Interracial community that withstood racial attacks remains a spiritual haven

<p>Despite bombs, bullets and Ku Klux Klan protests, the interracial community Koinonia Partners survived the racially tense 1950s and 60s by remaining true to its founders desire for nonviolence.</p><p>If they had gotten testy, if they had challenged the establishment, if they had gotten violent, they would have been wiped out by the KKK, said spokesman David Castle. Koinonia has been nonviolent from the beginning.</p><p>Now the rustic southwest Georgia farm, surrounded by peanut and cotton fields, is a haven for people seeking spiritual growth and more meaningful lives.</p><p>It was out of Koinonia that the worldwide housing ministry, Habitat for Humanity International, was born.</p><p>The farms other spinoffs include the Prison and Jail Project of Americus, which campaigns for equal justice and improved jail conditions, and Jubilee Partners, near Athens, which has helped more than 2,500 refugees. An outreach center at the farm also provides more than a dozen programs, including after-school tutoring, computer training, health fairs and activities for senior citizens.</p><p>We do our jobs and show compassion, said Nashua Chantal, who has lived on the farm for two years and often dons a red nose while taking on the persona of the Peace Clown.</p><p>On any given day, 30 to 40 people live at Koinonia, including staff members, volunteers and others who come for stays ranging from a couple of weeks to a year. They gather each morning for a devotional service at the chapel at the heart of the farm, and share noon meals in the dining hall. While most visitors live in Koinonias dorms, some of the staff and volunteers stay in two nearby villages of about 30 houses each.</p><p>I was on skid row. I was lost and had nowhere to go and they accepted me, said Jimmy Maddox, who has recorded two gospel CDs at Koinonia and fulfilled a lifelong dream of singing for others. He often entertains during Koinonias noon communal meals.</p><p>All of Koinonias residents work on the farms peanut fields and pecan orchards, which supply nuts for its mail-order business specializing in homemade candies and pies. When local customers boycotted the farm in the 1950s, its founder Clarence Jordan launched the business to Help us ship the nuts out of Georgia. It remains an important source of funding.</p><p>Jordan, a farmer, minister and Greek scholar, founded Koinonia in 1942 to show that blacks and whites could live and work together in the segregated South. It incensed some whites that both races dined together, used the same restrooms and got paid the same wages.</p><p>But Jordan remained firm in his convictions, even after opponents fired bullets into homes, blew up the farms vegetable stand and forced Koinonia to go to court to get three white children admitted to the all-white high school in nearby Americus. Koinonias white children were considered tainted because of their association with blacks.</p><p>At the height of the turmoil, a local grand jury labeled Koinonia a communist group and they were also banned by at least two churches.</p><p>Jordans daughter, Jan Jordan Zehr, said the adults remained outwardly calm through it all and said nothing to frighten the children.</p><p>When they started shooting into houses, the adults stacked cordwood around the back of the house closest to the road, she said. Mom said, Im going to rearrange the living room. So all the books got moved to the outside wall, instead of the inside wall. They very calmly told us that if we heard shooting, we should drop to the floor.</p><p>Zehr, who runs a Highland, N.C., inn, said the children were somewhat isolated from the hate until they entered high school in nearby Americus.</p><p>Koinonia had to file a federal court lawsuit to get three children, including Zehr, admitted. They missed nine weeks of school while the case was resolved and then they were shunned by most classmates.</p><p>If we sat down at a table, they would get up and leave, she said. We virtually couldnt speak to anyone. If we were spoken to, it was to be cursed at.</p><p>Zehr said she still gets tense when she recalls that time.</p><p>Im a very outgoing person, she said. It was a subversion of the personality that was the most difficult.</p><p>The farms mission attracted millionaire-businessman Millard Fuller and his wife, Linda, who gave up their wealth and moved to Koinonia in the late 1960s. With Jordans help, they came up with the concept of Habitat for Humanity, which since its founding in 1976 has built more-than 150,000 homes for poor people in 92 nations.</p><p>Jordan, who died in 1969, is buried in an unmarked grave on the farm along with his wife, Florence, and a daughter.</p><p>The Fullers daughter, 36-year-old Faith, who lived at Koinonia between the ages of 1 and 6, has produced an hour-long documentary about the farm called Briars in the Cotton Patch: The Story of Koinonia Farm.</p><p>Im hoping I can share this story with other people like me who had no idea what went on, she said. Its a powerful story of a small group of people trying to live peacefully, living in a way that wasnt acceptable during their era.</p><p>---</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x28636e0)</p><p>HASH(0x2863788)</p>

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