Who are we? Jitsuo Morikawa

What kind of Baptists are we?

Jitsuo Morikawa was born to Japanese immigrants to North America.  When he and Hazel were married in 1941, World War II was tearing lives apart. The young couple spent the first months of their marriage in a U.S. detention camp for Japanese where the newlyweds were separated from their neighbors by a hanging sheet.

Fortunately, thousands of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were not forgotten by everyone. An American Baptist pastor named Ralph Mayberry was crusading for their liberation. His courageous intervention brought Jitsuo into the American Baptist fold. He became pastor of a predominantly white ABC church in Chicago and soon was called to the staff of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.

As a staff member, Jitsuo helped organize the American Baptist participation in the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington. He was named director of evangelism for American Baptist Churches and thousands of his fellow Baptists will never forget the sound of his voice as he urged people to commit to a "transcendent God." For Jitsuo, a saving relationship with Jesus Christ involved both faith and a commitment to justice.

In retirement, Jitsuo was interim pastor of Riverside Church in New York and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The American Baptist Evangelism Award bears his name.

After months in a detention camp, he could have allowed bitterness and resentment to take over his life. But faith in Christ helped Jitsuo transcend all that.

When we think of the kind of Baptists we try to be, we think of him.