Welcome to the Bridge Town Church Podcast. For the month of February, we are honoring Black

History Month. Each week, members of our Church family will be sharing stories that acknowledge

and celebrate Black History from both their lived experiences and the world at large.

So for the last episode of this incredible podcast series during this Black History Month,

we will hear from one of the newest members of our community. And that's Jonathan

Tremay Thomas of Civil Righteousness, who has recently joined our team as Bridge Town

Church and Civil Righteousness have formed an official partnership and are able to hopefully

become mutual blessings to one another in the days to come from Portland, Oregon, over

to Ferguson, Missouri. So JT is a face you're going to get to know a lot better and see

a lot of around Bridge Town. But we wanted to start by giving an opportunity to get to know

him not in the position he's occupying as Justice and Mercy Fellow at our Church, but

as a brother and a follower of Jesus. How you doing, my brother?

I am doing great, so good to be here. So we're so excited to get to know your story. And

I'd love just to begin from the top. Tell us about where you grew up.

I grew up in a super small rural North Carolina town called Forest City, North Carolina.

It's about an hour west of Charlotte and an hour east of Asheville. So it's called

the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a beautiful area and also not a very diverse

area. So I had some interesting experiences growing up there.

Yeah, tell us about some of that. Tell us about your family history. How did you end up

in that region of the country and what was the light growing up there?

Yeah, so my dad grew up in Union, South Carolina and he really grew up in the community that

was the remnants from enslavement. So a large group of slaves, in fact, almost 90% of

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