A white, southern pastor takes a hard look at the sin of racism
“It’s not that Southerners don’t get racial issues. We just don’t get them right.”
Robert W. Lee. Photo © Jessi Lancaster.
Robert W. Lee, 26, is a minister ordained by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the author of the just published book A Sin by Any Other Name: Reckoning with Racism and the Heritage of the South. Lee, who has been a pastor in North Carolina, the great-great-great-great-nephew of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
How and when did you first become aware that you’re related to Robert E. Lee?
Because I bear the name Robert Lee, people made that connection pretty quickly. As a kid, I was rather proud of it. I didn’t understand the full weight of it. I was just proud to have a famous distant uncle. I had a connection to history that other people didn’t have.
