Adam Griffin
  Staff Writer

Behind 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., crowds of people gather in groups surrounded by marshals. They take up pens and sign a pledge to non-violence. They then turn to their groups and pick up picket signs.

They are walking several blocks down the streets to the City Hall, hoping to make real changes to the law that has kept them from thriving in society — keeping them from the equality promised in the American Dream.

At the same time, Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor makes statements that drip with racism, such as, “Ain’t gonna segregate no niggers and whites together in this town.”

As the people march, that racism meets them in violent ways. The firemen come out with high-pressure water hoses blasting down the marchers. When the majority presses forward without retaliation, the police force unleashes attack dogs on them that tear into marchers and bystanders, young and old. The prisons fill with those who march, and the system of segregation is overwhelmed.

These were the thoughts that crossed my mind as I walked down those same Birmingham streets on that same marching path this past weekend in the Restoring Unity: All Lives Matter civil rights rally march.

We walked in peace, without any resistance, but it made me ponder what it would have been like to be in the shoes of those men, women and children who stood with Martin Luther King, Jr. and opposed racial injustice in the face violent opposition.

This march practice held the same non-violent principles of resistance and protest that King employed; however, it was for a different set of similarly related issues. The rallying cries were “All Lives Matter” and “Never Again is Now.” The major issues protesters waved were the 55 million abortions performed since the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade and the persecution of Christians in the Middle East that is rarely mentioned in the news media.

Blacks in King’s rally carried signs that said, “Am I Not A Man?” because the law treated them as subhuman. Now the same injustice is being perpetuated under the moniker of a woman’s choice and science — but life trumps all other rights, and the rights of the unborn are going unprotected. If life is the chief right, and it is undeterminable the exact point that life begins, then we should err on the side of life and protect the lives of those most vulnerable to tyranny and oppression without choice or voice. As of late, science is moving toward this conclusion because of the early formation of unique DNA. In light of the recent Planned Parenthood videos of doctors conducting viciously inhumane practices against aborted fetuses and late-term babies, it becomes imperative that good men and women stand up for those who cannot defend themselves.

The persecution of Christians, Muslims of opposing sects, homosexuals and women in the Middle East at the hands of radical groups, such as ISIS, is a worsening problem that people are not addressing. Christians are marked with the sign of the Nazarene, plundered of their property, then given three options: convert, pay a heavily burdensome tax or be executed. Many do not deny Christ, and they die for their faith while the Western world remains quiet.

The U.S. State Department has stated it will consider the plea of these persecuted Christians for safe haven in the U.S. sometime next year; meanwhile, the genocide continues.  The radical Islamists in the Middle East are ideologically tantamount to a religious Nazism and their actions resemble a Holocaust in its infancy. In the keynote to Restoring Unity, organizer Glenn Beck announced his plan of action, which involves churches, charities, local participation, families and individuals.

The charity arm of Mercury Radio Arts, Mercury One, began the Nazarene Fund to raise money for those families being persecuted in the Middle East. For a mere $25,000, a family of five can receive safe passage out of the oppressed area to the safe havens of Germany, Poland, England or Mexico since the U.S. will not accept them at this time. The goal is to raise $10 million for the protection of 400 families. In just one week’s time, the fund has already raised approximately $2.7 million with the average donation amounting to $100. There are very few big donors, if any, to the Nazarene Fund.

The march of between 20,000-30,000 people was the largest in Birmingham’s history since Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights protesters took to the streets in 1963; it was also conducted in peaceful opposition to the unmolested violence that seems to be growing in our society, at least from the reporting of the media.

Restoring Unity was the first event for a movement that will stand and oppose the forces that are subjecting the morality of the free world to a relativism that does not respect the history of our country and goes against the grain of the world’s foundation. Although, only time will tell at this point how these forces progress and if they can be arrested before becoming fully manifest in future generations of Americans.