Melvin Steward, an ELCA member and ordained Baptist minister, works with neighborhood chil- dren in Columbus, Ohio.
Melvin A
judge looked down from his bench in a Columbus, Ohio, courtroom. He’d just placed
another boy in the care of Melvin Steward, a member of Hope Lutheran Church in Columbus. “Mr. Steward, the East End boys I send to you don’t show up back here again in court,” the judge said. After Steward thanked the judge, he took the 13-year-old boy to Wendy’s for lunch. “Son, who do you think owns this Wendy’s?” Steward
Jurgensen, a retired ELCA pastor and seminary professor, is a member of Hope Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ohio.
34 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
moves mountains of hopelessness
asked. Looking around, the young man replied, “A white man, I guess.” “No,” Steward said. “A black man, like us.” He introduced the young man to the owner.
Next he took the young man into a
well-kept grocery store, asking who he thought owned it. “Some white man,” was the response. “No,” Steward said. “A black man. Me.” He took him around and introduced him to the workers. In front of a thriving monu-
ment and marker business, Steward asked the same question. The youth hesitated.
“Another black man,” Steward
By Barbara Jurgensen
said. “Me. Some day you can own a store like one of these if you start respecting yourself and making use of the abilities God has given you.” The 13-year-old joined other young men the court had assigned to Steward in learning from him about African-American history, how to stay in school, how to hold a job and how to find what gives meaning to life.
“They aren’t born as thugs,” Steward said of his students. “I’ve never heard a doctor say, ‘I delivered a thug today.’ [These] children were born into difficult circumstances— poverty, drugs, violence—and our
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