Monthly Archives: May 2025

The Green Book Tour of Boston’s South End

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May 26, 2025

A reprise of the Green Book Tour of Boston was offered on May 17, 2025. The tour was organized by The Reverend June Cooper, social justice educator, activist, and Theologian in the City at Old South Church.

She invited Byron Rushing to be our guide. Byron was Massachusetts State Representative for the South End from 1983-2019 and has been lay deputy to our General Convention since 1973. The tour was supported by the Boston Faith and Justice Network.

Victor Hugo Green, a postal worker, created the first Green Book in 1936. It was published until 1966 (with the exception of the years 1940-1946). A guide to establishments open to black travelers during the Jim Crow era, it served as an essential tool in welcoming them to many U.S. towns and cities.

Included on the Boston tour are the Union Combined Parish, the Columbus Avenue AME Zion Church, and Harriet Tubman Park, along with jazz club locations, other  community gathering places, and Slade’s, operating since 1929. We also stopped at the home of Julia Henson, 25 Holyoke Street, which was the first Harriet Tubman House, founded to provide housing for black women who were excluded from college dormitories and rooming houses. Henson founded the African American Northeastern Federation of Women’s Clubs and was active in the settlement house movement. Harvard’s Houghton Library acquired a copy of the 1949 edition of the Green Book, and it is freely accessible via this link.

The chapter on Massachusetts lists 50 businesses open to Black travelers in Boston, including hotels, restaurants, beauty parlors, barber shops, tailors, and one jazz club. In the Introduction, we read: “There will be a day sometime when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes, we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year.”

—Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin

Suzanne Hiatt (1936-2002) and Pauli Murray (1910-1985)

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May 15, 2025

Emmanuel Church dedicated its third pulpit statue this past Sunday to the Reverend Dr. Suzanne Radley Hiatt, priest, theologian, prophet, professor, and advocate. Sue Hiatt was ordained as one of the Philadelphia 11 (July 29, 1974), and served as an inspirational mentor to many, including our rector.

Pam’s sermon on Sunday included examples of Hiatt’s devotion to equality and justice; as “bishop to the women,” Pam said that she was “pressing the Church to deeper inclusion and fuller love.”

It was interesting to learn that Suzanne Hiatt wrote about her connections to Pauli Murray, who discerned from our parish and became the first African American woman to be ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1977. In April 1970, they attended the Graymoor Conference, an important event in the history of women’s ordination, attended by about 60 women and numerous male supporters. Hiatt was one of the organizers and stalwart in her advocacy of the movement. Murray attended Graymoor after years of experiences as a civil rights lawyer, professor, and Women’s Movement activist. After the conference, Murray and Henry Rightor, a former lawyer and professor of pastoral care at Virginia Theological Seminary, studied the Church’s Canons and Constitutions. Their report presented their findings after the conference  and set the stage for persuasive arguments for women’s ordination.

Sue Hiatt’s admiration for Pauli Murray was expressed in an article she wrote in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion.* She noted that she learned a lot from delving into Pauli Murray’s writings about Pauli’s unceasing dedication to the pursuit of justice. Hiatt considered Murray a “foremother, not only to be proud of, but also to learn from and emulate.” Those who came before Hiatt’s generation “shook the foundations so that we could topple the walls.” Hiatt deeply admired Murray’s contributions: “Pauli believed above all in justice, and despite a lifetime of disappointments and tragedies, she never stopped seeking it. She just never quit.”

May we be inspired by the women who now live on in our sanctuary, and, as Pam said in her Eastertide sermon: “Arise, wake up, come alive to become who and whose you are called to be.”

*Hiatt, Suzanne, “Pauli Murray (1910-1985): May Her Song Be Heard at Last,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 4 (Fall 1988), 69-73.

See also the chapter of the same title in The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me: The writings of Suzanne Hiatt, ed. Carter Heyward and Janine LeHane (New York: Seabury, 2014) This compilation of Hiatt’s writings is a wonderful tribute to her.

—Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin