Henlee Barnette
Henlee Barnette (1911-2004) was a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor in the days before the lights went out, an activist and former preacher at Jeff Street (back in the days we were the Union Gospel Mission). He was a friend of Clarence Jordan, marcher with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, friend to many and teacher to still more. During his days at Union Gospel Mission, he was known as the Bishop of the Haymarket.
Bill Leonard made these comments about Brother Barnette:
At Stetson they called you a Communist because of your concern for social justice; and then you came to Louisville, and all hell broke loose. You marched with Dr. King, worked for integration in this city, linked black and white Baptists in new ways, helped bring King to the chapel of the seminary, and critics said the school lost a quarter of a million dollars in donations in 1961, (you said it was money well spent); You challenged the Vietnam War, got harassed by the FBI for 16 years, called for amnesty for draft dissidents, helped bring Philip Berrigan, antiwar activist, to Louisville.
What a guy!
For more on Henlee Barnette, click here.
Here's an accounting from Frank Stagg on Henlee's days at the Union Gospel Mission in the 1940s:
In a radius of three blocks from Union Gospel Mission were ninety whisky stores, many ''honky tonks," night clubs, houses of prostitution, cheap theaters, and gambling dens. There were vagrants, crime, delinquency, poverty, broken homes, alcoholism, prostitution, fist fights within families and otherwise, and other problems. Danger of being robbed, mugged, or shot lurked everywhere. It was not unlike Skid Row. Henlee investigated to ascertain who owned the indecent joints, but he found that politics sided with the owners, some being prominent citizens. Henlee's later political activism was due in part to precisely such involvement of power people and power structures in victimizing and exploiting people.
Not deterred, Henlee moved into this community, living in the mission building, where his first child was born. He kept the mission open from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m., averaging only five hours of sleep per night. He climbed stairs in three-storied tenement houses and entered doors wherever there was openness to his presence and ministry. Rejected and even threatened, Henlee persisted, with some dramatic salvages of human beings who otherwise could have been destroyed.
Bill Leonard made these comments about Brother Barnette:
At Stetson they called you a Communist because of your concern for social justice; and then you came to Louisville, and all hell broke loose. You marched with Dr. King, worked for integration in this city, linked black and white Baptists in new ways, helped bring King to the chapel of the seminary, and critics said the school lost a quarter of a million dollars in donations in 1961, (you said it was money well spent); You challenged the Vietnam War, got harassed by the FBI for 16 years, called for amnesty for draft dissidents, helped bring Philip Berrigan, antiwar activist, to Louisville.
What a guy!
For more on Henlee Barnette, click here.
Here's an accounting from Frank Stagg on Henlee's days at the Union Gospel Mission in the 1940s:
In a radius of three blocks from Union Gospel Mission were ninety whisky stores, many ''honky tonks," night clubs, houses of prostitution, cheap theaters, and gambling dens. There were vagrants, crime, delinquency, poverty, broken homes, alcoholism, prostitution, fist fights within families and otherwise, and other problems. Danger of being robbed, mugged, or shot lurked everywhere. It was not unlike Skid Row. Henlee investigated to ascertain who owned the indecent joints, but he found that politics sided with the owners, some being prominent citizens. Henlee's later political activism was due in part to precisely such involvement of power people and power structures in victimizing and exploiting people.
Not deterred, Henlee moved into this community, living in the mission building, where his first child was born. He kept the mission open from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m., averaging only five hours of sleep per night. He climbed stairs in three-storied tenement houses and entered doors wherever there was openness to his presence and ministry. Rejected and even threatened, Henlee persisted, with some dramatic salvages of human beings who otherwise could have been destroyed.
posted by Dan Trabue at 2:17 PM
2 Comments:
I miss Brother Henlee so very much. In the space of a very few years, I have lost many of my most influential teachers and heroes: John Howard Yoder, James Wm. McClendon, Henlee Barnette, Philip Berrigan, Coretta Scott King, Anne Braden, Jeannie Wylie-Kellerman, and William Sloan Coffin--gospel radicals all.
My name is morgan freeman, I had breakfast and lunch with henlee for 4 years from 90-94, I use to walk over to his house. When mohler took over. I was a conservative but I could be friends with anyone... well today, I miss him sorely, and although back then I thought he was a lefty now I find myself on his side.
email me morganfrmn@gmail.com
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