Member-only story
Are we Bystanders?
on reading Howard Thurman in a social media age
I remember the first time I decided to jump in.
Living in Athens, Georgia, an English major, I was a stringer for The Red & Black. My beat was “features”, and I wanted to make staff writer. Then, I would be making a whopping $14 per story vs. the $7 I had been earning. So along with my editor, we decided to have a three-part series on homelessness in Athens.
As I remember it, the last article was a lot of “what you can do”. The second article was the facts and figures about homelessness in our community. But the first article was me spending a night in a homeless shelter.
With only the captain of the Salvation Army shelter being aware of my intentions, I checked in to the shelter that evening just like anyone else would. I begged the intake worker to not call my mother when I gave him the number as an emergency contact. The captain called the staff later to let them know I was there.
And no, I had not told my mother ahead of time.
Jumping into homelessness in this way may have been brave or foolish; it was likely more a function of my age and naivete at the time. However, this was a trajectory change in my life. Growing up as an evangelical Christian, there was so much emphasis on a spiritual salvation…
