Murfreesboro Loves

Country Courthouse--Daily
News Journal photo

Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is a good place to live. Most Saturdays this time of year, you will find people browsing and purchasing from vendors at the Farmers’ Market around the County Courthouse. Shops and restaurants on the Square will bustle with business. The local university will be hosting a high school band competition that brings participants from all over the mid-South. Children will be getting ready for a visit to a “haunted mansion” to raise money for historic conservation.

None of that will happen today, because White Lives Matter is coming to town. All the activities mentioned above have been cancelled. The courthouse square will be cordoned off, protestors and counter-protestors will gather, businesses have boarded their windows, and law enforcement will be out in strength.

Why Murfreesboro? The city handled school integration in the 60s with little hassle due the cooperation of black and white community leaders. The area provided resettlement for Laotian refugees in the 70s with great hospitality. The university hosts students from many nations. In a typical elementary, middle, or high school, you will see children from many ethnic backgrounds--Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern. There is an Islamic Center here which was opposed by a verbal minority but the majority of citizens see their Muslim friends as good neighbors.

City Cafe--DNJ Photo

Most of us see these as good things. This hospitable acceptance of others has fueled significant growth in our city and county. It has enriched our cultural and civic life. Evidently, some outsiders see this as an appropriate place to sow anger and hate where there has been little.

Citizens have pushed back but not in hatred or anger. Signs have popped up saying, “Murfreesboro Loves.” Alternate activities away from the downtown area are planned to show community unity. Friday night, a community prayer service was held at First Baptist Church on East Main Street, a block from the Courthouse Square. In that service, pastor Noel Schoonmaker said,

Prayer Service--DNJ Photo

"We express our opposition tonight prayerfully and peacefully. The cross is a symbol of love, and we send love to immigrants and refugees and other targets of white supremacists. Hateful ideologies are antithetical to the teachings of Christ."

Most of us who live in Murfreesboro agree with these sentiments. The ideology that one race has supremacy over another is antithetical to the gospel. Although we have sometimes faltered in proclaiming that message, we know that “Jesus loves all the little children of the world.”

On the secular side, equality of every person under law is an ideal that we continue to pursue. It is good for our country, it is good for our people, and it is good for our city.

Today our city recognizes that we must allow people to express their opinions, even if we don’t like those opinions. Tomorrow we will continue to love our neighbors and practice community cooperation.

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