Clergy: Storming of Capitol shows need for change, healing

NEW HAVEN — As residents across the state grapple with the aftermath of a mob storming the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, faith leaders reacted.

The Rev. Boise Kimber said

“the thugs ..., the racism that took over the Capitol” Wednesday, contrasted the lack of police presence to the armed response to Black Lives Matter protests last summer.

Kimber, senior pastor of First Calvary Baptist Church in New Haven and president of the Greater New Haven Clergy Association, spoke during an online news conference, saying there are “two Americas” and that white privilege and racism were on display in Washington.

“When Black Lives Matter were in Washington, D.C., protesting, you saw armored tanks, you saw the National Guard, you saw police officers all over D.C., and that was not one incident,” Kimber said. “Yesterday, there were no police officers that were able to control this mob. There was no National Guard there.”

He said Black Americans “were filled with the highs and the lows” Wednesday. First, was the election of the first Black senator from Georgia and the Democrats gaining control of both houses of Congress. “We were all excited, happy about that,” he said. “But the final scene that happened yesterday was a nightmare of the Trump presidency. Unfortunately, the low was the storming of the Capitol by Trump loyalists, which resulted in mayhem, destruction, injuries … and even deaths.”

Kimber said: “We live in two Americas. We live in a Black America and we live in a white America. We saw yesterday white privilege in America.”

Kimber said that once President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20, “I think we’ve got a great opportunity with the control of both House and Senate to make some real changes in government.”

“It is going to take a lot of healing from what we have gone through the last four years,” Kimber said. “The racial divide has divided us even more. There has to be new policies and new laws.”

Further, the Connecticut Faith Leaders Collaborative held a Zoom meeting at 1 p.m. during which clergy offered statements and prayers. It was a “call for state and national action and unity,” according to the Collaborative.

“We must seize this moment to recalibrate America’s Moral Compass. The day celebrated by many as the ‘Epiphany’ serves as a destined pivot point for the awakening of the spiritual conscience of the land of hope and freedom,” the Faith Leaders Collaborative said in a statement. “For too long good men and women have remained silent as partisan politics and self-serving politicians have created divisions in the ‘United’ States. Today we must raise our voices and shatter the silence of complicity with the chorus of unity.”

The Connecticut Faith Leaders Collaborative said in a statement, “Yesterday we wept for America as we saw violence unfold in our Nation’s Capital. For the 1st time in 208 years and only the 2nd time in U.S. history the world’s strongest symbol of civil government and the consistent home of ‘peaceful transition of power’ came under direct physical assault and blood was shed in the hallowed halls of Congress. This atrocity is the fruition of activities and actions that, if unabated, will certainly unravel the very fabric of the ‘ American Experiment.’”

Kimber