Fall has arrived and we are back to learning about and attending programs related to racial justice. As we write, Boston and other Massachusetts cities are hosting the annual celebration of #DouglassWeek.
Launched in 2021, the collaborative event series highlights Frederick Douglass’s time in Ireland in 1845. He spent about four months there in self-imposed exile after the publication of the first edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.
photo credit: WGBH Boston
On September 14, 2025, King’s Chapel unveiled its Memorial Sculpture, “Unbound,” by artist Harmonia Rosales.
Rosales’s work was stewarded by the MASS Design Group. It is a tribute to the 219 enslaved parishioners brought to church by their enslavers.
As many of you know, King’s Chapel has been actively engaged in studying and revealing many aspects of its racial history over recent years. A rich summary, including their plans for an ongoing project, is presented online via the page entitled King’s Chapel Memorial to Enslaved Persons.
September 22, 2025 –Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin.
A Service Toward Repentance was offered at the Washington National Cathedral on January 24, 2025, to honor and advance the work done on reparations by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The liturgy included truth-telling, reckoning, and repentance for the harms done within the Diocese to the Black community from the enslavement era through the present.
The Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon included her incisive comments about what she learned at the Summit on Truth-telling and Reparation held last September at the Virginia Theological Seminary.
In her book, How We Learn to Be Brave (New York: Avery/Penguin Random House, 2023), Bishop Budde writes about being inspired by people of faith facing decisive moments in life. Among her cloud of witnesses are The Rev. Canon Kelly Brown Douglas, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, Dr. Howard Thurman, The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
July 15, 2025 –Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin.
The local commemorations of Juneteenth included three events of note. Dio Mass held its Juneteenth service at St. Stephen’s Church, Lynn, with the Rev Bernadette Hickman-Maynard presiding. At Old South Church. The Reverend June Cooper, Theologian in the City of Boston and alum of the United Boston Sankofa Cohort, preached. Her reflection on the holiday, and the unfinished work of repair, appears in this blog post, Juneteenth, and the Unfinished Work of Freedom.
Juneteenth at Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters was held on June 22, 2025. The accompanying video, Who are my ancestors? highlights the reflections of the descendants of Cuba and Darby Vassall, who lived at the house. Continue reading
June 10, 2025
On our June 8th Chapel Camp tour of the Vilna Shul, we learned that the synagogue purchased the building occupied by the Twelfth Street Baptist Church in 1906. The Twelfth Street pews were kept at the site, 43-47 Phillips Street, and were used by the synagogue until 1919 when they moved to 18 Phillips Street. Services are still held once monthly and on the High Holydays and the building is now a center for Jewish Culture.
Twelfth Street Baptist Church was known as “The Fugitive Slave Church” — many of its congregants were abolitionists and self-emancipated slaves, Lewis and Harriet Hayden and Anthony Burns among them. The Reverend Edward Grimes, pastor from 1848 to 1874, led the congregation with vibrant advocacy and energetic activism. The church grew steadily, mobilized by Grimes to raise funds for those who sought freedom. A notable celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation was held January 1863. Frederick Douglasss attended and wrote glowingly about the event.
For more about the history of these communities of faith, see the West End Museum site: The Vilna Shul and Twelfth Street Baptist Church.
–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin
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
Emmanuel Church dedicated its third pulpit statue this past Sunday to the Rev. Dr. Suzanne Radley Hiatt (1936-2002), 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 (1910-1985), who had discerned from our parish and in 1977 became the first African American woman to be ordained in the Episcopal Church. 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. One of the organizers, Hiatt was stalwart in her advocacy of the movement. After years of experiences as a civil rights lawyer, professor, and Women’s Movement activist, Murray attended Graymoor. After the conference, she and Henry Rightor, a former lawyer and professor of pastoral care at Virginia Theological Seminary, studied the Church’s Canons and Constitutions. Their report presenting their findings after the conference 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 had learned a lot from delving into Pauli Murray’s writings about her 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.
—May 15, 2025. Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin
April 15, 2025
“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you, “Restorer of ruined dwellings.” Isaiah 58: 9–10, 12
Reparation is not a task or a moment; it is a process and a movement. As the prophet Isaiah and at least one diocesan mission statement make more clear, reparation, and its sibling “restoration”, line the path which leads from remembrance to reconciliation and, I would add, redemption. No matter recent, lawless chaos and profuse oppression, I believe that it is important to remember that this path persists and we have made a covenant to labor on.
As stated in the Diocese of Washington’s commission on reparations mission: “It [reparations] involves a process to remember, repair, restore, and reconcile historical and continuing wrongs against humanity that can never be singularly reducible to monetary terms, but must include a substantial investment and surrender of resources.
”This reminds me of another covenant we are in the midst of, namely to keep a holy Lent, to engage in the process of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that we might deepen our relationship with God and offer compassion and mercy to one another in more profound ways.
Not only might the process of engaging Lent be reparative of self and soul, it also might lead us to a new understanding of how we might become repairers of the breach and restorers of ruined dwellings.
For me the agents of repair and restoration are mercy and compassion. They are the compass which identifies brokenness and the glue which joins jagged edge to jagged edge.
Goodness knows jagged, shattered edges surround us in this wilderness. And I believe there is another agent which assists us in finding the courage and hope to even tackle the work of reparation and restoration when we have almost given up on grace…almost. It is memory.
Remembering is the agent which precedes restoration and reparation, catalyzes and inspires us toward action.
In my own quest I am remembering Bishop Budde’s sermon at the National Cathedral on January 21, 2025, when she courageously reminded the newly inaugurated president of his and our mandate to be merciful. In that reminder I felt some, albeit thin, thread of grace reenter political discourse repairing frayed hope.
Remembering, summoning our life stories of mercy and justice, is the first step toward the grace of redemption.
Remembering can be as a light which shines on possibility in the face of what seems impossible.
Remembering called us into the wilderness and will sustain us in our summoning of mercy and compassion, in our beloved communal work toward reparation and restoration.
Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. It is in returning, re turning, that we know God’s whole and perfect grace.
— The Rev. Dr. Martha Tucker
March 22, 2025
Addressing the historical harms of slavery starts with facing up to a good deal of uncomfortable truth. What does this mean for white Americans like me or for members of an historically white American church like ours?
We must acknowledge first that the truth has been hidden from us. Participants in the “Stolen Beam” course on reparations that Connie Holmes and I teach will sometimes say, Why was I never taught this? We must seek information from unaccustomed sources, which requires effort and research.
For many of us this research may stir up internal resistance and denial, as well as underlying guilt and shame. These emotions can lead us either to turn away or to become self-congratulatory about our awareness. Such reactions may hinder our ability to address the situation effectively.
To avoid such emotional fragility, we need to rely on our spiritual resources, starting with knowing by faith that we are already forgiven. With insight also we recognize that our involvement in oppressive systems has not been entirely voluntary; external forces compromised our moral clarity. Even more reason to undo the harm that has been done through us!
We forgive ourselves not to ease discomfort but to move past blame and stagnation. This allows us to act from a place of truth and grace as we reclaim our essential connection to all lives across enforced divisions.
But repentance and conversion require collective effort. We need one another for this work. As we connect across our divisions, we find that, even as we let go of the false securities of privilege, we don’t fall into oblivion but rather find instead the supportive embrace of beloved community.
Initially, this may involve a small group of committed individuals, a circle of trusted companions on the journey with whom we can hold the true sight of who we truly are – children of a loving God – while also holding one another accountable for our actions.
Will you join us?
–The Reverend Steven Bonsey
(Steven is the former Canon Pastor at the Cathedral Church of St Paul and current co-facilitator of the “Stolen Beam” course for Episcopal City Mission.)
–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin
March 3, 2025
To honor women’s history this month, we turn to a story of little seen women in Boston at the time Emmanuel was being founded. The Boston Globe published an article about the discovery of a marker for the Home for Aged Colored Women (1860-1944) in Dorchester’s Cedar Grove Cemetery (“From a mass grave in Boston, unearthing Black women’s lives” by Karilyn Crockett (February 3, 2025)
The Home, founded in 1860, was among the Boston institutions that offered shelter and support to women who did not have financial or other family support. In the case of the Home for Aged Colored Women, historical news accounts and the organization’s records (located at the Massachusetts Historical Society) state that women of color applied to the Home after not being welcomed at almshouses and other benevolent institutions.
We discovered that Emmanuel parishioners were benefactors of the Home from the 1860s onward (among them was Susan Coombs Dana (Mrs. Wiliam R. Lawrence).
We invite you to explore these sites which explore the Home’s history in more detail
—The National Park Service’s page about the Home.
–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin