Ruth Floyd Rush, Debra Ortiz-Vasquez, and Del Deets Wesley have battled the beast from inside and out. All are evangelical Christians as well, and they have come together to stump for racial reconciliation by sensitizing white churchgoers to the pains of bigotry. Not that current Christian leaders aren't on the case already. Voices from the pope to the pastor on the corner have inveighed against racism. Denominations and umbrella groups have issued vision statements.
Individual churches hold interracial retreats, camps and crusades.
But progress is fitful, goals sometimes fuzzy. Activists like Ortiz-Vasquez, Rush and Wesley worry that hearts have not really been converted and think the issue must be revisited again and again. Their goal is not to throw everyone into a cultural blender, the three say. There's not much there that challenges them, especially in churches. They're never really forced outside their culture.