It seems improbable to me that every American does not know who the Reverend Will D. Campbell, "Brother Will," is.
Here is a link to the story in The Tennessean reporting his death this morning.
The Rev. Will D. Campbell, a giant in the Civil Rights Movement, died Monday night in Nashville from complications following a stroke. He was 88.
His friend, the writer John Egerton, sent an email early this morning notifying Campbell’s friends.
Campbell was a significant voice for integration during the Civil Rights Movement while at the same time ministering to those who were against it.
“If you’re gonna love one, you've got to love 'em all," he repeated thousands of times.
For the past 40 years, at least until a May 2011 stroke left him in a West Nashville medical care facility, Campbell broadened his ministry. He wrote books that drew praise from former President Jimmy Carter, Robert Penn Warren and others. He campaigned mightily against abortion and the death penalty.
Jump the object that I will name, for today, the orange dragonfly larva, and find out why.
One problem we all had with Will was that he resisted title or description. He was an ordained Baptist minister, but he had no formal church. He wrote award-winning books, but "author" could not capture him. He played a vital role in the civil rights movement, but avoided roles of leadership. Occasionally he went on tour with Waylon Jennings as a cook for the band. He was a witness.
Will's two best and most important books were:
Brother to a Dragonfly and Forty Acres and a Goat
Like Will, these books defy description. They are part memoir, part autobiography, part social commentary.... they are testimony, both for the prosecution and defense of the world.
One of his most repeated lines was his critique of the death penalty, "I just think it's tacky."
Here is a link to a longer retrospective The Tennessean did on Will some months ago. It gives some detail on his most controversial act, his decision to start attending meetings of the Ku Klux Klan.
Fifty years ago, Campbell was the Nashville representative of a pro-integration operation called the National Council of Churches. His skin color, connections and quiet good humor gave him entry into rooms unapproachable by the students at the forefront of the movement.
Some of those rooms were occupied by people Campbell called “the Kluxers.” Although his message was at odds with theirs, and never wavered, some of them came to trust him.
“I always say that Will became the civil rights chaplain for the Ku Klux Klan,” said Lafayette.
He smiled as he said that. Campbell’s ministry to the Klan was neither an affront to nor a dismissal of the brave efforts of Lafayette, King, John Lewis and others in the civil rights movement. Campbell’s philosophy - and it has driven his life’s work - is that all people are God’s people.
“If you’re gonna love one, you’ve got to love ‘em all,” he repeated thousands of times, before a May 6, 2011, stroke robbed him of his eloquence.
“He was coming from one of the most radical interpretations of Christianity that I’ve ever heard,” said author Frye Gaillard, who wrote about Campbell in books titled “Race, Rock & Religion” and “Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Country Music.” (Campbell also was a singer and songwriter who spent much of the 1970s and ‘80s in the company of Tom T. Hall, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and other country singers.) “The same Bible that told him he shouldn’t favor segregation told him God loved everybody.”
Will knew that the real culprits were those in power, who used fear to play poor, black people and poor, white people against each other, so he tried to stand in the breach and be an honest witness to that fear.
Will's most beloved pet was a goat named Jackson. Will was a follower of Jesus, but he had a serious quibble with his teacher, who tended to use goats as a metaphor for bad people (see Matthew 25).
Good bye Brother Will. Your testimony is complete. Say hello to Jackson.