A group of black women were kicked off a winery tour train after they’d been warned three times (according to the tour operator) about laughing too loudly? Other passengers complained, and tour staff repeatedly told them to keep it down. One of the women took to Facebook and blamed the reprimand and banishment on skin color and created the hashtag #laughingwhileblack.

Major media outlets often report many of America’s inner cities have economic disparities, high crime rates, drug problems, and broken families. These sources virtually never report that there are major works of gospel-centered racial reconciliation happening throughout many of America’s most dangerous inner cities. One movement is called the Legacy.

The recent battle over symbols of the Confederacy has hit the road. A two-month old Change.org petition to rename Virginia sections of the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway reached 3,000 signatures last week. 

Officials named the highway in 1922 in honor of the president of the Confederate states during the Civil War. The petition calls on Virginia Gov. Terry McAulliffe, a Democrat, the Virginia General Assembly, and the Commonwealth Transportation Board to rename all sections of Jefferson Davis Highway within the state. 

On Friday, South Carolina made history when state officials lowered the Confederate flag that flew on the grounds of the state Capitol for years. This flag reminded many of racial hatred directed toward Africa-Americans through the years. The superb leadership of Gov. Nikki Haley and the collegial support of the state’s elected officials helped efforts to retire the flag. But those efforts were buoyed by the Christian responses to the shootings of Walter Scott and the Emanuel 9.

CHARLESTON, S.C.—More than two weeks after Rev. Clementa Pinckney and eight of his parishioners were shot to death in the basement of Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston, S.C., questions hang heavy in the humidity of this Southern coastal city: What will sustain the beautiful display of unity among races visible in the shooting’s aftermath? How do churches keep racial reconciliation on the street and not cloistered behind church walls as a relic to be brought out after the next crisis?

In the past week, arsonists have burned to the ground several black churches in the South. Perhaps these fires have nothing to do with race. Yet, these crimes along with the racially motivated murder of nine African-American Christians in Charleston, S.C., draw attention to the racism the Confederate flag represents for many African-Americans.

Last week, I talked with John Stonestreet of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview about the shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. Stonestreet called it “yet another incident that, in the most horrific way yet, illustrates this deep divide that continues to exist in the American experience between the races.”

Out of deep pain, the families of the shooting victims offered an equally deep example of Christian faith. They stood in a courtroom and offered forgiveness and love to accused shooter Dylann Roof.