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#1 03-01-09 11:12 am

don
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Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 1,121

The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="ff0000">The Lucy Byard Incident</font></b> <BR> <BR>The Lucy Byard Incident became a catalyst for change for the church&#39;s race relations. Out of this personal tragedy arose the plan for regional conferences administered by African-American Adventists. <BR> <BR><b><font color="0000ff">1943</font></b><blockquote>Lucy Byard, a gravely ill Black woman and longtime Adventist from  <BR>Brooklyn, is admitted to Washington Adventist Sanitarium and Hos-  <BR>pital, but is discharged when it is discovered that she is Black. She is  <BR>transferred to Freedman&#39;s Hospital. She later dies of pneumonia. This  <BR>incident, along with others, stirs the Black leadership to press the  <BR>General Conference to act to ensure that such discrimination and  <BR>inhumane treatment does not occur again in church institutions.  <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/EthnAdv/Baker1/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=30" target="_blank">101 Facts About Blacks and the Regional Work in the Seventh-day Adventist Movement</a>  <BR><font size="-1">&#40;a <a href="http://www.adventistarchives.org/GetDjVuControl.asp" target="_blank">DjVu file</a>&#41;</font></blockquote><b><font color="0077aa"><font size="+2">____________________________________</font></font></b> <BR> <BR><b><font color="0000ff">Delbert Baker&#39;s Account in <a href="http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/ARAI/ARAI1999/index.djvu?djvuopts&page=36" target="_blank">July 29, 1999 Adventist Review Anniversary Edition.</a></font></b><blockquote>With rapidly increasing membership among African-Americans in the 1920s and &#39;30s, a chorus of voices began wiling for more effective ways to minister to a special population. A painful experience in early 1944 dramatically highlighted the church&#39;s de facto segregation.  <BR> <BR>Shortly before the 1944 Spring Council, in which the decision was made to establish regional conferences, Lucy Byard, a fair-skinned Black female who was a longtime member of the Brooklyn Seventh-day Adventist Church, was visiting relatives in the Washington, D.C., area. She became: seriously ill and was taken to the nearby Washington Adventist Hospital, then a segregated facility. When the staff realized that Lucy Byard was a Negro, they refused to treat her and discharged her from the hospital. Before she could receive treatment at the Freedmen&#39;s Hospital across town, her condition worsened, and she died. The effect of this incident was profoundly disturbing to Black Adventists. Numerous solutions were proposed—including total integration. But none were accepted as feasible by denominational leadership.  <BR> <BR>Grieving but resolute, Black ministers and laypersons pressed church leadership for immediate redress. Emotions were stirred. The mood was tense, resulting in an uneasy standoff. It was a dark and tenuous period in the history of Adventism. Resolution was badly needed!</blockquote><b><font color="0077aa"><font size="+2">____________________________________</font></font></b> <BR> <BR><b><font color="0000ff">Samuel Pipim&#39;s Account</font></b><blockquote>The Creation of Black &#40;Regional&#41; Conferences. Although serious discussions had been going on since 1889 for the creation of separate Black conferences, [4] the spark that ignited the flame for immediate action to organize Regional conferences was an unfortunate racial incident at our Washington Adventist hospital in 1943. [5] <BR> <BR>    In October 1943, Bro. Byard took his wife, Lucy, to the Washington Adventist Sanitarium and Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland for medical treatment. Both Bro. Byard and his wife were Black, but of a very light complexion. They were also longtime Adventists from Brooklyn, New York. Because she was gravely ill, Lucy Byard was brought by an ambulance and was admitted without hesitation. But before treatment was begun, her admission slip was reviewed. When her racial identity was discovered, she was told a mistake had been made. Without examination or treatment, she was wheeled from her hospital room into a corridor as the hospital staff called around to other hospitals to transfer the patient. She was transferred by automobile–not even granted the use of an ambulance–across State line to the Freeman’s Hospital, where she later died of pneumonia. According to rumor, she contracted this pneumonia while waiting in the hallway of the hospital wearing only a hospital gown. This incident, along with similar cases of racial discrimination stirred the Black constituency immeasurably. <BR> <BR>    They demanded that the General conference act to ensure that such discriminatory and inhumane treatment of blacks would not occur again. The Black members were not only concerned about admittance to hospitals, but the whole questions of quotas in schools, lack of employment in church institutions, and a general absence of solicitude for them in the church were subjects of their protest. They employed the press and pulpit to whip up sentiment in their favor. <BR> <BR>    To quiet the brethren, Elder W. G. Turner, an Australian and President of the North American Division, went to the Ephesus church in Washington, D.C. &#40;now the DuPont Park church&#41;, the next Sabbath, October 16, 1943. He chose as his text 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you.” He had hardly sat down after completing his message when brother James O. Montgomery &#40;father of Alma Blackmon, for many years the director of Oakwood College’s choir&#41; stepped to the front of the congregation and delivered his speech.  <BR> <BR>    Montgomery, who was sitting near the front of the church, placed his violin in the seat he occupied near the organ, stepped up front and declared: “Think it not strange? Yes, I think it is very strange that there is an Adventist college &#40;Washington Missionary, now Columbia Union&#41; nearby to which I cannot send my children. Yes, I think it is strange! A denominational cafeteria [at the Review and Herald] in which I cannot be served, and now this incident. I think it mighty strange.” Among other things, he said in his speech: “I am not prepared to hear you say ‘servants obey your masters,’ meaning the General Conference is our master.” [6] <BR> <BR>    After the service, a group gathered around him and promptly formed a committee.[7]  That Saturday night, October 16, 1943, this group of lay people met in the back room of Joseph Dodson’s bookstore and hastily organized the National Association for the Advancement of Worldwide Work Among Colored Seventh-day Adventists. Joseph Dodson was elected as chairman and Alma J. Scott as vice-chairman. To accomplish their objective of arousing Black members throughout the country, they made telephone calls and, after a quick printing of stationery, dispatched scores of letters. John H. Wagner, secretary of the Colored Department in the Columbia Union, acted as advisor. The meeting closed officially after the president of the General Conference, Elder J. Lamar McElhany, agreed to meet the committee at the General Conference office building the next day, Sunday, October 17, 1943. Because of Elder McElhany’s promise to report all the proceedings to the General Conference Committee and because of the very pointed discussion, a longer one was held on Sunday October 31, 1943.  <BR> <BR>    It should be pointed out that the idea of forming a separate Black conference was not the stated goal of the group. It was the complete integration of Blacks into the church. This lay group was simply demanding the end of discriminatory practices in the church. [8] In response, the General Conference president voted to call in all of the Black Departmental men and pastors of the leading Black churches from all over America in order to discuss the race problem at a special meeting during Spring Council, April 8-19, 1944. The agenda called for the integration of White conferences. But during the meeting, the idea of Black conferences evolved as a new type of organization for the Black worker.  <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.drpipim.org/church-racism-contemporaryissues-51/97-separate-black-and-white-conferences-part-1.html" target="_blank">Separate Black and White Conferences, Part 1</a>.</blockquote><b><font color="0077aa"><font size="+2">____________________________________</font></font></b> <BR> <BR><b><font color="0000ff">1944, Ruth Chalmers &#40;Lucy&#39;s Friend&#41; to G.C. President McElhany, Letter</font></b> <BR> <BR><b>Source:</b><blockquote><a href="http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/AST/Race_Relations.pdf" target="_blank">Impact of SDA Eschatological Assumptions on Certain Issues of Social Policy</a> <BR> <BR>Bert Haloviak  <BR>Race Summit Workshop Presentation  <BR>October 27, 1999, pages 13-14.</blockquote><b>Introduction</b><blockquote>Mrs Ruth Chambers, a close friend of Lucy, wrote J L McElhany after Lucy&#39;s death:</blockquote><b>The Letter</b><blockquote>&#34;This must be a white man&#39;s religion. I don&#39;t think God wants that. I love this message and will always keep the faith as long as God helps me to. What you do there will never make me give it up and lose my soul. I don&#39;t care where I die so I am ready for it.... <BR> <BR>&#34;I am really thinking serious of what would become of me if I had to go to some san or hospital. I could go to the Catholic one here [Hornell in western New York State] and they treat all and every one alike.... <BR> <BR>&#34;Get the love of Christ in your hearts and you will not be looking at a man&#39;s skin to wound him. You have got to get rid of that or you will never get to the kingdom. You cannot take it into heaven. <BR> <BR>&#34;We have a sister here like that and when the Sabbath School is at her house she don&#39;t want the black members there or to bring any one with them. She thinks what the neighbors will think of her. I would like to tell her what God thinks of her. But she will know some day. That is not a Christian at all.... <BR> <BR>&#34;Just imagine being sick unto death and then going to what you think is a Christian place to get a bed to lie in and being turned away, just because God made you black. My! My! What a thing to have happen to one. Such a dear person as our Sister Byard was. All for the cause and doing all she could for the church, then having this put on her. Thank God she don&#39;t have to have it any more. I myself will never have it. I would not go to one of those places if I had to lie down and die in the barn. Christ was born in a stable. I could die in one. <BR> <BR>&#34;Why have the name of Adventist blackened with such doings. If there is no place for us in the buildings, why not make a place where we can go and have a place to die in and not be in the way of the lilly whites.... <BR> <BR>&#34;Pray for me that this will not turn me bitter. It was a hard blow to Sr Byard&#39;s husband and all her friends. I am trying not to think it was done in a spirit of hatred. But it was done and it has made very hard feelings in all the Negro churches that I have heard talk about it.... <BR> <BR>&#34;Please tell me if you will where there is any place one of us can go and get in. I am alone and I might have to have a place to go some day. I&#39;d like to know if there is one such place provided for the black man or woman....&#34;  <BR> <BR>&#40;Mrs Ruth Chambers to J L McElhany, Jan 21, 1944&#41;</blockquote>

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#2 03-01-09 11:15 am

bob_2
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Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 3,790

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Don, maybe I&#39;m missing something, but we don&#39;t have Regional Hospitals, we have Regional Conferences, right

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#3 03-01-09 11:48 am

don
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Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 1,121

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="0000ff">we don&#39;t have Regional Hospitals, we have Regional Conferences</font></b> <BR> <BR>Actually, Washington San was for white&#39;s only back earlier than the mid 1940&#39;s. There was a black institution called Riverside Sanitarium, I think in Nashville, Tenn. The decision to create Regional Conferences came as a result of the Lucy Byard incident; when Washington San refused her treatment and she died shortly after. The Regional Conference idea had been proposed over sixty years earlier, by the first ordained African American Adventist minister, C.M. Kinney &#40;1878&#41;. He thought it better to have separate camp meetings rather than segregate the same Camp Meeting as was being proposed by his white colleagues. <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font>

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#4 03-01-09 12:04 pm

bob_2
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Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 3,790

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Don, there is no way that Ms Byard would be transferred to Tennesee, and probably the practice in SDA and NonSDA was Black and White only Hospitals. So to blame Regional Conferences on secular issues, is incoherent. And, Ms. Byard might have died of pneumonia had she stayed at the Washinton San. We do not know from your info her condition, do we??? <BR> <BR>Regional Conferences were set up so Blacks could have more opportunity in an all black environment. Their worship style is completely different, or at least was completely different than the white conference, and it was another time and place. It wasn&#39;t until the 60&#39;s and Martin Luther King, Jr. that things started changing, but our Regional Conferences demonstrate the Blacks don&#39;t wish to show unity, IMO. <BR> <BR>&#40;Message edited by Bob_2 on March 01, 2009&#41;

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#5 03-01-09 12:41 pm

don
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Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 1,121

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="0000ff">probably the practice in SDA and NonSDA was Black and White only Hospitals.</font></b> <BR> <BR>Actually, John Hopkins Hospital and Sandy Spring Hospital both were admitting various races to their hospitals. Catholic universities were admitting various races during this time, Adventists were not. <BR> <BR>At Emmanuel Missionary College black students had to sit at the back in the chapel and at the cafeteria they had to sit at separate tables. <BR> <BR>Read the pdf document: <BR> <BR><a href="http://h0bbes.files.wordpress.com/2006/09/four-freedoms-document.pdf" target="_blank">Shall the Four Freedoms Function Among Seventh-day Adventists?</a>  <BR> <BR>This was prepared shortly after the Lucy Byard incident. It shed light on the era and the state of racial practices within the Adventist church in the early 1940&#39;s. <BR> <BR><b><font color="0000ff">Regional Conferences were set up so Blacks could have more opportunity in an all black environment.</font></b> <BR> <BR>African American Adventists preferred full integration. They did not want this &#34;second best&#34; solution, but when they realized that full integration was not possible, then they turned to the idea of regional conferences. It has served them and the Adventist church well. We now have a strong African-American consituency within the North American Division. <BR> <BR> <BR><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><font size="+1"><b><font color="119911">Ideas often develop in the midst of crises.</font></b></font></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> <BR> <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font> <BR> <BR>&#40;Message edited by Don on March 01, 2009&#41;

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#6 03-01-09 2:53 pm

bob_2
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Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 3,790

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Don, you are a bit of a revisionist. There is not a big push to eliminate Regional Conferences except for economic reasons. AToday is doing a petition to get names to eliminate Regional Confereces but, an aweful lot of those saying it is a good idea, want the underlying problems solved before the Regional Conference concept is dumped.  <BR> <BR>People tend to use today&#39;s sensitivities to revise history whether, the Old Testament or Regional Conferences or..... <BR> <BR>That is the trouble with historians in general if they are liberal you get a liberal slant and probably won&#39;t hear about Bill Clinton&#39;s escapades in the White House. If you are a conservative historian, you might not tell about how the war in Iraq contributed to the current economic crisis and try to blame it on the oversite the Democrats should have been doing under the guise of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other Democrat Committee chairs.  <BR> <BR>Oh, another bias, it talks about Mrs Byard having to be taken over state lines. Washington Adventist is on the state line with DC for all intents and purposes.  <BR> <BR>It says Ms. Byard contracted pneumonia in the hallway of Washington Adventist waiting to be transferred. What was her admitting diagnosis, what was her admitting diagnosis at the other Black only hospital, and what was the discharge diagnosis from the other hospital at time of death, was it different from the admission diagnosis.  <BR> <BR>Diagnosising  and test taking in the 40s was a lot different than in the current day, current medicine. Historians can be revisionists in a real hurry.

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#7 03-01-09 3:01 pm

bob_2
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Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 3,790

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Another example, why were their riots in south central LA when the conviction/acquital came down, and not when the verdict came down in Las Vegas. Because, everyone knows Las Vegas wouldn&#39;t put up with the City being destroyed. Right? <BR> <BR>St. Louis, had two black men killed by the police in what was know as the Jack in the Box case. The driver of the car was using the car as a weapon against the police when the police opened fire killing both occupants of the car. The driver was under surveillance by the DEA, and the other was an &#34;innocent rider&#34;. Yeah right, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The black community was going to protest by either blocking a highway or the metrolink, UNTIL, the truth came out that the drive was into drugs, and the passenger should have know better who he was hanging out with. The Black community backed down to use their political clout more appropriately.

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#8 03-01-09 3:11 pm

don
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="0000ff">Don, you are a bit of a revisionist.</font></b> <BR> <BR>Here are the facts:<ul><li>Lucy Byard was taken to the Washington San for care. <LI>When they discovered she was black, they refused her care. <LI>She died shortly after being refused care. <LI>This set of circumstances upset the Adventist community of the day, both black and white. <LI>Ruth Chalmers, Lucy&#39;s friend, wrote to President McElhany concerned about the way Lucy was treated. <LI>Within a month of this incident, the Autumn Council decides to have the next Spring Council examine the issues involved in the &#34;Colored Work&#34;.  <LI>The Spring Council of 1944, six months after the Lucy Byard tragedy, votes to establish Regional Conferences.</li></ul>Bob, let&#39;s do history. Do you agree with this list of &#34;facts&#34;? <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font>

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#9 03-01-09 3:21 pm

bob_2
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

That&#39;s not what you said first, you said she contradicted pneumonia sitting in Washington Adventist Hospital, with no admitting diagnois of WAH or the other Hospital, across state lines.  <BR> <BR>You don&#39;t mention, if you had been to Silver Spring, MD that it sits on the State line with DC and that the drive would not be that far.  <BR> <BR>The practices back then, I am Canadian, I am neither proud of nor you, I am sure, but medicine was not an exact science to know whether Ms. Byard came in with pneumonia and would have died in WAH anyway, or contracted pneumonia at the other hospital because of bad medicine and a nosacomial infection.  <BR> <BR>There are plenty of white and black opportunists even today Don, I&#39;m sure you will agree. The environment was not a pleasant one all around with the KKK active, etc.

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#10 03-01-09 4:39 pm

don
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Registered: 12-28-08
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="0000ff">That&#39;s not what you said first, you said she contradicted pneumonia sitting in Washington Adventist Hospital, with no admitting diagnois of WAH or the other Hospital, across state lines.</font></b> <BR> <BR>I did not say that. Dr. Pipim did. Look carefully at my first post on this thread. He refers to a rumour. It is easy to imagine this incident being blown way out of proportion. Yet, the essence of the problem is that a sick black woman was refused treatment by the professed body of Christ. She died shortly after.  <BR> <BR>This became a major racial incident for Adventism. Within one month racial concerns were put on the agenda of the next GCC Spring Council. Six months after Lucy Byard was refused treatment, the General Conference white leadership voted &#40;blacks did not vote&#41; to establish Regional Conferences, but it was the Black membership which pressed for this arrangement. <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font>

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#11 03-01-09 5:44 pm

bob_2
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

So......Were they going to riot, start their own church, something else......????

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#12 03-01-09 6:59 pm

bob_2
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

What&#39;s holding up dismantling the Regional Conferences do you think Don. The mean white guys, still.

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#13 03-01-09 7:03 pm

john8verse32
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Registered: 01-02-09
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<font color="0000ff"><b><font size="+2">I am Canadian,</font></b></font> <BR> <BR>........Bob-2 <BR> <BR> <BR>so why did you argue so violently with Neal about this back on .com?...  eh?


If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

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#14 03-01-09 7:24 pm

bob_2
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Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 3,790

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Does it matter????? I just never gave him an answer even though he &#34;violently&#34; harrassed me to  give him one, it really, as J.R. told him, is none of his business. If I pay my taxes I have all the rights you do but can&#39;t vote, or work for the Federal Government. Maybe not serve on a jury also, I hope. But I can voice my opinion on any subject you or Neal can. Right? <BR> <BR>&#40;Message edited by Bob_2 on March 01, 2009&#41;

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#15 03-01-09 7:39 pm

don
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="0000ff">So......Were they going to riot, start their own church, something else......????</font></b> <BR> <BR>I am finding that my interest in the Lucy Byard incident serves as a window making it possible to focus on the history of Adventist Americans of African descent. <BR> <BR>The incident resulted in the formation of a Committee for the Advancement of Worldwide Work Among Colored Seventh-day Adventists. On this committee were several leading African Amerian leaders. <BR> <BR>More of the story: <BR> <BR><a href="http://tinyurl.com/bpehq5" target="_blank">Bull and Lockhart</a> in Seeking a Sanctuary &#40;p. 281&#41; say <blockquote>In 1944, the Adventist Washington Sanitarium refused to treat a black woman after she had fallen ill while visiting the capital. Lucy Byard, an Adventist from New York, was then rushed to the Howard University Hospital instead. But the delay was fatal, and she died of pneumonia before she could be properly treated. Ironically, at Howard she was attended by a black Adventist doctor, who would not have been allowed to work at the Washington Sanitarium either.</blockquote>  <a href="http://tinyurl.com/chvcce" target="_blank">George Knight</a> writes A Brief History of Seventh-day Adventists &#40;p. 137&#41;<blockquote>The final drive for Black conferences took place in the early 1940s. In the lead were the highly educated members of the Ephesus Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington, D.C. Located in close promimity to the denomination&#39;s world headquarters, the Washington members foundit difficult to ignore their racially discriminated-against status in the church. They could not enroll their children at Washington Missionary College, nor could they eat in the cafeteria connected with the General Conference. <BR> <BR>The crisis came to a head in the fall of 1943 when the Washington Adventist Sanitarium ordered that Lucy Byard, a light-skinned Adventist Black, be transferred to another facility after the hospital learned her racial identity. Because of a series of delays in moving her to the Freedmen&#39;s Hospital, she died of pneumonia. An incensed Black Adventist community saw Byard&#39;s death as a martyrdom to a policy of racial exclusiveness. <BR> <BR>Subsequent events led to emotional discussions among Adventist leaders on how best to meet the needs of Black Adventists. The ideal for most Blacks was full equality in existing conferences. But denominational leaders in what was still a largely segregated culture were not willing to grant that desire. As a result, more and more of the denominational leadership became convinced that Black conferences were the answer.</blockquote><a href="http://tinyurl.com/btpgqn" target="_blank">Charles Bradford</a> wrote in Perspectives, p. 18<blockquote>Through a series of events General Conference leader- ship was made keenly aware that Black Adventist laypeople were extremely dissatisfied with the church’s glacial progress in race relations. The volcano erupted when Lucy Byard, from New York City, was admitted to the Washington Sanitarium, but upon discovery that she was not White, hos- pital administrators had her transferred to Freedmen’s Hospital for African-Americans. She died in transit.  <BR> <BR>A group of laypersons, largely from the Ephesus church in Washington, D.C., formed the National Association for the Advancement for Worldwide Work Among Colored Seventh-day Adventists, to seek redress for the many indignities to which African-Americans were subjected.  <BR> <BR>The organization published an impressive pamphlet entitled “Shall the Four Freedoms Prevail?’ The record was clear and irrefutable-not one sanitarium in the denomination would accept African-Americans into their schools of nursing. It was extremely difficult even for the brightest and best qualified young African-Americans to enroll in any academy or senior college in North America, and those who were admitted were segregated in the dining halls and limited in their choice of roommates. In today’s language, there was a “glass ceiling” firmly fixed above the African-American constituency.  <BR> <BR>The General Conference leaders immediately dispatched the vice president for North America to visit the lay group. The GC representative was surprised at the quality of the committee and the depth of their resolve. Suddenly GC leadership was convinced that the “time had come for a change in the col- ored work.” That change was not full integration, but-to the glory of God-a school of preparation for African-Americans that would enrich the worldwide fellowship. <i>&#40;Regional conferences&#41;</i> <BR></blockquote>

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#16 03-01-09 7:44 pm

don
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Posts: 1,121

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="0000ff">What&#39;s holding up dismantling the Regional Conferences do you think Don. The mean white guys, still.</font></b> <BR> <BR>The last paragraph of Bradford&#39;s quote provides a hint as to why the Regional conferences are in tact. <font color="0000ff">&#34;That change was not full integration, but-to the glory of God-a school of preparation for African-Americans that would enrich the worldwide fellowship&#34;</font> <BR> <BR>Regional conferences allow Adventists of African descent a racially unencumbered system of church work and organization. The lines are getting blurred. Whites work for Regional conferences and Blacks for white conferences. <BR> <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font>

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#17 03-01-09 8:17 pm

bob_2
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Registered: 12-28-08
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

I was joking with my wife this afternoon, that I was going to apply for one of those lucrative contracts with the NBA because they don&#39;t have enough of us white guys represented. OOPS, I forgot it is about performance in the game of basketball. OOPS!!!!

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#18 03-01-09 9:07 pm

elaine
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Posts: 1,391

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Bob, you would argue with a fence post!   <BR> <BR>The history Don is relating has nothing to do with his or anyone&#39;s personal opinions today. <BR> <BR>However, it was true that in 1943 at Union College no black students were allowed, and only in 1948 were they allowed, but with restrictions: <BR>they could not live in the dormitory with the lily white students; they could not sit with a white person in chapel; they could not date someone who was white.  And in the yearly annual, for the first time pictures were not in alphabetical order but placed randomly so that by &#40;strange&#41; coincidence, all the black students were pictured at the very end of the book!

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#19 03-01-09 9:10 pm

elaine
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Whether Lucy died or not is not the significant fact of this history.  It is that she was refused admittance because she was black!  Because she was refused admission it will never be definitively known whether earlier treatment might have saved her, will it?

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#20 03-01-09 11:35 pm

bob_2
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Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Elaine, my point is to judge from today&#39;s standards or norms or acceptable practice will keep you feeling guilty, about her, and about the whole OT. Just like Maggie, miss you, you can&#39;t use today&#39;s sensitivities when reading the OT or even the NT like Revelation and the lake of fire. But who are the racists now, the white Adventists or the Regional constituents. Why can&#39;t we all just get along???<img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/clipart/uhoh.gif" border=0>

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#21 03-02-09 8:41 am

don
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Posts: 1,121

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="0000ff">my point is to judge from today&#39;s standards or norms or acceptable practice will keep you feeling guilty, about her,</font></b> <BR> <BR>I don&#39;t feel guilty about what happened to Lucy Byard. I am appalled that my church could behave in such a manner. Overall, I am pleased that the church leaders, both black and white, responded as they did. I understand better why we have Regional conferences.   <BR> <BR>We should not condemn people, only actions. &#34;Never Again&#34; should be our determination.  <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font>

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#22 03-02-09 9:10 am

bob_2
Member
Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 3,790

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

I&#39;m appalled the Jews crucified Christ. Can I change their choices. Was the context for the SDA church different in the 40s and in Hitler&#39;s Germany, yes, can the church recover, yes, with an apology. Even the Jews can be saved with accepting the Messiah, even if they were one that cried for him to be crucified, if before he died, he accepted the Messiah, he can be saved.  <BR> <BR>Don, it may not be an incident like Byard next time, but rejection of a message from God. That would be a lot more serious.

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#23 03-02-09 10:41 am

don
Member
Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 1,121

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<b><font color="0000ff">rejection of a message from God</font></b> <BR> <BR>If the person &#34;knows for sure&#34; it is a message from God. After all, Ellen White asserted that the messages she gave were of God. If they really are, then what of rejection of them? If one of our posters here at atomorrow just can&#39;t accept those messages because they can&#39;t understand how God could work through such a messenger, will God judge them as having rejected His message? <BR><font color="ffffff"><font size="-2">.</font></font>

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#24 03-02-09 1:31 pm

bob_2
Member
Registered: 12-28-08
Posts: 3,790

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

Abraham obeyed all God&#39;s commandments [with a small c] and it was counted unto him for righteousness. How did Abraham know it was message from God and not some other god???

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#25 03-02-09 3:37 pm

john8verse32
Member
Registered: 01-02-09
Posts: 765

Re: The Lucy Byard Incident

<font color="0000ff">Abraham obeyed all God&#39;s commandments</font> <BR> <BR>...including the demand to kill his own son? as some sort of repulsive &#39;sacrifice&#34; to this God&#39;s vanity? <BR> <BR><font color="0000ff">How did Abraham know it was message from God </font>...  and not just some deluded idea Olde Abe inherited from his ancestors and neighbors about child sacrifice. <BR> <BR>or did the much later folks who wrote the legend down simply point out how it was that the hebrew tribe of nomads gave up sacrificing their own kids, and substituted the butchering of goats and sheep, which at least they could eat, and use the skins for boda bags and color coordinated outfits for their women? <BR> <BR>there are at least two major problems with the story of Abe obeying. <BR>1&#41; as you ask, how did he know it was a real demand required by his god?  or was Olde Abe just delusional... <BR>and <BR>2&#41; why would a loving heavenly father even think of asking such a murder/sacrifice? <BR> <BR>unless, of course,  the story was just a morality story based on legend to explain how the Hebrews gave up child sacrifice. <BR> <BR>either way, it is not easy to see Olde Abe as righteous just because he was willing to murder a kid.


If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

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