Bay Churches Discuss Race Relations in Open Forum

Race relations have been a hot topic in our society for a long time. Thursday night, two prominent Bay St. Louis churches came together to openly talk about race. The two churches came together to discuss what most people are thinking, but are too afraid to say.

Reverend Allen Jenkins of First Missionary Baptist Church and Pastor Owen Nease of First Baptist Church of Bay St. Louis co-hosted an open forum to discuss all aspects of race relations Thursday night. Jenkins says, "There are conversations that’s taking place every day in our homes about race, but not taking place in public, so this is a public forum where we will talk about race together and perhaps eliminate some of those stereotypes."

During the meeting, there were five different segments. One segment was on answering provocative questions, another was a segment where anyone in attendance could ask the opposite race anything they were curious about. Both pastors made everyone feel welcome and feel like they could ask any question that they wanted without being labeled a racist.

There was also a committee of 10 black people and 10 white people who voted periodically on whether or not they considered tough questions as racist or not. Audience members were also allowed to speak up about an issue of race they felt passionate about at any time during the meeting. Nease feels that more needs to be done concerning race relations rather than just talking about it. He says, “We’ll start tonight with a conversation, but I think people want to see change, so hopefully that will come as a result."

Both Jenkins and Nease expect the discussion to help eliminate biases and stereotypes within the community.