and who’s creating the culture at EMU is definitely not representative of who’s actually on campus.” 

Challenging these realities was exactly the goal of the conference, according to Mark Sawin, EMU History professor and BMHC Events Committee representative. “In many ways Mennonites and Brethren have been better than the ‘normal’ protestant denominations on these issues,” he said, “but we very intentionally chose speakers who would then push beyond this, showing how often these historically white denominations fell-short, failed, and even caused harms of their own when dealing with the communities of color around them.”

Other speakers at the event included Tobin Miller-Shearer, PhD, who was involved in Mennonite Church USA’s Race, Church, and Change panel discussion this summer; Eric Bishop, PhD, who spoke on being a peace and justice church in contemporary times; Stephen Longenecker, PhD, who discussed the Anabaptist church’s response to slavery in the Shenandoah Valley; and Doris Abdullah, Church of the Brethren representative to the United Nations.

Nancy Heisey, professor in EMU’s Bible, Religion, & Theology department, found Abdullah’s message to be especially impactful. “She spoke personally and powerfully about her world-wide engagement against discrimination and for justice and peace,” Heisey said. 

The event drew attendees from the Harrisonburg community as well as 17 different states. The online format due to COVID-19 allowed for many pastors and seminary students to join from afar. “We were pleased with the turnout, especially given the odd circumstances,” Sawin said. 

Given this conversation’s relevance to Anabaptist academic institutions, future events hope to engage more undergraduate students from Mennonite and Brethren colleges and universities.