Thread by @meganromer

My heart is broken over the loss of Notre Dame.

The Catholic Church is also one of the world’s wealthiest entities.

If you are going to donate money to rebuild a church this week, I implore you to make it the black churches in St. Landry Parish.

gofundme.com/church-fires-s…

I realize that there’s weird ownership stuff over the cathedral and whatnot, and I won’t argue that its relative architectural importance is far greater, but these three churches also bear the weight of history and need your help more.

The Opelousas Massacre took place in 1868. At least 300 black folks were murdered for attempting to register to vote. (Some estimates put it higher). In 1870, just TWO YEARS LATER, the Seventh District Missionary Baptist Association was formed in the same area.

There are people buried in the churchyards who were born enslaved. These are historical properties by any measure.

kadn.com/historic-grave…

I am not saying this to minimize any suffering. Loss is loss and it all hurts. But if you happen to be reading this, remember that famous history isn’t the only history. Imagine the courage it took to build and fill a black house of worship in postbellum rural Louisiana. AND NOW.

Backgrounder on the Opelousas Massacre, since the racists in my mentions seem to think that bad things only happen to rightfully-beloved buildings:

smithsonianmag.com/history/story-…

If you’ve never heard of the Opelousas Massacre but can name at least one European cathedral other than Notre Dame, well, that’s what happens when some people’s history is considered more important than others. (And again, I think Notre Dame is a profoundly important place.)

Stones reaching to the sky for millennia in a place of holiness so profound that it’s palpable — that stirs my heart. It also stirs my heart to think about people, a decade after hundreds of their small-town neighbors were massacred, building St. Mary Baptist Church.

(St. Mary Baptist and Notre-Dame de Paris have the same woman as their namesake, of course.)

Both built primarily by people who had nothing. Some had funds and blessings provided by their wealthy neighbors to do the building. Some had neither, but built anyway. Both monuments to God and the woman who carried God’s fragile human form. All just beloved humans.

Anyway, no one is going to forget about the Cathedral at the heart of Paris — and no one should. But these little churches deserve a corner of our memory, too.

The GoFundMe has racked up another $20k in the past several hours, which is wonderful & touching. Notre-Dame has a billionaire pledging €100 million for reconstruction. These little churches need less than a mill apiece to be completely restored. Where’s their hero billionaire?

(That’s kind of a trick question. There is no hero billionaire and likely won’t be. Only us. So let’s keep passing that hat.)

Champion hat-passers, all of you. 🙏❤️

This is *wonderful* and it makes me so happy to see. This magnificent cathedral will be restored. Can we also kick in the much smaller required amounts to rebuild these humble and important churches in Louisiana?

https://twitter.com/norbertelekes/status/1118155218724765698?s=21

The gazillionaires seem to have the big thing under control. @yashar’s doing a fabulous job challenging the adults in the room to donate handsomely. Can the rest of us broke-asses scrabble together five lousy bucks apiece? I bet we can!

gofundme.com/f/church-fires…

Y’all are really doing this. There are now going to be three truly nice, not-crumbling, safe, well-built, reasonably-resourced churches in St. Landry Parish, which desperately needs safe, welcoming community spaces.

nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/…

$800,000 so far. This is what sacred community-building looks like.

gofundme.com/f/church-fires…