Racism In U.S. Church History (2 Responses)

Response 1

By Rev. Carolyn H. Eklund

Probably the best, most recent example of racism from our country’s history and our diocesan history was the awareness of the unrecorded deaths of slaves who were buried in the graveyard of St. Peter’s parish in Perth Amboy.  One evening in August, the bishop and members of various parishes packed the St. Peter’s nave in recognition of this fact.  We were mindful of the Diocesan warrant to repent of the sin of racism and ask God to reconcile us to each other.  It was a moving service that concluded with a reading of the few names of slaves that had been recorded in the church registry.  We all walked outside to the churchyard where the bishop dedicated a stone that acknowledged the unnamed souls.

As I read Joseph Barndt’s chapter on the history of racism in the United States and in the church I learned how slavery came to be in the United States centuries ago and how many millions of slaves died over those 400 plus years:  As white Europeans came to the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, South America, Central America and North America, the biblical “mandates,” “be fruitful and multiply” and “have dominion over the earth” were used to justify taking land from native people, imposing European Christianity on them and subjugating people into slavery in order to realize a prosperous destiny that included only white people.

I grew up in a racially integrated town, Kansas City, Kansas.  I went to racially integrated public schools.  And yet, I am aware that I am a part of that historical and existing “prosperous destiny” still primarily reserved for white people of this country.

Ten years ago I was called to a racially mixed parish which is my life’s love.  For years now, I have been alert to my “white privilege” and have loved engaging honestly and deeply with my friends from African descent.  Serving on Grace, Plainfield’s annual Black History Month committee has been foundational to my personal journey as I help to bring our church to racial unity and wholeness.

Response 2

Barbara Okamoto Bach

I visited St John’s Church (Montclair) to hear an invited sermon by an attorney who represents slave descendents’ reparations cases.  The forum topic after the liturgy was financial reparations for lasting effects of slavery, but the discussion turned on racism.  Chapter 3 of Barndt’s book makes the same connection -- from slavery and Indian genocide to racism.  He asks us to examine our church’s history.

2006 GC resolution A123 acknowledged that slavery is a sin and the Episcopal Church participated in this sin.  The resolution apologized for the Church’s complicity in supporting slavery, segregation and discrimination and urged each diocese to research its slavery history.  The Dioceses of Newark and New Jersey (one diocese before 1874) research found:

·        U.S. 1790 census counted 11,423 slaves in New Jersey; 1850 census counted 18 slaves (16 older than 60 years), a significant reduction possibly due to 1786 (Constitutional) and 1808 (NJ) bans on further importation of slaves.

·        Archeological evidence at landed estates show enslavement similar to southern plantations.  A Shrewsbury plantation recorded “60 to 70 negroes” in 1684. 

·        13 % of the 161 active NJ congregations in 1765 were Anglican.  Most churches in the Dioceses of Newark and New Jersey were founded after 1865 (13^th amendment).  Quakers organized and spoke out against slavery; Anglicans largely followed societal pressures, proslavery or silent.

·        Episcopal Bishop Henry Codman Potter (NY) in 1894 described the Christian church as a place where religion “taught all men were brothers, and practiced the opposite.”

·        From 1919 to 1939 at St Peter’s Church (Perth Amboy) Father Nelson provided separate services in the afternoon because black Episcopalians were not allowed to worship in the morning.  Toward repentance and redemption, the Diocese of NJ consecrated slave graves in St Peter’s churchyard (August 10, 2011).

I recently led a seminar for a Social Justice group, addressing the damaging legacy of enslaving black Americans.  A board member who hadn’t known that Thomas Jefferson kept 275 slaves asked,  “Why don’t we learn this in school?”  Twelve U.S. presidents (7 Episcopalians) owned slaves.  Slave owners Jefferson and Washington didn’t mean all men are created equal.  Read the collects for Independence Day (BCP pp. 242 and 258)!

God created all men equal.   It’s time to get it right.  My brown-skinned Latina daughter pledges allegiance with a plaintive question mark:  “. . . one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all?”