“They had never been in a situation like that, to have a confrontation. They became my fast friends.”

A lunchtime gathering of ministers from the Presbytery of Philadelphia had just been denied a table at the Union League. The white ministers of the group, affronted, asked for explanations. Their Black colleague, the Rev. Dr. Shelton Bishop Waters, pastor of First African Presbyterian Church, spoke up: “The problem is me.” The men walked across the street to a five and dime lunch counter and conducted their business.

Thom Cunningham, whom APCE honored last week as its ENRICH Educator of the Year, led a workshop during APCE’s Annual Event he called “Elephants, Ostriches and Cows — Oh My!”

It is possible to move from feeling powerless to repair the harm done to Black Americans toward being empowered to make personal and societal changes.