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Dozens of pastors and 2,000 people march in Jacksonville to protest the drug trade after reports of a $25,000 bounty on the head of a black minister.
By THOMAS C. TOBIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 2, 2001
JACKSONVILLE -- Under a white revival tent, 2,000 people obey the stocky, 37-year-old preacher, who is on the roll of his life.
Shake hands with the soul next to you, he says.
Hug all those people over there. Go ahead.
Join hands. Give each other high fives. Lift up your arms and sing.
It's going-to-church time on a vacant lot along Moncrief Road, but the picture is out of whack. It feels like Sunday morning, but the calendar says it's Tuesday. And in an area of Jacksonville that is 98 percent black, about a third of the faces looking back at the Rev. John E. Guns are white.
Some of them are moved to tears as they hug and sing with their new black friends.
Police officers hover nearby, mindful of reports that the local drug trade, headquartered across the street along a block of scruffy townhouses, has put a $25,000 bounty on Guns' head.
But the black, charismatic pastor of St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church has turned that problem into an unusual moment in the cultural life of Jacksonville -- a moment of interracial harmony and unity of purpose that is strangely out of place in a city that retains hints of its Old South past.
It happened this week without warning or orchestration or precedent.
"In my 15 years on the force, I've never seen a gathering of this magnitude for this particular purpose," said Officer Ken Jefferson of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. "You had a unique cultural development here tonight."
"This is so awesome," said St. Paul parishioner Janice Tucker, a black woman who hugged and prayed with many of the white visitors to her neighborhood. There were scores of them, young and old, and they showed up Tuesday and Wednesday at dusk to march and to stand with Guns in defiance of the drug culture. They were encouraged by a mostly white group of Jacksonville pastors who became outraged that a fellow preacher had been threatened.
"We meet at the football stadium," Tucker said, referring to the Jaguars, the NFL team. "But at church?"
The story begins on July 16, when local, state and federal law enforcement officers arrested four men during an early morning raid along Ken Knight Drive. Police said the men were part of a drug ring known as the Waterfront Boys, who since 1994 had supplied the neighborhood with half a ton of cocaine valued at $11-million.
Although Guns had nothing to do with the raid or the 18-month investigation that preceded it, he was targeted because of his high profile. The pastor had publicly praised the police after the raid, and his church is a hub of activity in northwest Jacksonville, with a housing agency, a job-training center, programs to feed and clothe the poor, even its own Web site.
When parishioners told Guns about the $25,000 bounty, his response last week was to announce that St. Paul would sponsor two marches. They would promote the idea that this drug bust should lead to the "permanent transformation of this neighborhood," he said.
Across town, news of the bounty hit home with a fledgling ministers group, Mission First Coast, an interracial but still largely white collection of local ministers. Concerned for Guns, the membership decided to take action, said the Rev. Ted Corley, pastor of a small congregation of elderly Southern Baptists on Jacksonville's white south side.
On Monday, about 50 ministers from Mission First Coast showed up at a news conference to say they would march with Guns, a gesture that moved them all to tears. Then, as news cameras hummed and clicked, Guns and his colleagues laid hands on each other and prayed.
Corley, whois chairman of Mission First Coast, said the moment was a long time coming. White ministers had long noticed how their black counterparts had taken the lead on local issues. They saw how black and white churches came together during last year's visit by evangelist Billy Graham, but separated once again when it was over. They cringed when only three white ministers attended the recent funeral of a prominent black minister.
"It's about putting feet to our prayers," Corley said. "Sooner or later, you have to stop talking about things and you show up. One of our pastors said it's time we put a little vanilla in the mix because they're always wondering where we are."
The ministers' gesture struck a chord. Suddenly, Corley and Guns, who didn't know each other before last week, were appearing on the local morning news shows.
"What you're looking at is 30-plus denominations putting aside everything to line up with this cause in Jacksonville, and that's a bold step," Corley said. "If this allows us to break into the problem and work towards improving relations, then I think it is a historic moment for the church and the city."
The moment reached its emotional apex Tuesday night as an estimated 2,000 people marched the mile from St. Paul to the tent on Moncrief Road.
There, Guns climbed the makeshift pulpit with his back facing his would-be attackers across the street, all but challenging someone to take a shot.
"I can't fight a lick and I ain't scared," he said during a sprited 90-minute service that displayed his easy way with words and a vocal range that went from softness to an ear-splitting screech.
He preached about humility and jumped up and down. He hugged the white ministers and acknowledged the half-dozen local dignitaries in attendance, including City Council members and the president of the 2005 Super Bowl Committee.
The choir sang What a Mighty God We Serve, and Guns used every chance to get his audience to hug and join hands, as if human contact would be the glue that makes the moment last.
"The genius of tonight is two weeks ago none of us would have imagined we would be here," he said. "Look at your neighbor and tell him, (God) has just made us into something else. ... And we can never go back."