NEW JERSEY, USA- When I was younger, Joe Bednarsky Jr. served as the leader of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a secret racist organization that was born in the late 19th century in the United States and had attacked its immigrants with violence among them Catholics, Jews and blacks.
Today, at 49, his life is completely different from the past. Bednarsky is head of security at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Millville, New Jersey, where she is known to members as “Chaplain Joe.”
“I was sent here by God to protect Pastor Wilkins. “I would take a bullet for him,” Bednarsky said next to the Rev. Charles Wilkins, 63, who became a close friend of his.
Bednarsky grew up in Millville assaulting black youth and was drawn to the philosophy of the KKK. “They tried to sell the Klan as a patriotic thing, as people who took pride in their race and did things for the white community,” he told the Philly site.
His feeling of hatred surfaced later, when he officially joined the group at the age of 18. “I was incapable of loving others because he didn’t love me,” she assesses. «Many people today are unhappy with themselves and do not love themselves. I had that rage in me. I told people ‘I’m going to shoot you, your children, your wife’ and I didn’t think about it.
In defense of white supremacy in the US, the KKK promoted acts of violence mainly against blacks. Its militants donned white hoods and ghostly robes to hide their identity and scare the victims. A flaming cross became the symbol of the organization, which grew to 4 million members, according to the Mundo Extraño website.
Bednarsky’s first experience with God was in 2005, but he did not hold to the ways of faith and returned to the Klan, becoming one of its most senior members. “You go into this power trip and that hate inside of you just grows,” he comments.
When Bednarsky split with the group in 2007, he burned his KKK materials and sold his robe and hood through an auctioneer. “I gave the money to a church,” he said.
He reveals that he was harassed by other white supremacist groups and even received threats, both against him and the church, after speaking publicly about his conversion. But he says that he is not afraid.
Sorry
Pastor Wilkins considers Bednarsky a living testimony of all that he has been teaching church members. “There are people in my church who don’t trust him. There are white people in the community who don’t trust him. There is mistrust on both sides », he comments.
“There are ministers in the community who preach the Gospel of forgiveness, but they have not been able to overcome their past,” Wilkins laments. Joe’s heart is real. He comes to my house. He eats at my table.”
Bednarsky apologized to many people he hurt, even though he knows he doesn’t have everyone’s trust. “I know in here that God forgave me, but I always apologize,” he said. “However, people want to see a change. They want to see behavior change, and I live the same way at home, seven days a week, as I do at church. I am not a saint on Sunday and not on Monday«.
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