What Will We Do About Racism?

The Time to Act is Now

by Garlinda Burton

Editor’s Note: Deaconess Garlinda Burton’s speech on ending institutionalized racism had a profound impact on members of the program advisory group, who heard it in person on March 8, 2025, during their meeting at Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, Tennessee. At the request of several United Women in Faith members and staff, response has transcribed Burton’s talk with the hope that all our readers can share in the same educational opportunity it provided our program advisory group. Portions of this speech have been edited for length and for clarity in a print format.

The time is now, family, and I am asking: What will we do about racism right now?

The God who made the world and everything in it does not live in shrines made by human hands. That means our churches, our annual conference offices, our district offices. Not even in the hallowed circle of United Women in Faith. From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole Earth.

I want to call your attention to a timeline of how long The United Methodist Church and our predecessor denominations have been dealing with racism. John Wesley, in 1774, wrote a paper, “Thoughts Upon Slavery,” where he denounced the enslavement of Africans in Europe and in the United States as one of the foulest institutions he had ever witnessed.

And then the Methodist Church was born in 1784, and then about that time, Francis Asbury, who was our first bishop, was saying to Methodists in the United States: Look, if you’re going to be a clergyperson, if you’re going to be a member of the Christian church, you don’t need to own people. He was roundly, roundly denounced for doing that and thus began the argument over racism.

And in 1816, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was born because of racism in the so-called mother church. People of African descent decided we’re not going to worship in a segregated space, we’re not going to be treated as second-class citizens because we serve a first-class God, so they walked out.

So then in 1865 the Sand Creek Massacre happened. This slaughter of Cheyenne and other Native peoples was led by a Methodist minister who was a cavalry officer.

In 1873, the church started organizing missionaries among Spanish people. Then, the first Korean immigrants came [to the United States] early in the 20th century. This is one of my personal favorites: Methodist Episcopal Church South Bishop W.F. McMurry in 1924 punched a pastor in the mouth for aligning with the Klan. But around that same time, Methodist Bishop E.D. Mouzon blamed African Americans for the Tulsa Race massacre, saying that if we had not been so uppity, we would not have been burned down. So you’ve got bishops on all sides.

Methodist Church formed

In 1939, the North and South Methodist Episcopal Churches, which had split in 1844 over the issue of enslavement, reunited to form the Methodist Church. In 1944, one of our foremothers, who I count as one of my saints, Thelma Stevens challenged the General Conference to hold meetings where people of all colors could be, and she got laughed off the floor of General Conference by leadership. And then The United Methodist Church stumbled on and was born in 1968 with the merger of the EUB (Evangelical United Brethren Church) and Methodist churches. And it almost didn’t happen because Methodists—many southerners, but some northerners too—did not want to end segregation. And it was the African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Asian Americans, and White allies who said we’re not going to be a United Methodist Church and still be segregated. But, in 1972, some conferences in the south were still refusing to desegregate. So, the struggle for racial justice is a part of our legacy. Institutional racism is a part of our legacy. And we’ve been working on it, and I’m proud to say that the women of the church have been on the front lines of the battle since our inception. And I’m very proud of that. We’re still not there, though.

We’re still not there because women of color are still doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to confronting, naming, and acting to expel institutional racism and its enabler, white supremacy. After all our book studies, our talking groups, our meeting groups, our supper clubs, our prayer vigils, we still see a disproportionate amount of the work being laid on women of color to fight the battle of racism, even though racism is not really a person of color problem. It is a White problem. And it is a White Christian problem because we who are Christian have been complicit.

We know that the idea for splitting north and south didn’t start in the public sector. It started in the churches in the south, and most of the major denominations started to secede from their denominations over the issue of enslavement.

Racism is still with us, and women of color are still carrying the water. [At this point, Burton shared a United Methodist Women video that states, “racism is a rejection of the teachings of Jesus Christ.”]

I am Garlinda Burton

I want to reintroduce myself. I am Garlinda Burton. I am a deaconess and a mentor. I’m a cradle Methodist, as were my grandparents and my parents. I love my church, and I love you. United Methodist Women, Women’s Society of Christian Service, and now United Women in Faith raised me, taught me, groomed me in the best way possible to be the Christian that I am now. I love you, my sisters, every hue and tongue and clan and ability and tribe and language and circumstance. You and I know that God loves us.

I started pouring tea and raising money for mission in the Women’s Society of Christian Service when I was 4 years old. … In many African American churches, we would have afternoon teas. It would always be someone that had a beautiful tea service that she would bring. We would have Russian tea on one end, punch on the other end. We would have peanuts and mints. I can still smell those cucumber sandwiches right now. And people would come during your hour to pour and put money in your cup. All that money went to our mission pledge. I grew up with that.

The women in my family and the foremothers of United Women in Faith are the ones who trained me, not only to raise money for mission, but to do justice, to serve in mission, and to speak God’s truth, from the womb practically. And I have had a special calling to engage in work around racial justice and antiracism. Like many other Black, Indigenous, and women of all colors, I’ve carried the water. When it comes to teaching about proving and challenging institutional, personal, and systemic racism, I have led and participated in literally hundreds of reading groups, talking circles, workshops, marches, prayer vigils, women’s action coalitions, and round robins within United Women in Faith and our predecessors and beyond the Church. I have designed antiracism curriculum for the Church. I have written legislation for General Conference. Last year I retired after 41 years of working for The United Methodist Church. But I’m here to say that this will be the last time that I will be presenting anything on racism for United Women in Faith, and I’ll tell you why.

Time to act

The time for talking has passed, and the time to act is now. And I’m speaking specifically to my White sisters. But to all of us, what are we willing to do in this fraught and dangerous time? I believe, because I’ve seen it with my own eyes, that United Women in Faith can make a difference, because we’ve been making a difference for 241 years. Before there was even a United Women in Faith, there were United Methodist and Methodist and EUB women who were shaking up the system. For 241 years we have been doing this, but also in these 241 years, women of color, like me, have been asked to put ourselves out there to share our story.

We’ve been telling our stories for 241 years, and we have been told sometimes, even when we speak our truth, that maybe we’re too sensitive. Maybe they didn’t mean it that way. We’ve been told that maybe we should just stop talking about racism. Racism makes me uncomfortable. Can we just not see color? Why can’t we just focus on the things that we have in common?

Even though we did not create racism, we have struggled to survive and we have risked and trusted our White sisters because of what we’ve seen in people like Thelma Stevens, in Belle Harris Bennett, in Joyce Sohl, in Maxine Beach, in Barbara Campbell … because I saw in them the promise that if Black, Indigenous, and women of all colors would open up and tell our stories, that our White sisters would join us in God’s work of saving the Church and the world and our children from the destruction and the death that racism brings. Well, in Jesus’ name and for Jesus’ sake, we know enough. We’ve said enough. And we’ve read enough. I believe it’s time for us to stand, I believe that it’s time for us to stand, and I believe it’s time for our White sisters to move to the frontline because you already know the history.

We know about the Sand Creek Massacre. We know that Native women were disproportionately affected by the COVID virus and the lack of communications and getting information and medicines out to Native people, poor African Americans, poor Latino people. We have read all of the stats. … Scientists tell us that African Americans and Hispanics are exposed to more air pollution than Whites. And most of those people are poor. So, we are ready because you know how pervasive racism is.

[At this point, Burton shared a news video about a decades-old practice of including racial covenants that prohibited the sale of property to anyone other than White people. The 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed racially motivated redlining, long after the practice had taken its toll by helping White families to build wealth while creating barriers for Black families.]

That’s a story that has happened everywhere, not just in New Jersey. There is redlining still going on. There is regentrification. There is undermining voters’ rights. You know this. There is police violence against People of Color. There is the myth now of meritocracy … and the end of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). There is the rewriting of history, [legislation to limit the teaching of critical race theory and racial history], mass incarceration, segregation in church and society, physical violence, and harassment of People of Color. We know this, and that makes us ready to do something. Even when we look away, racism brings harm.

We also know, even in our sins of omission and looking away, we know what God would have us to do. Therefore, I am moving on to other Jesus work to which I am called and asking my White sisters to move to the front lines of Christian antiracism work. Women of color, African women, Filipinas, Latinx women, Pacific Island women, Native women, and Asian women have told our stories to you and we have told our stories to our children. We have talked about generations of the faithfulness of God, the goodness of our allies, and how we have survived the scourge of racism.

My grandmothers, J.B. Brown and Eula Burton were buried in their WSCS pins. They were faithful to the end in the belief that even though they came along in the segregated church, they believed that church women fired by Jesus Christ would make the world better. So now, White sisters, at this uncertain moment in our world history, it is your turn. If this is the most diverse gathering you have been in all year, you know what needs to happen. We need to take this home and not just talk about it here.

Get started

You’re ready to do this, and I have some suggestions for you about how you can get started.

Teach White children BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) history and culture. There are people in our Church of all races who have changed this church for the better. … There’s nothing wrong with church people gathering to teach history that can’t be taught in schools.

Demonstrate for immigrant rights right now. … Unless you are Native, no matter how you got here, we all came from somewhere else. It is the height of arrogance, in my opinion as a Christian person, for any of our legislators to try and decide who belongs here.

Stand with BIPOC women or children if they are racially profiled or harassed on the street. Intervene when you see wrong.

Support reparations. There’s a church that found out that much of their wealth came from People of Color who were in the church, and they had segregated them so that the People of Color walked out with the less expensive of two churches, and they have been struggling financially ever since. Well, the pastor and trustees of this predominantly White church found this out and put into their budget several hundred thousand dollars a year to pay to that community to do programming for Children of Color, afterschool programs, and fix up their building, because that is a reparation. They got rich off racism and now the church is doing something about it by putting into their own budget programs to support People of Color and their children.

Patronize BIPOC businesses and banks. Put your money where your antiracism is.

Tell a racially bigoted person in your circle, in your family, in your church—say it aloud—that you disagree with them and tell them why what they have said is wrong. And then pray with them. Listen to their side and then pray with them, but interrupt the language and the stories that are told. There’s a rumor going around that a high percentage of immigrants are criminals. That’s not true! It’s just not true, and I’m not going to let somebody say that to me. In a love-of-Jesus way, they’ve got to get checked.

Vote against racism always. If you vote for a candidate who spouts racism, you’re voting for racism. Support candidates who speak love and speak inclusion and speak diversity. Challenge those who disparage DEI and bust the myth of meritocracy.

Challenge those who disparage the idea that People of Color are less than and that they’re lucky to have any attention from our White family. We’re all family. We’re all from that one ancestor.

Join or organize public ecumenical prayer vigils against racism. Organize a prayer vigil. Get your church out there to organize a prayer vigil, if someone is shot, if someone is robbed, if someone is profiled, if someone’s business is shut down because of racism. If someone calls out immigrants and says they’re eating cats and dogs, like the people in that city; the next day White folks flooded the businesses of Haitian folks because they said, “we’re not going to stand for that in our city,” and a couple of them were members of United Women in Faith, I’m proud to say.

Volunteer for behind-the-scenes talks with groups that witness against racism. You don’t always have to be on the frontline. If you are willing to serve a meal or clean up after a vigil or a protest that is sponsored by People of Color, that’s serving.

Start a freedom school. Champion multicultural education in your school system.

Our nation is great because our Native brothers and sisters allowed us to come in and to work together. … We are asking forgiveness of our Native people, but we owe one another the story that all of us who come together can make our country great.

I am asking you, my beloved sisters, my White sisters, to see it, name it, and tackle it. Ask yourself, “What am I witnessing and what am I seeing? Who are my allies and my co-conspirators? How will I use my Christian faith and the power that God has given me to counter racism?”

In the name of Thelma Stevens and Harriet Beecher Stowe and Belle Harris Bennett and Joyce Sohl …To paraphrase Joel [1:3], tell it to your children and let your children tell it and do it and be it and change it for the next generation. This is my last antiracism speech for our women because we are ready to act. Won’t you act, please?

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Garlinda Burton is a deaconess and program advisory group member from the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference.