Skip to content

Donate now

Enter your ZIP code

Set your location

Tell us where you are so we can show you news from your area.
Visit MCC Canada.
U.S. Go to Canada site
Mennonite Central Committee

Relief, development and peace in the name of Christ

Search form

Learn more Get involved Centennial Contact us Donate
Get involved Current openings What we do
Learn more Centennial Contact us Donate
Menu

Mennonite Central Committee

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches, shares God's love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice. ​

About MCC​

  • Vision and mission
  • Leadership and board
  • Annual reports
  • Funding/tax exemption
  • Historical records

COVID-19 response

  • COVID-19 stories
  • Resources for a time of uncertainty
  • COVID-19 regional updates
  • How you can help

Publications and resources

  • A Common Place magazine
  • In Touch newsletter
  • Intersections quarterly
  • Education resources

Stories

Virtual visits

Podcast

What we do

  • Relief
  • Food
  • Water
  • Health
  • Education
  • Migration
  • Peace
  • U.S. programs
  • Advocacy

Where we work

Donate to MCC

Give a gift that changes lives, supporting MCC’s work around the world. Donate now.

Events

  • Relief sales
  • Canning

Make kits or comforters

Advocate

  • National Peace & Justice Ministries
  • UN Office

Fundraise

  • Donate now
  • Legacy Giving
  • My Coins Count/Penny Power
  • Giving Registries

Serve

  • Work with us
  • Volunteer locally
  • Young adult programs

Alumni

Thrift Shops

Looking for more information?
Get in touch with a representative from your region here.

Happy Birthday, MCC! 

It's been 100 years since we first started responding to basic human needs in southern Russia (present-day Ukraine). Now, we continue to work for relief, development and peace all over the world. 

Engage

  • 100 Stories
  • Alumni reunions

Give Back

  • New Hope
  • Legacy giving

Advocate

  • Advocacy campaign

To mark 100 years of sharing God’s love and compassion, and your generosity and partnership through the decades, we invite you to explore stories from MCC’s decades of work around the world

Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe on Youtube

Looking for your local office? Tell us where you are so we can show you locations and news around you.

MCC U.S.
MCC U.S.
21 South 12th Street
PO Box 500
Akron, PA 17501-0500
United States
Office: (717) 859-1151
Toll Free: (888) 563-4676
mailbox@mcc.org

Contact MCC

  • General contacts
  • Media contacts
  • Contact Human Resources
  • Send us your questions
  • Welcoming Place

Find a Thrift Shop

Manage your subscriptions

  • A Common Place magazine
  • In Touch newsletter

Where needed most

A gift to where needed most supports the breadth of MCC’s work – meeting urgent needs and building stronger, healthier communities. Give today.

Donate

  • Legacy giving
  • Giving registries
  • My Coins Count
  • Current disaster responses
  • Support a service worker
  • Make kits and comforters
  • More giving projects

More information

  • FAQs
  • Annual reports
  • Privacy policy
  • Security information

You are here

  1. Home
  2. Stories
  3. Crying out for justice

Crying out for justice

Visiting southern civil rights sites strengthens resolve to work for racial justice

September 24, 2021

By Jessica Stoltzfus Buller

A diverse group of 20 Mennonite Brethren youth and young adults gathered in Montgomery, Alabama, in late July to begin a nine-day study of Christ’s peacemaking mandate, while studying the history of racism in the U.S. 

Many did not know one another, and each participant came with a different background. Some came from urban centers of the West Coast and others from the rural hills of North Carolina. Some had lived all over the world; others were living in the small town where they were born and raised. Many were students at different levels of various higher education institutions. 

Together, they agreed to learn from one another and build relationships across differences. By the end of the nine days, almost every participant named the diversity of the group as a central strength and blessing of the experience. 

The gathering, called the Multicultural Peace Collaborative (MPC), was a partnership between Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S., West Coast MCC, the U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (USMB) and Multiply, the mission agency of the Mennonite Brethren church in the U.S. and Canada.

It began with four days of interactive learning, traveling through Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia.

Something happens to our body, our hearts and our minds when we are physically present together in the spaces of historical racial acts.

“It is from that space that we hear the blood crying out for justice, and as peacemakers, we cannot live as though we don’t hear and see the injustice."

-Dina Gonzalez-Pina, West Coast MCC executive director and a facilitator of the MPC.

 

For one day, the group overlapped with USMB denominational leaders who also had gathered to learn, lament and reconcile with the history of racism in the U.S. 

Together, current and future church leaders walked the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, where more than 600 civil rights marchers asking for voting rights were brutally attacked by state troopers on March 7, 1965.

After crossing the bridge both ways under the scorching southern sun and learning about the history of that Bloody Sunday, the MPC and denominational leaders joined together, in lament and hope, to share communion. 

“Something happens to our body, our hearts and our minds when we are physically present together in the spaces of historical racial acts,” said Dina Gonzalez-Pina, West Coast MCC executive director and a facilitator of the MPC. “It is from that space that we hear the blood crying out for justice and, as peacemakers, we cannot live as though we don’t hear and see the injustice.”

In Montgomery, the MPC spent a day at the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. At both places, the representation of the U.S.’s heavy history offered immense learning for participants about the legacy of slavery, lynching, racial segregation and mass incarceration in the U.S.
 
The group ended their time with a worship service at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pastored at Dexter Avenue for six years and led much of Montgomery’s early civil rights activity from there. Montgomery was also the site of the famous 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, when Blacks walked instead of using the bus for more than a year to protest segregation on buses.

“Being in the actual spaces where the civil rights movement began and progressed was the most impactful aspect,” wrote Lauren Purvis of Fresno, California, in her evaluation. “I’ve learned about these events but to travel to and sit within those spaces and buildings made it so real.” 

After four days of intensive, hands-on learning, the MPC headed to North Carolina where they spent the second half of the trip reflecting on what they had seen and experienced. 

Facilitators used MCC’s new Peaceful Practices curriculum to connect history to current realities and offer practical tools that could help participants build peace and reconciliation in their everyday contexts.

They also participated in You Got Booked, an MCC learning tool that helped them make connections between a history of racial injustice and the current system of mass incarceration in the U.S.

Together, the group reflected on Psalm 85:10, which depicts God’s restoration. Based on the Spanish version of the passage, participants grappled with what the work of truth, mercy, justice and peace looks like, as pillars of reconciliation in a broken world. 

Each participant committed to implementing their learnings when they returned home. Many committed to:

  1. Educating others
  2. Speaking out in their spheres of influence
  3. Getting more involved in racial justice efforts


The MPC was the first event of its kind in the U.S. for USMB youth and young adults. Due to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants, planning for a second event is already underway. 
 

Share this story
Share
Tweet
Plus 1

Donate today

Every gift makes a difference

Please enter your donation amount

E-newsletter signup

Stories and photos from MCC delivered to your inbox once a month

Connect with MCC

Like us on Facebook
View on Instagram
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe on Youtube
  • Learn more
    • About MCC
    • Where we work
    • What we do
      • Relief
      • Food
      • Water
      • Health
      • Education
      • Migration
      • Peace
      • Restorative justice
    • Privacy
  • Get involved
    • Employment
    • Events
    • Kits
    • Advocate
    • Volunteer
  • Donate
    • Donate now
    • Donation FAQs
    • Giving registries
    • Legacy giving
Mennonite Central Committee

   

© 2023 Mennonite Central Committee
Tax Identification Number: 23-6002702