February 19, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Black History Month:  Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was born a slave in either 1817 or 1818 on a plantation in Talbot County, Maryland.  Having an unspecified birthdate, he chose February 14 as his birthday because his mother called him her “Little Valentine.”

At the age of six he was separated from his family, eventually being sent to serve a white family in Baltimore.  The Mistress of the house began teaching him to read, but then, influenced by her husband, stopped the lessons and hid all reading materials.  Frederick realized that knowledge was the pathway to freedom and taught himself to read and write in secret.  He was eventually given to another owner who had a reputation for cruelty, and he whipped Frederick often.  On September 3, 1838, he escaped to freedom dressed as a sailor and carrying the identification and protection papers of a free black sailor, arriving in Philadelphia with a final destination of New York City the next day.

He was religiously active and spoke out often against the church’s complicity in slavery and their hypocrisy.  Douglass accused slaveholders of wickedness, a lack of morality, and a failure to follow the Golden Rule.  He made distinctions between the “Christianity of Christ” and the “Christianity of America,” considering religious slaveholders and clergy who defended slavery as the most brutal, sinful, and cynical of all.

In What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? he sharply criticized the attitude of religious people who kept silent about slavery due to political expediency or not wanting to offend anyone, and he charged that ministers committed a blasphemy when they taught it as sanctioned by religion.  He considered that a law passed to support slavery was "one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty" and said that pro-slavery clergymen within the American Church "stripped the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form", and "an abomination in the sight of God."

Frederick Douglass became a great orator and writer, and he reminds us that the Church cannot sit idly by in silence when any of God’s children are mistreated, abused, and/or neglected.

Open our eyes, O Lord, to the injustices committed on our behalf.  Awaken us to the unpleasant truths that a whitewashed history tries to cover up.  Free us from the bonds of prejudice and fear.  Allow us to see the value and contributions of those who are different.  And give us the strength and courage to work for justice, freedom, and peace in the face of opposition, while respecting the dignity of every human being.  Amen.

February 12, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Black History Month:  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was the son and grandson of Baptist preachers, and became the pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, AL, in 1954.  He became the face of the equality movement following the arrest of Rosa Parks when he led the Montgomery bus boycott.

Like Saint Paul, King faced a variety of obstacles and persecutions:  his home was dynamited, he was stabbed, harassed by death threats, and jailed over 30 times.  And on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN.

While in jail in Birmingham for participating in a non-violent equality march, he wrote a response to the public concerns of eight white clergymen.  In that letter he made the following statements:

            Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

            Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

            You deplore the demonstrations . . . but do not express concern for the conditions that                                    brought the demonstrations into being.

            Privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

            Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the                                           oppressed.

            We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal.”

            It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.

            Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love?

            Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the

                        cause of justice?

The whole letter can be found here, and I would encourage you to read it in its entirety, as we are facing the same issues of division, hatred, oppression, and injustices today that Martin Luther King, Jr., faced then.

We must answer today the questions he asked of the white pastors of Birmingham in 1963: 

Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love?  Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?

His Feast Day on the Church Calendar is April 4 (alternate day, January 15).

Open our eyes, O Lord, to the injustices committed on our behalf.  Awaken us to the unpleasant truths that a whitewashed history tries to cover up.  Free us from the bonds of prejudice and fear.  Allow us to see the value and contributions of those who are different.  And give us the strength to work for justice, freedom, and peace, while respecting the dignity of every human being.  Amen.

February 5, 2025

Wednesday Word . . . Black History Month:  Absalom Jones

Absalom Jones was born a house slave in 1746 in Delaware.  As a child he taught himself to read using the New Testament and other books.  When he was sixteen he was sold to a store owner in Philadelphia where he attended a night school for Blacks operated by the Quakers.  He married another slave when he was twenty and purchased her freedom with his earnings.  He was eventually able to purchase his own freedom in 1784.

He attended St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church where he served as a lay minister for its Black membership.  He was an active evangelist and helped to increase Black membership at the church.  This increase, however, scared the parish vestry, and they moved to segregate their Black members into the upstairs gallery.  When the ushers tried to remove them, they all walked out, never to return.

In 1787, Black Christians organized the first-ever Free African Society, with Absalom Jones and his friend Richard Allen elected as overseers.  The Society connected with similar groups in other cities, collected dues to benefit those in need, and built St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, which was dedicated on July 17, 1794.

Parishioners of St. Thomas applied for membership in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania with the following conditions: 1) they be received as an organized body; 2) they have control over local affairs; and, 3) that Absalom Jones be licensed as a lay reader and ordained, if qualified, to the ministry.  The church was admitted to the diocese in October of 1794, and Bishop William White, the second bishop in the Episcopal Church, ordained Absalom Jones to the diaconate in 1795 and as a priest on September 21, 1802.

During his time there, he denounced slavery and preached that God was always on the side of the oppressed and distressed.  The church gained 500 members in its first year.

His Feast Day on the Church Calendar is February 13.

Open our eyes, O Lord, to the injustices committed on our behalf.  Awaken us to the unpleasant truths that a whitewashed history tries to cover up.  Free us from the bonds of prejudice and fear.  Allow us to see the value and contributions of those who are different.  And gives us the strength to work for justice, freedom, and peace, while respecting the dignity of every human being.