Cross Bearers in the Current Climate: Let The Little Children Come
Image Credit: WPLN Nashville Public Radio
Introduction – Rev. Dr. Sondrea Tolbert, Executive Director, Scarritt Bennett Center.
Often, we are called to stand with those who are being undermined, maligned and deprived of their human rights. We are in such a time.
Let us follow the example of Simon of Cyrene, who bore the cross with Jesus as they made their way to up the hill to Golgotha. As the bill to deny public education to undocumented children makes its way up the hill this week to the Tennessee House Legislators, may we lean into this time as cross bearers and stand with children and families in jeopardy.
Let us stand against an Empire of this time and align for the rights of our children.
We are so pleased to share statements from Scarritt Bennett Center Board Member and Scarritt College alumnus James W. Polk and Rev. Kelli X, Director of Racial Justice Ministries for Scarritt Bennett around this critical legislation.
What you should know
Tennessee senators have passed legislation intended to present a challenge to the right of a public school education for many thousands of children in Tennessee. This right is currently assured by the 1982 Pylar vs Doe Supreme Court decision, 457 U.S. 202.
The bill will now go to the house for a vote as soon as Monday, April 14th, 2025.
The bill would deny public education to children who cannot document their citizenship/ legally authorized presence in the United States by means of a birth certificate. To compensate for this loss of a free public education, parents would be given the option of paying a $7,000 tuition for each of their children to be enrolled in public schools.
Statement from the Director of Racial Justice Ministries at Scarritt Bennett Center
As the Director of Racial Justice Ministries at Scarritt Bennett Center, I firmly oppose the recent decision by the Tennessee Senate to allow school boards to deny public education to undocumented children and to enable school districts to charge families for their children’s education. This legislation contradicts our moral and scriptural obligations to love, protect, and advocate for vulnerable children and families.
Jesus explicitly rebuked exclusionary attitudes toward children, stating, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14 KJV). Unfortunately, it seems that too many of our elected officials, who profess faith, are misinterpreting the term “suffer” in the King James Version. Instead of understanding it in the context of ‘allowing’ or ‘permitting’ children to attend school, they are using it to inflict pain on our undocumented neighbors.
Denying education to children based on their immigration status stands in direct contradiction to Jesus’ inclusive message and only serves to perpetuate injustice and marginalization. Every child deserves dignity, protection, and full access to education as beloved members of the kingdom of God.
A Testimony and Plea for Innocent Undocumented Children – James W. Polk
My name is Jim Polk. Yes, before anyone asks, I am related to that fellow Tennessean James K. buried out on the northeast slope of this hill. Yes, the fellow who slashed the line across a desert which became the United States’ southern border and greatly enlarged the country.
My Tennessee ancestors arrived near Reelfoot Lake in the early 1820’s while many more Chickasaws were present. These ancestors include James Harper, leader of the first wagon train to penetrate the then primeval wilderness, the owners of Troy’s general store from the 1830’s to the 1930’s, farmers, a sheriff, a member of this House of Representatives, schoolteachers and a principal, a newspaper editor/owner and secretary- treasurer of a short-line railroad company. Among all these folks who worked to create a strong, healthy community, I am thankful for a six-generation line of doctors who served their neighbors and countrymen through the Civil War, Spanish- American War, World Wars I and II and who continue their healing work today.
Today, me? I am a retired public school community educator who worked thirty years as happily as a chimney top mockingbird here in Metro Nashville. During those decades I was supported in visiting and studying community school programs nationwide- Honolulu to Boston, Minneapolis to San Antonio, Taos to Tampa.
Long before that, back in high school I made my first trip across the Mexican border and soon came to appreciate the generosity and resilience of the Mexican people. My first border crossing in1963 was as a 14-year-old Explorer Scout from Union City’s First Methodist Church. Our group traveled twenty-one days by Volkswagen bus, mostly camping on the roadside all the way to Guatemala City. Sleeping one night in a shelter for boys in Puebla I got a new appreciation of the burdens some boys my age were carrying. As a surgeon’s son in Union City, I had my own air-conditioned bedroom with closets for toys and clothes. I shared a bathroom with one sister. These boys came out of alleys at sundown to a crowded shelter for a cup of soup, a few tortillas, and a stone floor to sleep on.
Since the 1990’s, my family has had the benefit of extensive travel and study in Mexico and Guatemala. In Mexico we’ve traveled mostly by bus, a few times by air and even once long ago by passenger train going to places with names like Tzintzuntzan, Cholula, Oaxaca, Dolores Hidalgo and Queretaro. Both of our daughters experienced terribly harsh realities in Nogales, Sonora while living with Mexican families as part of the Border Links community there. In Guatemala, our older daughter served as a translator of monstrous horror stories for native mothers whose sons had been “disappeared”. Many were tortured to death and some buried under the floor of the Catholic church they were visiting. The floor was being excavated by forensic pathologists before the mothers’ and students’ eyes. Contrary to tortured men’s – and their mother’s- nightmare experiences, whenever our daughters were sick or injured in Mexico and Guatemala they were carefully nurtured back to health by generous homestay mothers in Nogales, Sonora and Quetzaltenango.
For five years I, our family and church friends spent a week or more each summer volunteering with the leaders of the Methodist Church of Mexico in Salamanca, Guanajuato. We did what we could to support their efforts to train youth to lead activities for children as well as build an alcohol and drug clinic. Again, we experienced amazing generosity while working with Mexican families and children who generally had far fewer resources than we did. We met dozens of beautiful, gentle, smart children who were struggling in perilous situations with very limited educational opportunity and little money. I wish there were time to tell those stories: a petite, smart little girl named Sarai in her blue polka dot dress who carried an injured dragonfly around all day protecting it, then died herself of peritonitis soon after we came home. A little boy with a cleft palate who came crying down a barren rocky trail out of the mountains and got on the bus with his grandmother, but who before getting off the bus ran back and reached out his tiny hand, blessing me before he left to walk up one more dusty, unmarked trail. What kind of future could there possibly be for him up in those rocks? In Tequisquiapan, two elderly sisters gave up the only bed in their house and sat up all night in straight back wooden chairs so my daughters had a place to sleep. Near Cholula a cute little girl took my wife and me into her care, soothing our fears just after we wrongly (but quite reasonably) thought we were being abducted by a taxi driver. The cutie smiled brightly, happily asked if we needed a guide, and led us into her church, with walls covered not with sculptures of saints but of children who lived in the village in the 1600’s.
Now, here in Tennessee in 2025, since children’s eligibility for public education is being challenged on the basis of cost, I must point to something that many Tennesseans still believe overrides other arguments: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.” Do you remember that from Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and church camp? I certainly do. Somehow I can’t see the Jesus who said “Let the little children come unto me” throwing children out of school who are literally begging to be allowed to attend.
“Let us learn!… Let us learn!!… LET US LEARN!!” echoes down the hallways of the Cordell Hull Legislative chambers. I hope it rings on and on in the ears, hearts and consciences of Senators and Representatives until they answer the children’s call.
Some of us talk about this being a Christian nation. I for one will be quite happy if we will follow that basic Christian principle which says “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Seems to me that we should do our best to apply this principle in our treatment of other people and their children. Surely this is a solid foundation for building better relations among all humanity regardless of where we came from or are trying to go. I suspect that not only Jesus thought that, but probably Buddha, Moses, Chief Seattle, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, and the founders of many other belief systems, lifeways and philosophies would agree.
Why are we here at these Legislative Committee meetings? Senator Watson’s stated reason is that of a concern about the rising costs of educating undocumented children. It appears there are legislators far more committed to saving money for essentially untaxed corporations than to those purposes for which our public school system was formed. What has happened to the nation’s founders vision for an increasingly inclusive democratic society built on the base on an informed, literate, thinking public? The idea that all are equal?
I don’t know about you but I’m here as a both as a grandparent and a citizen concerned with the future of our Tennessee communities. Can we step back, reframe, and consider this from a different angle? Too often, it seems that in addressing single concerns many other problems are intensified and complicated.
Things to Ponder Demographics. Where will the needed workers come from?
We’re experiencing aging of our population, worker shortages and loss of expertise. Statewide the 65+ age group was the fastest growing population group from 2010 to 2022, increasing by 42.3% while the 35 to 49 group declined most!
Which jobs do you see undocumented folks now doing?
HVAC and electrical________ elder and convalescent care_______ landscaping/lawn_________ cleaning______________ childcare _________________ poultry and slaughterhouse________ carpentry_________________ painting_______________ roofing____________________ driving (Uber/Lyft, etc.)____________ herding/ CAFO____________ plumbing_____________
Farming/gardening_________ highway and utility work____________ commercial construction__ other_________________
What will the likely impacts on the economy be if large numbers of workers leave, are deported, or their children are left uneducated, untrained and unable to do the work their parents have done?
How will Social Security and Medicare contributions made by undocumented workers be replaced? Though they pay these taxes, they are not eligible for the benefits of the funds their payments support.
$96.7 Billion in tax payments came from undocumented people into our state and federal governments in 2022. Tennessee taxes- as you of course know better than I- are mostly sales and property. Undocumented people in Tennessee pay these like everyone else, either directly or indirectly through their rent. $26 Billion was paid into Social Security by undocumented people in 2022 and $6 billion into Medicare.
If these bills become law, would Tennessee’s sales and property taxes being paid by undocumented people be used to challenge the Supreme Court’s Plyler vs. Doe ruling? Would you use taxes people pay at the grocery, the pump, with the rent to take away their innocent child’s right to a free public education? Really?