On Bill of Rights Day on Dec. 15, 2010 the Rev. Edwin Rowe, senior pastor of Central United Methodist Church in Detroit, received the Metro Detroit Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU’s) 2010 Bernard Gottfried Award at a ceremony in the Swords Into Plowshares Peace Center and Gallery.
Each year the Metro Detroit Branch of the ACLU, which covers Wayne and Macomb Counties, selects a person who has done exemplary work defending civil liberties to receive this award as part of its annual celebration of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution—known collectively as the Bill of Rights.
Most past recipients have been law professors and attorneys who have taken on cases on the ACLU’s behalf, usually on a pro-bono basis, according to past recipient and Central UMC member Jackie Washington who presented the award.
In her remarks prior to presenting the award, Washington acknowledged that like the ACLU, Rowe has long been a fighter for racial justice, for separation of church and state, for keeping Michigan’s historic ban on capital punishment, and he remains a tireless champion of worker rights.
She also told the audience that Rev. Edwin Rowe had taken up the cause of the Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor when injustice came his way.
Pinkney organized protests against the plans of the Whirlpool Corporation and Berrien County officials to privatize Jean Klok Park for a Jack Nicklaus golf course.
The park was one of the few places African Americans could gain access to the Lake Michigan beach and dunes; it was given to the city to be a park in perpetuity.
As part of that protest, Rev. Pinkney headed up a successful recall drive against public officials who wanted to privatize that park.
The voting results to privatize it were eventually overturned, and in what many view as political persecution, Rev. Pinkney was convicted in May 2007 of vote tampering, largely for “handling absentee ballots.” He was sentenced to five years probation.
Soon after he was sent to prison for 3-10 years for threatening a judge and public officials in violation of his probation by quoting Deuteronomy in a newspaper editorial, stating, “God shall visit upon the iniquitous.”
Rev. Rowe opened up Central Church for rallies and held fundraisers to defend Rev. Pinkney’s right to free speech, spoke on his behalf and even traveled to Benton Harbor to support Pinkney.
The ACLU subsequently took up Rev. Pinkney’s case and his conviction was overturned.
In accepting his award, Rev. Rowe told the story of a visitor coming up to him after a service, demanding to know why there was a banner that said, “Justice” hanging in the church. She associated justice with police and courts and didn’t see how that fit with the church.
Rowe told her it is a very different kind of justice being represented — the kind found in scripture.
Man’s kind of justice asks what law has been broken and who should be punished, Rowe continued.
Rowe said the Bible advocates restorative justice, which asks “Who has been hurt and how can wholeness be restored to those who were hurt and to the entire community?“
He then told the story of a homeless man sleeping in front of a church in Corktown.
The homeless man was confronted by a man who dragged him to his vehicle, tied his feet together and pulled out a chain. He then threatened to drag him behind his pickup truck, down to the Detroit River.
It turns out both the victim and the perpetrator of this hate crime had lived together in that community for 30 years. The perpetrator rehabbed a house there only to have it burned down, and he also was caregiver for his chronically ill sister. Rowe said the question should be, “How do these two hurting people become neighbors?”
There are people in parts of Detroit that are being redeveloped that want the homeless to leave. But Rowe said it is critical that people understand that the community is more than those who are like us, that we need to discover those who are different and see them as human too.
“Until we redefine justice as restoration, people will continue to look for retribution,” he said. “The job of the peace and justice community is to restore wholeness to Detroit and to the world, to transform a world that tries to solve problems with violence and war, to one which makes broken people and broken communities whole.”
Rowe said he was honored to receive this award from an organization with attorneys that work every day, often pro bono, to restore wholeness to this community. He said he was glad to be part of an organization—the ACLU-- that works for restorative justice.
Rev. Rowe is not the first pastor of Central to be involved in the ACLU. Dr. Henry Hitt Crane, senior pastor from 1938-58 was one of the founders of both the Michigan ACLU and the Metro Detroit Branch. The ACLU has often held meetings at Central, and the gallery where this award ceremony was held is a ministry of Central United Methodist.
According to Michigan ACLU President Ralph Simpson the award is named for the late Bernard Gottfried who was a founder of the Michigan ACLU and the Metro Detroit Branch, as well as a professor of labor law at Wayne State University. He was a member of the National Labor Relations Board from 1973 until his death in 1992.
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