When you drive past University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, you see a series of doors. Not just the physical doors that allow entry into the church, but a display of brightly-colored doors on the front lawn, proclaiming that “GOD’S DOORS ARE OPEN TO ALL.”
There’s another door at the far end – a black door that proclaims “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in bold lettering. But since that door first made its appearance last year, it has been vandalized multiple times. But the church and its members remain committed to sharing the message that God’s doors – and their doors – will remain open.
Just like the other times the door has been vandalized, the door has been reinstalled in its place on the front lawn. Rev. Coleman had this to say: “The church says ‘No one is going to be pushed down and pressed down. We are the people who lift one another up.’ And so, we symbolize it in lifting up a thing like a door again, once it’s been knocked down, but we enact it by lifting one another up and by refusing to let racism press anybody down.”