Our spiritual DNA

:: McWilliams and Saahir at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Indianapolis

When an African-American imam is invited to give the sermon at a mostly white church in Indianapolis, he and a woman in the congregation make an extraordinary,
life-altering discovery of their shared heritage

By Anne McWilliams and Mikal Saahir

It was the first Sunday of lent last year in March when Pastor Richard Clough introduced Imam Michael “Mikal” Saahir at the First Congregational United Church morning service.

“Little did I expect that this visit would alter my life immeasurably,” says Saahir, the imam of Nur-Allah Islamic Center in Indianapolis, and a follower of the late Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. “Seldom do I give sermons in any church, especially an all-white church. But Reverend Clough is a unique soul who accepts no boundaries in his outreach to people of goodwill.”

Since September 11, the pastor and the imam have worked closely together to extend interfaith dialogue and foster an understanding of Islam. Twice Saahir had delivered the sermon at First Congregational, but this time would be irrevocably different.

“No longer do I recall the text I delivered that day,” he says. “I guess the other events that unfolded that bright Sunday morning still overwhelm me.”

The main theme that day was “Our Spiritual DNA,” and two church members performed a skit from a handheld script showing the relationship between the three major Abrahamic faiths, culminating with Abraham as the father of all. Imam Saahir, with humor-streaked, gentle, self-effacing authority, then spoke briefly of his journey to universal Islam as a young man formerly influenced by the Nation of Islam.

Saahir and his wife Carolyn noted that the program reminded them of the Focolare’s message of oneness under the plan of God, “that we must love one another,” he says, “And plenty of love was manifested before I left church that day.”

Seminary professor Anne McWilliams was in the congregation that morning, although she almost did not attend, having just returned that early morning from a long trip. During the coffee break between services she met Saahir for the first time.
He turned to shake her hand and read her name tag.

“In the murmurs of conversation swirling around us,” she remembers, “I thought I heard him say something about knowing another McWilliams.”
She asked him again.

“I have a relative named Anne McWilliams,” he repeated.

“Here in Indianapolis?”

“No, not here. In Alabama. She passed away some years ago.”

“Alabama?” Her interest grew. “I’m from Alabama.”

“What part of Alabama are you from?”

“Athens. It’s about a hundred miles …” As Anne began to describe the town in Limestone County, population 18,000, she realized there was no need.

“I know exactly where Athens is. My mother is from Athens,” said Saahir. “Actually, Elkmont was her home.”

“Elkmont?” responded McWilliams, surprised. “My father was born in Elkmont.”

Thus emerged the story of two families that shared geography, last name, the tragic history of American slavery and the joy of liberation. George McWilliams, Saahir’s great-grandfather, was freed from slavery at the age of nine by his owner, James LaFayette “Jim Fate” McWilliams — Anne McWilliams’ great-grandfather.

Saahir and McWilliams began to draw an audience as they revealed their family trees in parallel generations. Just four generations have passed since President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1862, which took effect in North Alabama in 1863. Jim Fate McWilliams must have been a very young man at the time, and George McWilliams, his slave, was just a child.

The stunning revelation of their shared origins provoked a physiological
reaction in both McWilliams and Saahir.

“As I sat in my pew in the second service, I found that I was shaking, palms sweating, heart racing,” McWilliams says. “My brain was spinning to connect the generations of names that reached back to that Civil War era. In some ways, that was so long ago, yet, to know the names and remember the people of those generations, it seems like so little time has passed.”

A litany of thoughts rushed through Anne’s mind and soul. “This knowledge was new to me. For one thing, my father was estranged from his McWilliams family since childhood, so I never connected with them. I always felt a deep and hidden sense of shame in that history, but never pursued it.”

She had never heard that her family had owned slaves. “My family was one of those white Southern families with a lost aristocratic status, obsessed by the past and lost wealth at the hands of Northern oppressors.

On that Sunday, one of those lost pieces of history fell into place for me. I began to understand: we were slave owners. That’s a reality that takes my inherent white privilege and places it directly front and center, a tragic fact to be dealt with.”

Working on his family tree in 1984, Saahir realized that work is still needed in our society as we strive for further liberation and unity. “My Uncle James Louis “J.L.” Brown, my mother’s oldest brother, was a life-long resident of Elkmont. He was well known and highly respected. Luckily for me, although compensated, Uncle J.L. still tended to the lawn care for Mrs. Mary McWilliams Gilbert, Anne’s great-aunt. It was through my Uncle J.L. that Mrs. Mary Gilbert finally permitted me to visit her.

“As I was heading out the door with my notepad and tape recorder,” says Saahir, “my cousin, Vivian McWilliams-Collier, reminded me: ‘Be sure to go in through the back door. They won’t let you in the front.’

“I stood frozen in my steps thinking, ‘What? You’ve got to be kidding me!’ For two years I had sought an audience with the daughter of the man who formerly owned my great-grandfather; the lady who had given my mother the name Gloria. Knowing that this might be my only chance, I knew I had to go.

“It was just after sunset. Reluctantly I walked through the back door of Mrs. Gilbert’s house. It was like walking into a time warp, as if I was reliving an era that my fore parents endured — an era that should have died with the passing of the civil rights laws.”

Now, meeting McWilliams was bringing slight tremors to his back. “Standing in this mostly white, gracious church, I was connecting with Anne McWilliams. Yes, it was our ‘spiritual DNA,’ yet deeper. My family tree was sprouting a new branch that was bearing leaves and fruit of unexpected love — odd, and a bit scary.”

Four hundred miles and four generations removed from a slave-master relationship, two completely separate lives came spiraling together in Indianapolis. Before Saahir delivered the main sermon, Rev. Clough called both him and McWilliams before the congregation. Repeating the Spiritual DNA theme, the pastor then announced that the two were cousins — leaving the African-American Muslim man and Caucasian Protestant woman to explain how.

At this point, some members of the Nur-Allah Mosque had arrived. “They joined the church members in stunned silence and awe as we retold our encounter,”
says Saahir.

“I never expected to meet in person, in Indianapolis, a member of this extended household, rooted in that grievous institution,” McWilliams says. “But when the story began to unfold, I felt a simultaneous and overwhelming feeling of joy and fascination as history opened up a gift into my hands. I also felt a kind of guilt. It’s difficult to explain, but I feel deeply grateful.

“I believe this story is just beginning, and will bear much fruit. Both Mikal and I want to be agents of change in the world, to bring unity and healing in our society. I give thanks to Father Abraham, to my church and to Mikal for his being such an openhearted minister of his faith and such a generous friend. We truly are cousins,
united by spiritual DNA.”