By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI
Just before midnight on September 9, Thomas and Sylvia McFall were drifting off to sleep in their Missouri City home. They both had to get up early the next morning for their daily commute. Sylvia would head to her fifth-grade class in the Kansas City, Missouri, School District. Thomas works for an area corporation.
Then they heard a car stall near their driveway. A man started cursing loudly. Someone began banging on their front door.
“Nigger lover!” the man shouted. “I’m going to kill the nigger lover, your wife, your children and your girl.”
After living quietly in the small town for years, the McFalls never expected to be barraged with death threats in the middle of the night. They never expected the reaction they got from a 72-year-old cyclist in Liberty, either.
Sylvia McFall, a graduate of Park University, was born in Ghana. In 2001, she and her husband moved to Missouri City. Located 10 miles east of Liberty in the shadow of a bluff that dives down into a sea of farm fields, it was a place the McFalls settled to raise their 4-year-old son and 6-month-old daughter.
The night of September 9, though, they called 911, afraid for their safety. By morning, 52-year-old Michael W. Perry, also a Missouri City resident, had been charged with third-degree assault for allegedly shouting racial epithets and threatening the lives of the McFall family.
Thomas says the couple refused to let that night shake them. Like any other Wednesday, they both went to work. “We did not let that behavior get us down,” he says.
A rally this weekend, though, aimed to raise their spirits.
Every Saturday morning, Ed Chasteen, a Liberty resident and avid cyclist, leads a group ride that ships out of Biscari Brothers Bicycles. This past weekend, the Saturday ride had special significance. It’s been more than 20 years since Chasteen, then a professor at William Jewell College, started Hatebusters. The mission of the group, Chasteen says, is to “bring folks of different races and religions together, to help us all become World Class Persons, able to go anyplace at anytime and talk to anyone about anything and feel safe.”
On Saturday, that place was Missouri City. And many of the attendees were sporting spandex.
Ghostbusters theme.
Fighting back tears as he spoke to the group, Thomas McFall told the group: “We don’t hate the guy. He needs more help than we can imagine. This is a great opportunity to step up to the plate and show people that hate is a waste of time.”
But Sylvia said seeing people drive – and pedal – to Missouri City to show their solidarity on a sunny Saturday afternoon meant a lot. “Your support speaks volumes,” she said.
The family didn’t leave empty-handed, either. Chasteen put out a call to his contacts around the country, asking supporters nationwide to send the McFalls “Love Letters.” Dozens responded with notes that have been pouring in over the past two weeks.
As the group filed out of the small school room, they hugged and shook hands with the couple. Aside from the fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies, the attendees took home a reminder that they may be called to ride again.
“We don’t have dues. We don’t have meetings,” Chasteen said of Hatebusters. “But we do have a lot of work to do.”
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THANK YOU Dr. Chasteen for all your good works. I appreciate YOU and Hatebusters for always being there, for organizing these types of efforts, for doing the RIGHT thing in the face of such ugliness.
Ed Chasteen and his Hatebusters are an important part of what makes this Northland community a great place to live in peace, serving one another.
Let us all strive, with Ed, to rid this world of Hate and accomplish the mission of Hatebusters to �bring folks of different races and religions together, to help us all become World Class Persons, able to go anyplace at anytime and talk to anyone about anything and feel safe.�
I had the opportunity to have had Dr. Chasteen as my professor in Sociology at William Jewell and his interest in Hatebusters over the past 20 years is outstandung. The group stands up against hate in our communities all over this area and country. When will we grow up as a nation of diverse individuals and rise above this nonsense. Unfortionately our talk is bigger than our actions.
I would hope as members of the human race that we give up our animal instincts and start living in a humane society of people who look forward to the gifts God has given us all and learn, value, and appreciate our difference. Realizing that the sum of the whole is greater than the parts. Ifd things are going to change then first let it begin with me, you, and all of us looking at and through ourselves. Asking if I am a part of the problem or I am the solution.
Ed Chasteen:
Asking nothing, he is an example to all of how life should be lived � for others.
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