MADISON, WI (February 12, 2014) — A town hall meeting to be held at Fountain of Life Covenant Church on racial reconciliation will be webcast live on Covchurch.tv at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Pastor Alex Gee will host the gathering, which has been called “Justified Anger: State of Emergency” The meeting is part of a follow-up to a 3,000-word opinion piece titled “Justified Anger” that Gee wrote in the Cap Times on December 18.
The column sparked broad discussion and led to an active Facebook site of the same name. Gee has been featured several times on news programs, and community leaders also have responded in various ways, including through newspaper columns and promises to work together to find solutions.
In the column, Gee lamented the racism that he said is as widespread and insidious in his city as elsewhere, despite Madison’s long-held reputation of being “progressive.”
Though directed at Madison, the issue is “epidemic” in communities around the country and in churches, Gee says. Preaching at the Covenant’s Annual Meeting in Detroit last year, he told delegates that Christians must live out their call to pursue justice by addressing racism.
Gee has served as pastor of Fountain of Life, a multicultural and multi-class congregation, for nearly 30 years and as director of the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development for 21 years. The nonprofit “offers a path to transformation for Madison’s African-American youth, families and marginalized men,” Gee says.
