Ten thousand recollections ...

This morning while I was walking the dog, my neighbor stopped his bike ride to tell me that he appreciated my letter to the editor that the paper printed a couple of days ago.  Brian was born and raised in South Africa (he is White) and he said that since the shooting in Dallas he has been thinking of a line from Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country.  (He called it required reading in South Africa.)  As he remembers it, the old priest says something to the effect of, "I'm afraid that by the time the Whites start loving, the Blacks will have started hating."  (I looked it up.  The actual quote is, "I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find that we are turned to hating," and it is spoken by the character the Rev. Theophilus Msimangu.)  I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find that we are turned to hating.

The congregation I serve is named after the third President of the United States -- Thomas Jefferson.  We're located in Charlottesville, in the shadow of Monticello and literally up the road from the University of Virginia.  The presence of "Mr. Jefferson" is still felt in places, so it makes sense that when our congregation was formed it would be named for him.  He did, after all, write the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, was one of the so-called "Founding Fathers" of the nation, and was draftsman of the Declaration of Independence with its stirring words about liberty and freedom.  (He also said some very nice things about Unitarianism, such that for a long time he was claimed as "one of our own." We now somewhat sheepishly acknowledge that he maintained membership in the local Episcopal church throughout his life.)

He also wrote other things, though.  His Notes on the State of Virginia contains some deeply racist thoughts about "the Black race," which he considered fundamentally and irredeemably inferior.  An argument could be -- has been -- made that he was just a person of his time, his thinking conditioned by the thinking of his day just as our is now.  Yet Jefferson's views on the inherent differences he saw between Whites and Blacks was not universally held.  Even in his day he could have thought differently.

The link I make between Cry the Beloved Country and the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson is that he, too, recognized the likelihood that the treatment endured by enslaved people at the hands of their enslavers would most likely lead to an explosion of violent rage.  In explaining his position that freed Blacks should not be allowed to continue to live in Virginia he wrote:

"It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expense of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies when they leave?  Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race."

One hundred and forty-one years ago Jefferson predicted that "deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; [and] new provocations ..." could predictably lead to the development an unquenchable anger, hatred, that would no doubt end in violence.  In those one hundred and forty-one years since those "ten thousand recollections" have not dimmed, and the "new provocations" have not ceased.

Do I think that our country's ongoing history of racism will end in "extermination"?  I don't.  I have too much hope and faith in the power of Love for that.  But when folks like me who have been raised to think of ourselves as White wonder what all the anger is about ...  Well ... I think we ask because we just don't want to look at the truth before our eyes.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Note:  the image is a composite of a well-known portrait of Jefferson, with that of Isaac Granger Jefferson, one of the enslaved workers at Monticello.

Junteenth: a sermon

This is the sermon I delivered on Sunday, June 19, 2016 at the congregation I serve in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church - Unitarian Universalist.  You listen to it if you'd prefer.

I am embarrassed to say that I had never heard of “Juneteenth” until relatively recently.  I keep discovering just how much American history I never learned and, perhaps even more disturbingly, that no one ever thought important enough to try to teach me – all that history that gets lifted up each February, for instance, as though Black history and American history are not the same thing.  We don’t have a White history month, or a Straight, Cisgender Male history month, because as far as the wider society goes, that is American history.  Everything else is relegated to appendices and footnotes.

So:  “Juneteenth” is a fusing of “June” and “Nineteenth,” because it was on June 19, 1865 that Union General Gordon Granger stood on the balcony of a prominent building in Galveston, Texas and read aloud “General Order No. 3,” which said, in part:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

Can you imagine what that would have felt like for the, now, formerly enslaved population of Galveston?  They hadn’t yet heard about President Lincoln’s Proclamation of their freedom some three and a half years earlier, so this was a day that would cry out to be memorialized.  Juneteenth celebrations became annual events throughout Texas and, eventually, throughout the United States.  By 2008, nearly half of US states observed the holiday.  As of May of last year, 45 of the 50 states (and the District of Columbia) have formally and officially recognized the observance of Juneteenth, even here in Virginia.

Juneteenth is a really big thing, and I had never even heard of it.  Maybe this is new to some of you, too.  I would ask how that is possible, but we all know the answer, don’t we?  The dominant culture in which we live, the dominant narrative that defines us as a country, does not have time, or energy, or focus, or interest, really, in anything other than itself.  That’s why we have Black History Month in February, and Women’s History Month in March, and LGBT History Month in October, and Transgender Awareness Month in November (just to name a few).  This is one way that our culture – and by “our culture” I am referring to the dominant culture made by, for, and about people who look more or less like me – can recognize the undeniable fact that ours is not a homogeneous society while simultaneously reinforcing the “otherness” of everybody who … doesn’t look more or less like me.

One dimension of this dominant culture’s narrative is a mindset of what I’ll call “been there, done that, cross it off the list.”  Here are two examples of I mean by that:

·       Slavery was terrible, awful, heinous, but we fought and won the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation put an end to slavery.  Been there, done that, cross it off the list.

·       The Jim Crow era was terrible, awful, heinous, but the Civil Rights battles of the 50s and 60s won equality for all.  I mean look, today we even have a Black President!  Been there, done that, cross it off the list.

But that’s not how it works, of course.  The truth is that there is a river of pain that runs through our nation’s history, a river of torment and torture, a river of separation and segregation and dehumanization and demonization, a river that has never stopped flowing.  Ever.  We – and right now I’m really talking to people, like me, who’ve been raised to think of ourselves as White – we would like to think that at least it has gone underground, or slowed to a trickle, but it hasn’t, except, perhaps, in our own mind’s eye.  But we need to think this, we need to believe this, because if we didn’t we wouldn’t be able to go to sleep at night, so wet would our sheets be from all our tears.  Yet we – and here I do mean “we,” inclusively and collectively, meaning “we” as in “all of us” – we need to see together the truth of things as they really are.  We need to see those things that some of us try so hard not to see and some of us are so continually forced to see.  Here’s one such thing that seems appropriate to see on Juneteenth 2016:

The slaves weren’t freed when Lincoln declared their emancipation, nor when General Granger stood on that balcony, nor when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, nor when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44^th President of the same United States in which his wife’s ancestors had been enslaved.  Certain freedoms, yes, have been grudgingly conceded, but real freedom?  The freedom to be and be seen as whole, as the individual you are and as part of the human family?  The freedom to have your value and worth affirmed and celebrated?  That has not yet been won, not yet wrested from the slaver’s fist. Not been there, not done that yet, nothing to cross off the list.

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray is one of the largely unknown and unsung heroes of the struggles for African American rights, and LGBT rights, and women’s rights.  She was the first female African American Episcopal priest, the first African American to receive a Doctor of Juridical Science degree from Yale Law School, a civil rights activist (fighting against both Jim Crow and what she called “Jane Crow”), a poet of profundity and power, and a friend of my mom’s.  She referred to herself as, “America’s problem child.”  (“I have never been able to accept what I believe to be an injustice,” she wrote. “Perhaps it is because of this I am America’s problem child, and will continue to be.”)  In many of her poems Pauli gave voice to the experience of what another great African American poet, Langston Hughes called, “a dream deferred,” this experience of the ongoing denial of the fundamental right to be seen as more than three-fifths of a person.  In the face of that, how can you keep on hoping for things to change?  What can hope mean when time and time again you have seen your hope whipped, and lynched, and set upon by dogs and firehoses, and denigrated and sneered at by what passes for politicians these days?  Here’s one of Pauli’s poems:

Hope is a crushed stalk

Between clenched fingers.

Hope is a bird’s wing

Broken by a stone.

Hope is a word in a tuneless ditty —

A word whispered with the wind,

A dream of forty acres and a mule,

A cabin of one’s own and a moment to rest,

A name and place for one’s children

And children’s children at last . . .

Hope is a song in a weary throat.

Give me a song of hope

And a world where I can sing it.

Give me a song of faith

And a people to believe in it.

Give me a song of kindliness

And a country where I can live it.

Give me a song of hope and love

And a brown girl’s heart to hear it.

This is the still unfulfilled promise of Junteenth – a song of hope, and a world in which it can be sung by everyone; a song of faith, and a people who will truly believe it; a song of kindliness and a country in which it can be lived out; and a song of hope and love without having to give up who and what we are.  Hope is a song in a weary throat.  [This, by the way, was the original title of Pauli's autobiography, Song in a Weary Throat.  Someone at the publishing house, no doubt, decided that for the second printing the title should be changed to Pauli Murray: The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet.  It might be more descriptive for people who'd never heard of her, but oh what poetry was lost!]                               

One year ago this past week Dylan Roof walked into a Bible Study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and murdered 9 people, at least in part because he did not see African Americans as fully human, at least not in the way he saw himself.  He apparently had not heard about the “absolute equality” affirmed by General Granger in Galveston one hundred and fifty-one years ago today, or he’d heard but didn’t believe it, and so he could believe that murdering these people was a justified and acceptable act.

This past week Omar Mateen walked into the nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida and murdered 49 people (wounding an additional 53), at least in part because he did not see people in the LGBTQ community, or the Latino community as fully human, at least not in the way he saw himself.  And whether it was this blind and blinding hatred, or the distortions and perversions of a twisted religious ideology, Mateen was able to believe that his murdering these people was a justified and acceptable act.

When you can deny the fundamental humanity of someone, you can justify doing just about anything to them.  It doesn’t count if they don’t count.  Fifty-three years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that “all […] are created equal” to be a “promissory note” that had not yet been made good on.  It still hasn’t.  And so the weary throat must keep singing.

Someone else who knew and beautifully expressed that song was the poet-queen Maya Angelou.  She speaks of it in one of her most well-known and oft-quoted poems, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,”

The free bird leaps

On the back of the wind

And floats downstream

And dips his wings

In the orange sun rays

And dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

Down his narrow cage

Can seldom see through

His bars of rage

His wings are clipped

And his feet are tied

So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

With a fearful trill

Of the things unknown

But longed for still

And his tune is heard

On the distant hill

For the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn

And he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

His wings are clipped and his feet are tied

So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

With a fearful trill

Of the things unknown

But longed for still

And his tune is heard

On the distant hill

For the caged bird sings of freedom.

Oh the throats that sing this song may indeed by weary, yet the song remains strong.  This song has many variations, yet still it is one song – the song of freedom and a long-ago made promise fulfilled.  But here’s some good news:  Dylan Roof didn’t silence it; Omar Pateen didn’t stop its steady beat; Donald Trump and his crowds can’t drown it out. 

But there’s work to be done.  We – those of us who have been taught that we are White – need to take it up, add our voices to those who have been singing so long that their throats are weary – oh so weary – of singing this song that should never have had to be sung.

the song of hope, and a world in which it can be sung by everyone; the song of faith, and a people who will truly believe it; the song of kindliness and a country in which it can be lived out; the song of hope and love without having to give up who and what we are to sing it. 

May it be so.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

What's In A Name?

[Listen to the Sermon]

One morning a week or so ago I came to work and really noticed the front of our building – the way it echoes the Rotunda at UVA – and I was struck how, from the outside at least, this place really looks like a “Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church.”

And then I came inside, and into that marvelous foyer, with those inspiring quotes from Jefferson’s writings:

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship place,  or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or his goods, or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or beliefs . . .

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. . .

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .

And then there was the bust of the man himself – further reminders of the legacy to which we can lay claim.

Then I came into the sanctuary and took a seat in that pew right there.  I soaked in this inspiring edifice, painted in such clean and crisp white and Jeffersonian blue.  I sat here by myself that morning, and I began to cry.

Before coming to work that day I’d been reading the story of a little boy named Peter.  He’d grown up around here living what he later remembered was a pretty idyllic life.  His father was a well-respected artisan; his mother a classically trained French chef.   Peter, himself, would eventually grow up to be a tremendously successful caterer, community leader and, eventually, an ordained minister.

Yet at the time of his childhood all three – mother Edith, father Joseph, and young Peter – were all the property of this same Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson’s understanding of the way things were was that he owned these people.  They were his slaves.  And although Peter remembered his childhood as idyllic – he said that he had no idea that he and his family were slaves – everything changed on July 4, 1826 with Jefferson’s death.  Joseph was one of the five enslaved persons who were freed in Jefferson’s will.  But Edith, Peter (then only eleven years old), and six of his brothers and sisters were put on the auction block along with 130 other human beings and sold to help pay off Jefferson’s debt.  It took Peter twenty-three years to reunite with his family.

I’ve been reading two books for the past several weeks, both by Lucia Stanton.  One is called Slavery at Monticello and the other, Free Some Day:  TheAfrican-American Families of Monticello.  I’ve been immersing myself in this time and these stories.  Now, let me be clear – I’ve done a lot of anti-racism work; I know me some history.  I’m not new to the story of slavery in the south.  But that’s maybe the key thing, and one I hadn’t really been conscious of.  As a Northerner, it was the story of slavery-in-the-south.  Now, even though I know it’ll be several generations before y’all accept me as one of your own, I’ve already begun to see myself as a Southerner.  So this is now my story.  And it didn’t happen far, far away; it happened just down the road.  At the home of the man for whom our church is named.  What could I do but weep?

How do you wrap your mind around it?  This man who wrote that “all men are created equal” owned over 600 men, women, and children during the course of his lifetime.  He was, in fact, the second largest slave holder in Virginia in his day.  And though he strove to keep black families together – the record showed that he was opposed to selling a husband without his wife and children (and vice versa) – it is also a fact that when a child attained working age – about ten or twelve – she or he was no longer considered a child and, so, no longer entitled to that kind of familial protection.  Even more jarring, despite this noble sentiment, Jefferson did break up families whenever economic realities appeared to necessitate it.  There was always a disconnect between the ideal and the real.

As Lucia Stanton puts it:

“To protect himself from the realities of owning human beings, he needed the same psychological buffers as other well-intentioned slaveholders.  The constant tension between self-interest and humanity seems to have induced in him a gradual closing of the imagination that distanced and dehumanized the black families of Monticello.”  (Slavery, p. 33)

If the mind boggles at a reality in which a white boy could be raised with a black boy as his friend and constant companion, as Jefferson was, only to then consider that boy his property once the two reached the age of eighteen; if it’s incomprehensible that a person could “come out among [us], play the fiddle and dance half the night”, as Jefferson’s brother Randolph is known to have done, and then see that “us” as no different than the mules and the plows the next morning; if these contradictions are unfathomable to us perhaps, suggests Annette Gordon-Reed, it has something to do with most of us in this room being white.

Gordon-Reed is an associate professor of law at New York Law School and is the author of the book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings:  An American Controversy.  She wrote a truly fascinating article for the website that compliments the PBS Frontline program about Jefferson and Hemmings.  In it, she said this:

“The contradictions that make Jefferson seem problematic and frustrating – a figure of mystery to some whites, make him more accessible to blacks, who find his conflicted nature a perfect reflection of the America they know:  a place where high-minded ideals clash with the reality of racial ambivalence.  As this combination daily informs black lives, Jefferson could seem no more bizarre than America itself.  He is utterly predictable and familiar – the foremost exemplar of the true American spirit and psyche.” 

What are we to do with this?  What are we – an overwhelmingly white congregation that would like to become more truly diverse with regards to race, and ethnicity, and class; a congregation that occupies the highest point in Charlottesville, Virginia,  a stone’s throw from Monticello – what are we to do with this?

I know that, in recent years, there has been here, as there has been at the District level, a conversation – or, perhaps, more accurately a collection of conversations – about addressing these contradictions by changing our name.  If, in the 1950s, the American Unitarian Association saw Thomas Jefferson as an exemplar of all things right and good in liberal America and thought it proper to build a Memorial Church in Charlottesville, then now, in 2011, we know that the truth is much more complicated.  And perhaps we think that continuing to align ourselves with this slaveholder who truly believed that blacks were inferior and “made to carry burdens,” makes us complicit.  I know that this is a simplification, but this is a large part of the reason that there is now no longer a Thomas Jefferson District in the Unitarian Universalist Association.  Our District voted just this year to change its name to the Southeast District – a name less burdened with the baggage of the past.

Our theme this month is atonement, and up until now we’ve been talking about this at a personal level:  how do I (how do you) as an individual atone for those things we’ve done in our past that have caused there to be brokenness in our relationships – with ourselves, with others, and with that deeper truth in Life.  But can we also atone for “the sins of the fathers”?  Can we?  Should we?

My thinking in this has been greatly influenced by the story of the Rev. David Pettee, my friend and colleague who occupied the office next to mine when I started at UUHQ in Boston.  Dave has long been interested in genealogy, but he never expected to discover as he researched his family line that his ancestors included slave holders and slave traders.  It was, as you might imagine, something that was never talked about at family reunions.

But David heeded the encouragement of those who suggested that it would not be enough for him to simply uncover his own family’s role in perpetuating the institution of slavery; he needed to find a way to atone.  (That might not be the language that Dave, himself, would use, but as we’ve been discussing it the past couple of Sundays I can’t think of a better way to describe what he’s been doing.)  David began focusing his research, as best he could, on uncovering the genealogy of those enslaved persons who’d been owned by his ancestors.  And despite the paucity of records, he was able to find a line, a line that led directly to the widow of a great-great-great grandson of a man one of his ancestors had once held in bondage.

David reached out to her and to her family.  And in doing so he became part of a movement – spearheaded by the project Coming to the Table, which has successfully gathered the descendants of slaves and the descendants of slaveholders for dialogue.  David’s working on a book now about these experiences, one which has involved interviewing a hundred whites and blacks who’ve taken this step.  He writes:

 [T]ruth-telling and repentance can be an antidote to the abuse of power that was institutionalized in the practice of slavery. The elements of our history that are shameful and horrific must be named and remembered. We must be willing to believe that there is a way out of the cycle of despair and hopelessness that lies at the core of this brokenness. Without the commitment to remember and be held accountable for all of our history, the apocalyptic conditions that allow for the dehumanization and genocide of other people will continue to emerge. As the philosopher and poet George Santayana reminds us, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  (“The Ties That Bind”)

In part inspired by this phenomenal movement, and despite the decision of our District (which I happen to support), I find myself wondering whether our changing our name would not be a mistake.  After all, in this day and age, with the quality of political discourse being what it is, it would be good for someone to be a champion of Jefferson’s ideals of freedom.  His voice, his vision, would be a welcome reminder of the principles upon which this nation was founded – no matter how they have been forgotten and glossed over in the intervening years.  And as to the contradictions in the man?  I can’t help but wonder if changing our name wouldn’t be “the easy way out,” allowing us to “put all that behind us.” 

But “all that” isn’t easily put behind us, and I can’t help but feel that tremendous good could be done by even more fully embracing our connection to Jefferson and that, on his behalf and as his namesake, we might have a role to play in the work of atonement and reconciliation that is so desperately needed.

And that’s already going on.  There is the Dialog onRace, which members of our congregation have been tremendously involved with yet with which we, as a congregation, could be doing so much more. 

There’s the possibility of partnering with UVA in its University and Community Action for Racial Equity(UCARE) initiatives, that are “dedicated to helping the University of Virginia and the Charlottesville communities work together to understand the University role in slavery, racial segregation, and discrimination and to find ways to address and repair that legacy, particularly as they relate to present day disparities.” 

And as the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello collaborates with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History to more fully explore what they’re calling “Jefferson and Slavery:  the paradox of freedom,” I can’t help but think that the only religious community in Charlottesville to bear Jefferson’s name might have some role to play.

At the very least, couldn’t we reach out to more of the African American churches in the area to develop real, ongoing relationships?  And couldn’t we add to our collection of Jeffersonian memorabilia photos (like the haunting image of Isaac Jefferson that’s on our Order of Service) and other information about the enslaved members of Jefferson’s “family” (as he called them)?  Might we not have a justifiable role to play in reaching out to the descendants of all those who lived in Monticello?

While talking with Dave about all of this he offered to introduce me to Prinny Anderson, a 4^th generation granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, (and Unitarian Universalist in Durham, NC).  Prinny has made connections with the 4^th generation descendants of Sally Hemmings as part of her involvement with Come to the Table. 

[T]here is much good in what Jefferson wrote and said.  [. . .]  I am inordinately proud of his stand for liberty and equality.  In getting to know and love my Hemings cousins, I have also had to accept that he was very much a man of his time, *including* his support for freedom.  But he was a white patriarchal slave-owning plantation owner who held his wife, minor children, adult unmarried daughters, enslaved people, farm lands, and farm animals - ALL as chattel - as one did in his time.  He *loved* all of them, but he also *owned* all of them.  Every man did in that time, so throwing him out as an unacceptable role model means throwing out most of our Revolutionary heroes.

Keeping the Jefferson name also opens a door to becoming vastly better informed about our ancestors and their world, becoming much clearer about the real story - all the details included - of where we come from.  That insight in turn makes us much better able to really see, hear, and feel the legacies, good and bad, of the past at play in the present, allowing us to make really substantive, systemic changes for the better, for the future.  Just throwing the hero out with yesterday's paper means we forge ahead, still ignorant, without confronting the demons and ghosts of the past, and blind to how they affect us now.

This is a huge trap for UUs, in my limited experience.  Many whom I've encountered are of good hearts and good intentions, but somewhat superficial.  There is a lack of rooted connection to tough issues, lack of a sense of direct ownership and involvement with the system, with the "bad" stuff.  Without that sense of being connected to the "perpetrator" as well as to the "victim," it is hard to make sustainable change at any level, individual, community, nation or globe.”

Could this be part of our mission, our purpose, our work in the world?  Would it be scary?  Sure.  Will it be hard?  Absolutely.  But as my friend David has written,

“In my introspection prior to [my first] visit, I worried that I might represent a target for long pent-up anger and resentment. Even though Patricia had gracefully welcomed my interest in visiting her, I kept struggling with the false but deeply-held conviction that open conversation about slavery and white privilege with people of color was a dangerous threshold that should never be crossed. I knew I needed to find a way to break through the force field that perpetuated my unnecessary segregation from people of color.”  (“The Ties That Bind.”)

I believe that we do, too.  As individuals.  As a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Charlottesville, Virginia in the year 2011.  And, perhaps, most especially, as a church that was built in memorial to a man who embodied these contradictions that so desperately need to be addressed.

The Rev. Peter Fossett Calls To Me

The Rev. Peter Fossett was born to Joseph and Edith Fossett.  As an adult, his family lived in Cincinatti, Ohio, where Peter was, first, a well-known and respected caterer.  He eventually left that profession and was ordained a Baptist minister, organizing the First Baptist Church in Cumminsville, a suburb of Cincinatti.  He served that church faithfully and well for thirty years, and became a respected leader in his community.  After his death, fifteen hundred people (both black and white) attended his funeral.

Peter Fossett was born into slavery on the Monticello plantation of Thomas Jefferson.

His parents were two of the most influential of the enslaved persons living on the mountain.  Joseph was the head blacksmith; Edith was the head cook.  As a child, Peter lived a life of relative ease.  He later recalled, "I knew nothing of the horrors of slavery till our good master died, on July 4, 1826."  Upon Jefferson's death, the vast majority of those who'd been enslaved were sold at auction to pay off debts.  This included eleven year old Peter. 

His father, Joseph, was given his freedom in Jefferson's will.  Peter's mother and six of his brothers and sisters, on the other hand, were sold.  Despite Jefferson's stated desire during his lifetime that families remain together, this family -- and many others -- were broken up during this mass sale.  It took twenty three years for Peter to be reunited with his family.

During the time of his enslavement after Jefferson's death he secretly pursued his education, despite his master's declaration that he'd get a whipping if he was ever seen with a book.  Peter didn't keep his desire to learn entirely to himself, however.  He remembered, "All the time I was teaching all the people around me to read and write."

When his father, with the help help of family and neighbors both black and white, was able to secure Peter's freedom, Peter moved to Ohio where his family had resettled.  Begining as a whitewasher and waiter he and his brother William evetually started their own catering business, which was hugely successful.  Peter served on the board of directors of the segregated school board and belonged to both the National Prison Reform Congress and the University Extension Society.  It is also know that he was active in the Underground Railroad.

I'm currently reading the book Free Some Day:  The African-American Families of Monticello by Lucia Stanton.  It's powerful, painful stuff.  The Rev. Peter Fossett's story is just one story of the over six hundred women, men, and children who lived lives of enslavement as the "property" of the man who wrote the words, "All men are created equal."  (You can read more about Peter Fossett in the pages of the web site for the magnificent project -- Getting Word:  African Americans at Monticello.)

As a European American man, and now especially as the Lead Minister of a congregation in Charlottesville, VA built as a memorial to Thomas Jefferson, I find these stories weighing on me.  I walked into our lovely building today and can just barely keep myself from crying.  Especially after just recently being reminded by the movie The Help how little things really changed even after emancipation.  And the current immigration situation reminds me how much the same things still are.

The monthly theme for October here at Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church is Atonement, so I find myself asking the question:  What can I do, what can we do, to atone for our part in this history?  I'll be exploring this in the service on October 16th.  In the meantime, though, I'm sitting with this.  I thought I'd invite you to sit with it, too.

In Gassho,

RevWik