It's more than a black and white issue

When Rosa Parks took her seat at the front of the whites-only section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, Dr Elbert Ransom Jnr's life changed forever. The ensuing Montgomery bus boycott, which Ransom helped organise in conjunction with Martin Luther King, became a defining moment in the civil rights movement, writes Carl O'Brien, Social Affairs Correspondent.

Times change, he says, but the big themes don't. During a brief visit to Ireland last week, Dr Ransom said the signs of multiculturalism are a reminder that King's sermons about converting hate through love and non-violent means are more relevant now than ever.

"We're no longer dealing with simple black, white issues," he says.

"We're living in a global environment. Immigration is starting, it's bothering people. And it is something to be concerned about. The question is, how do we begin to deal with people who don't talk like us, look like us and don't share ideologies.

"Here in Ireland you're having a lot of migration, people looking for jobs, opportunities, a better life. They're coming from everywhere and that's unsettling for a lot of people. There's a feeling that 'We've been all right, like this,' you know? "A lot of people will ask: 'Why do I have to make a change?' We want to be able to continue our lives without these disturbances. But we have to come to the realisation that people are free to move and to try and take advantage of a better standard of living. It's going on everywhere.

"The best thing is to find a way to get along, so we don't have to live in fear, or cross the street, or be suspicious of our new neighbours."

Ransom has been lecturing around the globe on behalf of the Baptist World Congress and the US government since 1997, emphasising how to achieve social change through peaceful means. His message isn't a simple riff about spreading peace and understanding around the world. It's also a realistic take on multiculturalism which includes learning the mistakes made in the US over the last 50 years.

The buzzword of "integration" is a bugbear of his, for example. He says it didn't work. But then, forced integration shouldn't necessarily be an ultimate end-in-view either.

"They have a façade of integration in the US and I think it's one of the worst things that ever happened . . . You don't have to integrate to be together. What does bring people together is a philosophy and understanding that we're really not that much unalike."

Ransom gives the example of a local school where he lives in Alexandria, Virginia. There are 68 languages spoken at the school. The children mix, but there is no attempt to force them to hang out.

"They go to class together, they study together, but at lunchtime the Ethiopians sit at a table, the Hispanics at another. I used to say: 'Oh man we gotta change this'. But I'm rethinking that. People thrive better when they are with people who share the same jokes, know your background and your nature. They are integrated in the classroom. This is their social time to breathe. So why disturb that?

"For example, I don't have to be in your house having dinner at the table, interacting with you to be integrated. But we can understand and respect each other. That's the kind of stuff King and I used to talk about. It doesn't have to be a physical act."

The responsibility of promoting understanding is one which must be shared by the entire community, not just by the government.

"The faith community, the government, the NGOs, the community, we all ought to be promoting this and asking how do we reshape our society as an inclusive one. And the only way you can handle it is through dialogue. Children are the key in this. Otherwise we're doomed. It's a morbid thought, but that's the only way out.

"King said we must live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools. And those words ring in my heart and my mind today, because it really makes sense. If we can't come to some resolve of working together, then we destroy the whole fabric of living," says Ransom, occasionally slipping into the rhetorical style of a Southern Baptist preacher.

"As I move around the world, you see the similarities: we all need to rear our kids, pay our mortgages, pay our taxes, we go to church, go to work, so what else is there to life?"

During the civil rights movement Ransom helped organise the Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery, the Freedom March to Washington, open housing demonstrations in Chicago and the Poor People's Campaign in Washington. Great strides have been made since then, he says, but much work remains to be done at home and abroad. The classes he teaches have standing room only, he says, because people are still drawn to his message.

"Because of him [ King] and his influence, I preach at a seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. I preach about the social gospel, that you see the work of God in people. That was what King did. And he didn't wait for people to come to him: he went out there, spread the word.

"He pricked the conscience of humanity everywhere in this world.That's why we still talk about him as if he was still alive. He summoned us to do things which were right."