Cedarville Magazine, Fall 2020

This summer, the Cedarville community looked closely at the biblical perspective on race and ethnicity and rearticulated its historic stand against racism, and to affirm the value of each person as an image-bearer of the one true God, for whom He sent His Son to redeem and reconcile. The stories included here reflect on this difficult and transformative time. HONORING JAMES D. PARKER, SR. This fall, Cedarville honored its first African- American student, James D. Parker, Sr. ’64, by naming the men’s wing of its newest residence hall after him. Also honored were Pat Bates, former Dean of Women, for whom the women’s wing is named, and George Dunn, who is remembered with the Dunn Center at the center of the residence hall. He served as the first Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Cedarville College after the merger with the Baptist Bible Institute in 1953. A naming and dedication ceremony took place August 7, a week before Getting Started Weekend. As Cedarville prepared to celebrate Parker, the country once again found itself torn apart by racism. “We live in a sad time,” said Parker, who lives in Syracuse, New York, with his wife, Mary. “It seems like we’re going backward in a lot of things.” Before arriving at Cedarville, Parker served four years in the U.S. Air Force. It was during his days in the military, in 1952, that he went to a Youth for Christ meeting and accepted Christ as his Savior. As the first African- Ame r i can s t uden t a t Cedarville, community was a big part of his experience. “When I f i r s t c a m e t o Cedarville, I had a private room, but I was never lonely,” he sa i d . “Eve r y night I had to run guys out of the room so I could go to sleep. Everyone was always hanging out in my room.” His white classmates also learned lessons about being black in America. “I remember one time four or five of us went out In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. also found itself in the middle of a historic and culture-shaking response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The protests that followed provoked a national conversation about race and racial justice. Cedarville Magazine | 25