Alice Patterson, founder of Justice at the Gate, has been engaged in government via grassroots mobilization since 1984 when she saw government transformation on the local level in Odessa, Texas (Ector County), the State of Texas (which was totally liberal on the statewide level and in most of the 254 counties) and the federal level beginning through various campaigns and through the National Black Robe Regiment 2014-2016. She became engaged in racial healing in 1994 while strategizing about how to mobilize Hispanics on the grassroots level when she visited the Rio Grande Valley, the border between Texas and Mexico in 1991. Professor José Gonzalez of Regent University explained to her in 1994, that “an entire ethic group can be wounded and pass their pain from generation to generation.” Racial healing for her has been a process beginning with being crushed by the realization of the racist terror activities of the Ku Klux Klan, which her grandfather participated in while the family lived in Oklahoma prior to their moving to Texas in 1924.
She learned that the basis for all racism is anti-Semitism, which today is also anti-Zionism. The ideology of the Ku Klux Klan called British Israel was replacement theology, the belief that the white church replaces Israel and the covenant with the Children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has now been replaced by white Christians! While Alice always loved Israel and opposed replacement theology, she was not directly connected to Israel until 2016, when her pastor friends, Hank and Marilyn Marion, invited her to meet Dvora Ganani, the Ambassador to the Christian World for the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI).
Alice was invited by Dvora and other Israeli leaders in September 2016 to partner with them to connect them with Christians who love Israel. Yehuda Sharf, head of Absorption Centers for new immigrants in Israel, said to her, “Alice, We need you. Israel needs you.” Not once, but four times, Yehuda repeated the plea to Alice. Since that time, she convened two trips to Israel, a couple of gatherings in San Antonio and many one-on-one encounters with key leaders with networks to connect with JAFI and to partner with the Lord in His promise to bring the Children of Israel home to Israel.