He marched on Washington in the 60s. Today he brings faith into the fight on climate change
It’s a Sunday service at a neighborhood church in East Point. It’s not the church where Rev. Dr. Gerald Durley spent 25 years as a pastor. But it’s the church that’s close to home, a church where he’s always welcome, and a church that on this day will hear the message that fuels Durley’s new mission.
“Climate change,” he says to the churchgoers who fill the pews. “Global warming. Do you believe it’s real?”
A chorus of yesses echo through the chapel.
“We are suffering the most, yet we know the least about it because climate change is not a priority for us. Let’s go to the first Commandment: take care of my earth, and because we haven’t, we’re dying," recites Durley.
In 1963, a young Durley was among the hundreds of thousands who attended the March on Washington. Then he spent his adult life as pastor of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in southwest Atlanta. Now he speaks out on what he believes to be the civil rights movement of this era.
“At this stage of my life,” he told 11Alive’s Matt Pearl, “I thought I would join the rest of my friends in what they call retirement. But I call it re-wire-ment. I’m taking all the things I learned in the Civil Rights movement and the faith community and bringing them to bear in something that I think is so pressing today, the environment.”
In the past decade, Durley has become a leader in the faith community to provide awareness of climate change. He has written on the subject for numerous publications, including a 2013 piece for Huffington Post titled, “Why Climate Change is a Civil Rights Issue.” He has spoken at countless venues, including this past spring at the Climate Reality Workshop, an initiative run by former Vice President Al Gore that filled a Georgia World Congress Center auditorium with eager climate advocates.
What made Durley take so passionately to the cause? It began with a conversation with Ted Turner about polar bears.
“I mean, what did I know about a polar bear?” Durley recalls. “And what did I know about carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases? But when I saw how it negatively, disproportionately impacted African-Americans – those I was called to serve all my life – I said, ‘Someone has to articulate this.’”
It's a weekday afternoon in southwest Atlanta. And it’s hot. The sun scorches down on a suited Dr. Durley as he walks down Herring Road, which borders the church where he spent a quarter-century.
Every minute or so, a passerby waves and says hello. They all seem to know Durley.
These days, they also know about the urban garden that Durley’s here to speak about.
“The church bought this property,” he explains. “We put this garden together where we’re growing corn, tomatoes, sunflowers … foods that are good for the body. And people can take pride in them.”
Anyone in the community can stop in and get fresh vegetables. Several people from the church volunteer to work in the garden and tend to the vegetables.
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