Faith leaders condemn Lt. Gov. Beckwith for Three-Fifths Compromise comment

By: Taj Simmons

INDIANAPOLIS — The Three-Fifths Compromise counted Black people as three-fifths of a human being during slavery. Indiana lieutenant governor Micah Beckwith described the law as a "great move" in a video this week and outraged Hoosiers now want him to apologize.

Concerned Clergy Indianapolis called a press conference Friday morning featuring leaders of different faiths and races. They said Beckwith's words were "dehumanizing rhetoric" towards Black Hoosiers.

"Micah Beckwith, with ten toes down standing on truth, you have disrespected us," said Dr. Stephen Clay of Messiah Missionary Baptist Church.

"This was insulting to all people across the board, especially for Black people who fought the pain of those who went through slavery," added Concerned Clergy Indianapolis president Rev. David Greene.

A reminder of that pain, a historical marker for the 1845 lynching of John Tucker, is a block away from the Indiana Statehouse.

"They tell Black people that we don't have humanity and we run around attempting to prove that we're human," said Dr. Lasana Kazembe, an associate education professor at Indiana University. "They tell us that we don't have history and then we run around trying to prove we have history."

Two white faith leaders, Rabbi Aaron Spiegel of the Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance and Rev. Lisa Schubert Nowling of Bloomington First United Methodist Church, said white Hoosiers need to also condemn Beckwith's support of the Three-Fifths Compromise.

"Call them out for what they are," Spiegel said. "They're racist tirades meant to desensitize us into accepting this behavior as normal."

"Until the 80 percent of white folk in our state rise up and denounce what's happening and demand a change in our leadership, nothing is going to change," Schubert Nowling said.

Gov. Mike Braun addressed Beckwith's comments in a press conference on Wednesday.

"I definitely would not have used that characterization and I don't like it," Braun told the media. "I'm a believer that you better start thinking about what you're saying before it comes out."

Beckwith himself has not spoken to the media since his support of the Three-Fifths Compromise went viral. An e-mail WRTV sent to the Governor's communications office was not returned.