Reconciliation
The Long Road to Healing
Healing came from the most unlikely place. Mel Hamilton's own son chose to join the very church at the center of it all. And slowly, the men who had been cast out chose to reach back. Today, the Black 14 partner with that church to deliver more than a million pounds of food to families in need. The protest became a promise.
Decades later, the story turned. Mel Hamilton's own son chose to join the LDS Church — the unlikely catalyst that began the healing. Mel, John Griffin, and Tony McGee led the Black 14 toward reconciliation with the very Church at the center of 1969, and built a food program that has now delivered more than a million pounds of food across the country.
The men who were dismissed could have let October 17, 1969 define them as victims. Instead they founded a philanthropy. They chose to educate, to feed, and to serve — and they reached across the oldest wound in their lives to do it.
What began as a protest against a Church became a partnership with it. What began as a wound became a way to heal others.
This is all about healing — and really, the Savior's grace.
On the Black 14 and the Church uniting to feed families