Black History Month—5 Feb 2023

Our task this month is to unlearn a long practice of forgetting. This practice started with the families who listed these names and numbers in their wills alongside livestock and furniture, forgetting their humanity in order to enslave them. It continued as our congregation left out the memories and stories of these people from our church’s history over the decades and centuries that followed. This month, we turn away from this practice of forgetting. We remember that each name and number on these tiles represents a full, complex human life—someone with a sense of humor, an appreciation for beauty, a spiritual life, griefs and fears and joys. We remember that they were more than names or numbers; they were people beloved by God, fearfully and wonderfully made, as much a part of the history and legacy of this church as we are.

The words on this week’s window inspire us to remember the burdens these people were forced to carry, and the burdens passed down through the history of our church. We find hope in these words: ‘And lo in my dream I saw his burden loosed and fall from off his back,’ and Jesus’ promise, ‘Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.'”

—— Margaret Kearney

The Remembrance and Racial Justice Working Group has been researching our church’s historical connections to slavery and racial injustice. This month, we are hanging tiles with the names—or numbers in the cases where names were not recorded—of people who were enslaved by the families who donated our stained glass windows. On each tile is a QR code where you can read stories of these people—and the stories are also reproduced on posters in Fellowship Hall.