Not too long ago, the get-together in South Central Los Angeles would have been as difficult to imagine as a summit between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Last week 125 members of the First A.M.E. Church, the oldest and most influential black congregation in the city, traveled to a nearby mosque to worship with so-called black Muslims from the notorious Nation of Islam. The following night the Muslims reciprocated by attending a service at the church.
The purpose was not to argue about "dogma and doctrine," said A.M.E. pastor Cecil Murray, but to "ask what we can do jointly...