Racism and reconciliation define Church of the Incarnation, the third oldest church (1882) in the Diocese of Atlanta. As white flight transformed southwest Atlanta, the church became mostly Black. Now one of its priests is demonstrating racial reconciliation through his own family story on CNN.
“This church has a clear history in racial work, racial healing, racial integration, and we need to tell our story especially at a time when we are so divided,” priest-in-charge Lynne Washington said. “Then here comes [priest associate, The Rev. Spenser] Simrill, telling me about the Simrill family. And I thought to myself, ‘There’s no such thing as coincidence.’”
CNN is scheduled to tell the Simrills’ story on Sunday Sept. 21 at 10 pm on a one-hour special. “The Simril(l)s: A Family in Black and White” is the topic of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper, a five-time Emmy Award-winning CNN Original program.
“A powerful portrait of a multi-racial Southern family that confronts and explores its painful shared history and comes together in spite of it,” is how CNN promotes the documentary. “United, they consider how they can serve as a blueprint for racial healing.”
Juneteenth 2025
CNN originally planned to air the show around Juneteenth, the national celebration of African American freedom, culture, and resilience. In a Sunday service on June 22, Church of the Incarnation featured Washington and Simrill in conversation about racial reconciliation.
Washington’s roots are African, Irish, English, and Native American. In the June 22 service, she recounted oral histories such as her enslaved ancestors worshiping in a blend of African tribal and Christian traditions. The family amassed land in Georgia, and when the Ku Klux Klan threatened to take it, Washington’s ancestor shipped his sons to Canada — in caskets.
“This is where I come from,” she said in conclusion. “These are my people.”
Simrill told his story next, recounting that his “upbringing in York, SC was profoundly shaped by four factors that were closely knit together: 1, a Christian faith based on kindness and hospitality given to me by my parents, grandmother, and two aunts; 2, direct proximity with people of color and the exposure of an unjust system, and 3, the lifelong influence of my brother Frank’s disabilities, which led me to see through the lens of the vulnerable and to play my part in making things better.
“The fourth was living at Koinonia Farm, an interracial creation community and birthplace of Habitat for Humanity, which led son Spenser (born there) my wife and I deeper on the journey of racial unity and reconciliation which resulted in serving at St. Luke’s Atlanta and other communities committed to inclusion and justice,” he said. “The experience at Koinonia transformed our lives, including our younger children Helen and Stephen.”
After the service, Incarnation got a sneak peek of the CNN documentary and heard from two main characters.
Spenser Simrill Jr. (who is white) and Michael Simril (who is Black) are cousins born the same year. “White Simrills did not want anyone to know they were related to the Black Simrils, so they added an ‘L,’” Ruth Simril Fisher says in the CNN documentary.
They first discovered their shared roots through Simrill Jr.’s genealogy research and a 2014 letter he sent to everyone in South Carolina with various spellings of the name.
As the cousins organized reunions, they also built trust. They took on a significant public project: erecting a historical plaque that honors Harriet Simril, who during Reconstruction testified about a sexual assault by Klan members. The trial became source material for “The Birth of a Nation,” a highly popular silent film that spread white supremacy myths.
The plaque, in York, S.C., also honors The Rev. Elias Hill and other Black family members who immigrated to Liberia. Among nearly 2000 historical signs in South Carolina, this is the first mentioning the Klan.
“We think this is a ‘Roots’ for the 21st Century, because this story could not have been told 10 years ago,” Simrill Jr. said. “Had Harriet’s testimony not been digitized, you would have never found her.”
“We think without truth, there’s no reconciliation,” he added. “And if you have the courage to face this, to reckon with it, it can become a healing moment.”
Preserving Incarnation’s History
Incarnation is working with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History to preserve its stories especially regarding civil rights.
One famous parishioner was Charles Person, a Morehouse College student and the youngest Freedom Rider (1942-2025). Incarnation priest Albert “Kim” Dreisbach Jr. (1934-2006) led protests after Lovett School refused to admit the children of Martin Luther King Jr.
Incarnation is, according to Washington, is the only Episcopal Church in the diocese that has an African American banned books library. Dr. Catherine Meeks, the founding executive director of the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing, attends Incarnation and came to the Juneteenth service. The church has 105 members from 10 countries; Washington has led them since 2015, with Simrill joining in 2024.
On Oct. 25-26, Incarnation will host its 2025 Homecoming with featured speaker Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, a Freedom Rider, and a screening of the movie of her life, “An Ordinary Hero.” Panelists include ACLU of Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young and Cheryl Lowery, president of the Joseph and Evelyn Lowery Institute for Justice and Human Rights.
“It’s important for African Americans and white people to understand that we play an active role in healing,” Washington said. “Look at any city where there’s an Episcopal community, meaning a diocese or a judicatory. What you will find are several white Episcopal churches, and there’s always the token one or two black Episcopal churches. How did that come about?”
Racial reconciliation is one incarnation of God’s word, too. Incarnation means the act of being made flesh or taking on a physical form, especially a human one. In a Christian context, it refers to Jesus Christ taking on human flesh to become fully God and fully human.
Incarnation “is inclusive, painfully inclusive,” Washington said. “The bottom line is that we understand God came into the world to walk hand in hand with us. And we understand that the suffering of God, even the suffering of marginalized people, is real because God came into the world to witness it and tell us not to give up. That’s not the end.”
Simrill acknowledged his son’s long commitment to telling the full family story, telling him,
“This love-infused journey of trust happened because of your alignment with the Holy Spirit using your gifts of creative and inviting leadership, your non-anxious presence that ‘receives people where they are,’ giving them acceptance, validation, seeing them (an extraordinary present), and your contagious faith, evoking joy to emerge in them, and staying the course with persistent work, patience, and yes, curiosity, which is huge. You are in the best sense a teacher, one who leads others to enjoy and see beauty, ideas, & possibilities right in front of them. You have brought together diverse and wonderfully made families. Thank you, my dearly beloved, kind and compassionate, and beautiful son.”
Michael Simril says the reconciliation of the Simril/l family “is the blueprint” for other families of mixed race. Spenser Simrill said churches can use this story to “talk about how the issues in the dynamics of race show up in our parish. Let go of these stories we tell ourselves about people who are different, and make us free.”
Simrill Jr.’s Story
Simrill served as rector of St. Luke’s from 1992-2002, and his son experienced “cultural openness” there that ultimately led to the CNN documentary.
“I’ve long admired the Episcopal Church’s honest reckoning with its past,” said Spenser Simrill Jr., who teaches at Christ School, an Episcopal boys’ school near Asheville. “There’s a quiet humility among Episcopalians—a recognition that the Church, like all human institutions, has fallen short of the glory of God. But out of that humility comes a widening of the moral circle, a desire to welcome those who have been historically excluded into God’s kingdom. That instinct—truth-telling, reconciliation, and repair—has guided Simril(l) United.”
He and Michael Simril hope to bring to other churches, groups, and families a sense of freedom that marked the Juneteenth service at the Church of the Incarnation. “The church’s use of Pan-African colors helped root the celebration in the Black experience,” Simrill Jr. said. “But Juneteenth isn’t just a Black holiday—it’s a liberation moment for all Americans. That feeling was palpable—during our evening prayer, documentary screening, and shared meal and fellowship.”
Joining voices for freedom was part of the service’s invitation to worship as well:
“We do not know how it felt when the word of freedom came—what release was felt in the bodies of those who made us, what disbelief, what joy, what sorrow. But would you allow some echo of it to resound in our bodies today? We gather not just to honor freedom rung, but in protection and continuation of it. Let it resound clearly as we join voices on this day: We pray peace and deep rest for our ancestors. Those who labored without agency over their bodies for generations, and those who chose the sea.”