The statue of George and Mary Jane Washington sits on the edge of George Washington Park in downtown Centralia.
When Sonja McCully moved to Centralia three years ago, she was intrigued and inspired by the town’s founders, the black couple George and Mary Jane Washington.
McCully, whose husband is black, wants to further discussion and dialogue on racial issues.
She and a few other folks are hosting “a community cafe on racial harmony,” on Feb. 15 in the meeting room of the Centralia Timberland Regional Library, from 3 to 5 p.m.
The goal is to engage in civil dialogue on the underlying causes of things dividing our society, and devising strategies for eliminating them.
“We want to sort of reach back to the spirit of celebrating the founding of our community with a diverse founder,” said McNelly, a retired school librarian.
She told me that she hopes many people from the community join the talk.
A quote by Centralia founder George Washington also inspires her: “I want to do right by my fellow men,” Washington said. “And if I do, then I’ll never lose anything by it.”
To that, McCully adds, “The concept of harmony, something we all long and work for, can be a project for us to grow towards together.”
McNelly, a member of the Baha’i faith, also looks to one of the founding principles of her faith as part of the purpose of the meeting: “The basic solution to racial harmony rests primarily on the belief that all of humankind is one family.”
She hopes this discussion will be the spark for ongoing dialogue.
The talk will be led by Lonnie and Dan Locke of Lacey. Also a biracial couple, they plan to bring stories from America’s history to the discussion, including three first-person accounts they have collected from people who were part of the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Lonnie Locke notes that the purpose of the march was to promote voter registration of African-American people in Alabama. This march was organized in response to the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black man who was leading an attempt to register voters in Marion, a town near Selma.
One of the firsthand accounts comes from Rose Goodwin, who was then a 13-year-old girl living in Selma. She and other black marchers were blocked and beaten by law enforcement officers as they attempted to cross a bridge into Montgomery.
“After we couldn’t go across the river, we kneel down and started to sing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ Some people started to run. Our freedom men said stop running, so they did. Then the troopers started hitting peoples across the head and throwing tear gas at us,” Goodwin wrote.
Lonnie Locke said she wants to talk about the potential for positive change if everyone takes responsibility for achieving peace and unity in our communities.
“Change,” she said, “will come about with close association, fellowship, and friendship among diverse people.”
For more information, contact McCully at sonjamccully@gmail.com or 505-615-3075.
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Speaking of Centralia’s founder, George Washington will be the subject of a talk at noon on Thursday, Feb. 20, in Tumwater at the historic Schmidt House (330 Schmidt Place S.W.).
I’ll be speaking along with Kerry Serl of Napavine about the book we co-wrote on Washington’s life. The event is free, and is part of a yearlong series of historical talks twice each month. (This coming Thursday’s talk, for instance, will be about the history of the Cowlitz Farm near present-day Toledo, and will be presented by Josiah Pollock, a historian with the Fort Nisqually Living History Museum.)
We’d love to have a strong Lewis County contingent at our talk. Please come up to say “hello” if you are able to join us.
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Brian Mittge’s column appears each Saturday in The Chronicle. Contact him at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
