Racism: Our Past And Present Sins

LUKE 6:17-26

During the month of February, you may have noticed that we have been singing hymns from Lift Every Voice and Sing. This hymnal is part of The Episcopal Church’s recognition of Black History Month and its African-American congregants. We will continue to use these hymns as part of our recognition of the significant contributions African-Americans have made to the United States.

I am glad that there is an official recognition of Black History Month, but what I am concerned about is that Black History Month is not to commemorate African-American’s contributions, but to educate the ‘white folk’ to a whole world of history we are totally unaware of. Dedicating a month to the actual history of slavery does not make up for the other eleven months of the year of intentional omission of their history. We have a long way to go, and the church needs to lead the way.

In The Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints, today we celebrate the Blessed Reverend Absalom Jones, born into slavery, and freed through manumission in 1784. He served as the lay minister for the black membership at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church with his friend, Richard Allen, and together they established the Free African Society to aid in the emancipation of slaves and to offer sustenance and spiritual support to widows, orphans, and the poor.

Alarmed at the increase in the black population attending the church, in 1791, the Vestry of St. George’s decided to segregate African Americans into an upstairs gallery without notice, forcibly removing those worshippers from the main floor one Sunday. Allen and Jones, and members of their group immediately left that church, never to return.

In 1792, Allen and Jones applied to join the Episcopal Church, and after satisfying all the requirement for membership, African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas became a member of The Episcopal Church. In 1802, Absalom Jones became the first African-American ordained as a priest. Throughout his life, until his death in 1818, he continued to work to abolish slavery and better the conditions of African-Americans. In 1973, General Convention added him to our list of saints, with his feast day being 13 February.

What Absalom Jones and Richard Allen and their followers experience is the biggest black eye on religion. . . and the government . . . and current anti-history groups.

I have heard people say:

”Isn’t it ‘sweet’ that the blacks have the month of February to celebrate their history”?

Let me tell you something, they do not need a month to celebrate their history!!

Since 1440 they have lived it, endured it, died because of it. It is ingrained in their genes and their DNA. Black History Month is for the education of white people who have never been taught, nor thought about what being a slave meant. We sat in our white privilege totally oblivious to the suffering of others. And even today, there is a movement to restrict or prohibit the teaching of the true history of this country. And their power is increasing through affiliation with legislatures who are appealing to the least denominator to ensure hatred and fear is propagated so that they can remain in power.

Here is some black history that is not taught in the schools, and will not be taught if these bigoted, racist people prevail.

Christopher Columbus was the first European slave trader in the Americas. He likely transported the first Africans to the Americas in the late 1490s on his expeditions. He sent more slaves across the Atlantic Ocean than any individual of his time-about 5,000.

Hundreds of thousands of Africans, both free and enslaved were brought to America around 1516, to aid in the establishment and survival of colonies in the Americas and the New World.

Then in 1607, when Jamestown was settled, Africans referred to as ‘servants’ were brought over to do the demeaning manual work required to establish a colony. Furthermore, many consider a significant starting point to slavery in America to be 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 enslaved African ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. This was the beginning of the aggressive program of promoting slavery in the United States. This history is well documented in the “1619 Project”, written by Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times. Not only does it chronicle slavery, but also celebrates Black Americans’ commitment to rights and freedoms historically denied them.

Between 1525 and 1866, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. Only 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. To put this into a modern perspective, the deaths of enslaved men, women and children that died on the voyages because of illness, crowded ships and cruelty relatively matches the number of people who have died of COVID in the United States.