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Thursday, March 2, 2006
Ohio Muslims say terror
arrests won’t stir anger
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOLEDO, Ohio—Doctors,
business owners and reli
gious leaders who make up
this industrial city’s thriving
Muslim community say
they’re not worried about a
backlash against them after
terrorism charges were lev
eled against three residents
who share their religion.
“Other places are worse but
Tbledo’s good,” said Ahmad
Rachidi, 44, an insurance
salesman. “The Arabic com
munity here is big, a few
thousand, and they’re
involved in everything.”
In other cities, terror
arrests in the U.S. and
attacks overseas have trig
gered vandalism, haCfe mail
and attacks against Arab-
Americans.
Mosques in Florida and
Missouri were targeted by
vandals two years ago after
the beheadings of two Ameri
can businessmen in the Mid
dle East. Anti-Muslim signs
popped up in a New Jersey
neighborhood where one vic
tim had lived.
“Anytime there’s a water
shed event we see hate
crimes peak,” said Arsalan
Iftikhar, legal affairs director
for the Washington-based
Council on American-Islamic
Relations.
It would be unusual for
there not to be some back
lash, he said. “The longer a
Muslim community has been
around in a certain area, the
more integrated and accepted
they become in the general
fabric,” he said.
Because Muslims in Tbledo
helped authorities in the
investigation, that should go
“a long way in changing atti
tudes,” Iftikhar said.
Shock, sadness and anger
ripped through the communi
ty last week when the gov
ernment accused Wassim I.
Mazloum, 24, Marwan Oth-
man El-Hindi, 43, and
Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 26,
of plotting to kill U.S. soldiers
overseas and harboring or
concealing terrorists.
All three lived in Tbledo
within the last year. They
have all pleaded not guilty.
Those in the Muslim com
munity said the arrests have
not led to any general anti-
Muslim sentiment so far and
they’re hopeful it will stay
that way.
There are about 6,000 Mus
lims in Tbledo. The Arab-
American community that
produced actor Jamie Farr
and entertainer Danny
Thomas has been rooted in
the city for generations.
Many of those living here
today are second and third
generation Arab-Americans
whose parents and grandpar
ents migrated to the city
along western Lake Erie to
work in its auto and glass fac
tories.
“We have judges, we have
lawyers, we have doctors,”
said John Shousher, an Arab-
American businessman who
Pastor in King’s ‘Jail’ letter dies
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.-A
former pastor of First Baptist
Church of Birmingham who
was one of the eight white
clei^ the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. addressed in his
“Letter From Birmingham
Jail” died last week. He was
89.
The Rev. Earl Stallings, a
native of Durham, died
Thursday in Lakeland, Fla.,
where he’d 'been living in a
retirement (*nter, according
to his son, Jim Stallings.
He was pastor of First Bap
tist Church 1961-65 and
angered many in his all-
white congregation by allow
ing blacks, including civil
rights leader Andrew Young,
to attend a Sunday worship
service after King’s April 12,
1963, arrest.
King's letter detailed his
argument for racial equality
and the immediate need for
social justice. He directed the
letter to white moderate cler
gy, chastising them for trying
to delay his 1963 demonstra
tions in Birmingham.
At one point in his letter.
King mentioned Stallings
specifically: “I am not
unmindful of the fact that
each of you has taken some
significant stands on this
issue. I commend you, Rev
erend Stallings, for your
Christian stand on this past
Sunday, in welcoming
Negroes to your worship ser
vice on a non-segregated
basis.”
Stallings risked being fired
by his congregation for allow
ing the black worshippers,
said Samford University his
torian Jonathan Bass said.
He also gave a sermon
called “Pilate’s Bowl,” in
which he accused white
Christians of forgoing their
moral duty. “He said they had
washed their hands of
responsibility for racial jus
tice in Birmingham,” Bass
said.
However, like many moder
ates in Birmingham at the
time, Stallings felt King
should delay his planned
demonstrations.
That prompted King’s let
ter, addressed to them,
although they never actually
were sent copies.
“This is the most important
document of the civil rights
era and their names are
attached to that,” Bass said.
Funeral services are
planned for 3 p.m. Sunday at
First Baptist Church in
Wauchula, Fla.
Land at heart of family history
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEAUMONT, Tbxas —The
stories that families tell
about themselves become the
framework upon which their
children build their lives.
One Beaumont family rose
from the bondage of slavery
to produce entrepreneurs,
educators and a minister who
pastored a Vidor church.
Charles Jones remembers
sitting raptly at grandmother
Bertha Lee’s knee as she told
him stories about her grand
parents and their progress in
life from slaves to landown
ers.
For the 62-year-old retired
school counselor, his heritage
was something to live up to.
“I would never let her see
me do anything wrong,”
Jones said of his beloved
grandmother.
It’s a legacy he strives to
pass on to his two sons, who
love hearing the family sto
ries almost as much as he
enjoys telling them.
At the heart of his family’s
history lies a plot of land
where the ancestral saga took
root after the drifting days of
slavery when blacks couldn’t
put down firm roots lest the
vicissitudes of fortune sell
them away at a whim or a
stronger emotion.
Of the land his great-great-
grandparents bought when
they married in Beaumont
not long after the Civil War,
all that remains today is a
cemetery.
The Anthony Cemetery, on
Pine Street at Gill, has been
in Charles Jones’ family for
more than a century. It began
as a family plot.
Jones’ great-great-grand-
mother Margaret Fagin
Chance Anthony was bom of
a Seminole/AfHcan-American
mother into slavery in about
1809, at best estimate.
Her owner, who also was
her father, taught her read
ing, writing and music, along
side his wife’s children. How
ever, when he died, the first
thing his wife did was sell
Mai^aret, then about 16, to
Charles Chance, who brought
her to Tbxas.
After the Civil War, Chance
provided Margaret and her
two children with a wagon, a
team of horses, money and
the name of a lawyer friend
in Beaumont.
Her husband-to-be. Jack
Anthony, also an educated
former slave, came to Beau
mont, where he went to work
for the same lawyer.
The two bought land in
North Beaumont, where they
thrived, becoming communi
ty pillars.
They raised horses and
Jack Anthony ran a lucrative
tannery.
Because there were no
schools for black girls at that
time, Margaret Anthony
began her own.
“Grandma built a lean-to to
educate a lot of community
kids,” Jones said.
Margaret’s daughter, Lot
tie, died after the birth of her
fifth child, Bertha, in 1890.
Bertha was raised by her
grandmother.
Bertha, unlike her grand
mother and daughter, was
content to be a housewife.
Bertha Lee was a cultivated
woman who had attended
finishing school and was
musically gifted. Among
other talents, she was an
excellent seamstress and
cook.
2 gay finalists for Calif, bishop
Continued from page 7B
have formed a separate net
work of dissenting churches,
opposes same-sex relation
ships. Conservatives believe
the Bible forbids gay relation
ships.
“If the Episcopal Church
had any intention of repen
tance, candidates would
clearly adhere to the authori
ty of Scripture, affirm the
apostolic faith, and commit to
the immediate cessation of
ordination/consecration of
noncelibatc homosexuals as .
well as the blessings of same-
sex unions,” according to a let
ter on the group’s Web site
opposing candidates for pre
siding bishop of the church,
not the California position.
Canon David Anderson, the
group’s president and chief
executive, considers the Cali
fornia nominees in defiance of
church principles and said
American church leaders who
accept same-sex relationships,
“need to repent” and reconsid
er their decision.
The Rev. Paul Zahl, the
dean of 'Trinity Episcopal
School for Ministry in
Ambridge, Pennsylvania, said
if Perty or Taylor is chosen as
the new bishop, it’s a “defini
tive thumbing of the nose at
the worldwide church.”
He said hundreds of the 2.3 •
million Episcopalians already
left the church after Robinson
was consecrated and “for
those who are still hanging in
there, this election would be
the final straw. That’s no judg-
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ment on the individuals, but
on the principle.”
But others say the church
has been rife with conflict
since its very beginning and
the question of who to accept
into the church is nothing
new. “There’s always been a
plurality of voices,” said the
Rev. Ian Douglas, a professor
at Episcopal Divinity School
in Cambridge, Massachu
setts.
Taylor simply wants to be
considered because of his
qualifications, not his sexual
preference.
“People will be asking who
the Holy Spirit is leading
them to elect and who has the
capacity to be the next bish
op,” he said from his Seattle
church.
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