Remembrance and Racial Justice Working Group

After the summer of Black Lives Matter marches, a group of us started reading books about racism and how it affects our lives, both in community and church. The work lead to some really difficult reflections, but over the course of weeks and months, we started to look forward, envisioning real change.

Mission Statement

The Remembrance and Racial Justice Working Group of Old First is a gathering of church members and adherents who seek to learn our church’s history concerning issues of racism, to learn how our actions have directly or indirectly harmed people who have been historically oppressed. We seek to understand and root out the facets of white supremacy we may hold, both explicit and implicit. We endeavor to educate and advocate for policies of inclusion, and for social and racial justice, and to advance healing.

The Work

There are may points of entry to anti-racism work. The group has chosen to begin with a study of our church history, to better know ourselves. We have focused our attention on our Old First’s historical connections to slavery, specifically with the families who donated the stained glass windows in our sanctuary.

Spaces of Enslavement: A Conversation 2024

On May 5, Old First invited the congregation and community for a conversation about the history of slavery in NYC and the Dutch Reformed Church, given by Dr. Andrea Mosterman. The well attended event was followed by an informative and lengthy Q & A. We are incredibly thankful to Dr. Mosterman for her generosity in sharing her research and time.

Link to recording of event
Link to description of event

Black History Month 2023

For the month of February in 2023 we offered a Remembrance Reflection and positioned tiles under each window 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 .

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.

Window Tiles
On each tile is a QR code where you can read stories of these people—the stories are also reproduced on posters displayed in the church.

“Remembering our Forgotten Past” Presentation

We began our study in 2021. On January 23rd 2022 we presented a portion of these findings and gave a reflection during the worship service. A recording of the entire service can be found here. Read the reflection by Margaret Kearney here.

The working group meets every other week, please refer to the church calendar.
Contact Jane Barber or Margaret Kearney for more information at info@oldfirstbrooklyn.org

Resources: Books and Media

Old First hosted a Reading Group, targeting books directly related to the practice of anti-racism and discussing ways that we, as individuals and as a community of Jesus, can work to dismantle racism. Although the group has formally wound down, we continue to share resources with each other and the congregation. Below are some of the readings and media we read or viewed and recommend:

Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
The New York Times’ 1619 Project, podcast (more in magazine)
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
How to Fight Racism by Jemar Tisby
Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem.

Video:
13th by Ava DuVernay on Netflix
We Shall Remain | American Experience on PBS on Prime video

The Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary periodically offers presentations around racism. Past programs can be viewed here:

• Things You Can Do to Make Your Congregation Anti-Racist speaker Earl James
• White Christian Nationalism, Liberation Theology, and Being Reformed speaker Dr. Juan A. Carmona
• Asian American Experiences of Racism and Anti-Racism speakers Gerri Yoshida, Thomas Song, Tiffany Fan