Churches across Alabama are known for their clever and sometimes humorous signs promoting the Sunday sermon –but not many people are laughing at the sign outside the New Era Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.
“They’re calling me a hate-monger,” Pastor Michael R. Jordan told Fox News. “Most whites down South don’t like it.”
The sign reads, “George Zimmerman jury supported white racism.” It was first reported by Birmingham news reporter Greg Garrison.
Jordan said he made the decision to post the controversial statement after preaching the Sunday night message, calling Zimmerman a ‘”racist” and his acquittal a “racist verdict.”
“I believe racism and bias and prejudice caused the jury to be sympathetic,” he told Fox News. “Race played a major, major role in their decision and in their thinking.”
He said the 100-member congregation was stunned by the verdict.
“George Zimmerman deputized himself as a law enforcement agent,” Jordan said. “I feel he was a racist. He was stereotyping. He stalked and killed Trayvon Martin.”
The black minister also placed blame on white pastors.
“There’s been a breakdown in the white clergy,” he said. “They refuse to preach against blatant racism in America.”
As a result, he believes the lives of black Americans have been devalued.
“We can send Michael Vick to prison for killing dogs, but we can’t send George Zimmerman to prison for murdering an African-American young man.”
Jordan said he’s gotten lots of complaints about the sign but he refuses to take it down.
“They tell me I’m spreading hate,” he said “But the sign is staying up.”