May 31

Although this devotional is dedicated to helping us remember the saints and their perseverance in difficult times, sometimes I also highlight the difficult times in order to give readers a context. it is with this in mind that I want to note two troubling events:

First, is the Johnstown Flood, which happened on this day in 1889. Like the Memorial Day Massacre I mentioned yesterday, this tremendous loss of two-thousand lives was due to a collaboration between wealthy elites and corrupt government. Robber barons and land speculators built the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club—their generation’s Mar-a-Lago—and modified the dam for aesthetic and recreation reasons. When the dam failed and killed thousands of people, the rich investors bought off investigators and had the event declared an “Act of God.” Henry Frick was the primary villain responsible for the cover-up and he was, not surprisingly, also a union-buster. This was one of the first times that Clara Barton, who I’ve lifted up in this devotional before, led the American Red Cross in disaster relief efforts. 

Second, today marks the day, in 1927, that Fred Trump was arrested at a Klan rally. You need to know this. Everyone needs to know this. 

Today marks the birthday in 1875, of Rosa May Billinghurst, an English suffragist whose disability was both a challenge and an opportunity in her justice work. Though police sometimes tipped her over in her wheeled chair, she would also use it strategically in protests. In this way she was also a proto-disability rights activist.

Today marks the death, in 2013, of Jairo Mora Sandoval, a Costa Rican researcher who was abducted and murdered while trying to protect endangered leatherback turtles from poachers. His death led to environmental and legal reforms in Costa Rica. 

Reflection: 

Rosa May Billinghurst hid rocks under her wheelchair blanket to smash windows in protest for women’s rights. When on trial for vandalism, she said, 

These suffragists pointed out, correctly, that property vandalism was not “violence,” but that wealthy elites did not value human lives as highly as property. Police were guilty of violence, but the suffragists were not.

She also said, 

And she noted:

As I said above, I think it’s important not only to tell you about the lives of the saints, but about the context in which they were active. Poverty, which is manufactured by wealthy elites, and oppression, which is manufactured by those in power, are man-made systems, which means that human beings can also unmake them. Rosa May Billinghurst and Jairo Mora Sandoval point the way forward. As I said yesterday—everything we think of as a “right” had to be bought with personal sacrifice. 

Next year, after I finish my devotional on saints, I intend to do one on villains; Henry Frick was one of the first people I added.

Prayer: God of liberation and justice, let your truth, like sunlight, disinfect our society. Point us toward a world where life is more precious than property. Amen.