CELEBRATION OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY
African-American History
Praise the Lord
Litanies, Prayers, And Occasional Services
Object:
The history of black people in America, or African-American history, like the early history of the Hebrew people, is a history of continuous struggle against systematic and systemic injustice and oppression. It is a story that portrays the presence of God in humanity's struggle for liberation.
This celebration attempts through scripture, story and spiritual songs to trace, in brief, the journey of African-Americans who have maintained a theological, Christian basis for their actions. However, we must not lose sight of non-Christians and non-African-Americans who have participated in the struggle for freedom and equality for African-Americans and all oppressed people everywhere.
HYMN OF PRAISE
Lift Every Voice And Sing
PRAYER
Freeing God, you call us from the bondage of sin into the freedom of your love. We come to you walking the pathways of disillusion and despair, discouragement and fear. Hope dies within us as the challenges of life beat down upon us and oppression weighs heavily on us. Help us to see you in all our experiences, and to know that your love is ever present, sustaining us and surrounding us with your constant care. Take our road-weary lives and transform us to be new people, lifted up and shining through the darkness by the light of your love. Amen.
THE JOURNEY REMEMBERED
SCRIPTURE
Psalm 137
READING 1: "The Starting Point"
A Dutch warship brought the first cargo of twenty black people to Virginia in 1619. Millions of other black people were torn from their African homes and carried to the New World before the slave trade was ended.
In Africa, their cultures were rich and varied, as different from one another as were the African peoples themselves.
They came in chains, brought by men who chose to use slaves because they would bring greater profits than the masters could get from their own labor or from other types of labor.
Black people were no better fit physically to do the hard labor of the agricultural South than were the white people. Nor were black people better fitted psychologically to live in slavery. In the past, it must be remembered, long before America was colonized, white people of many countries had been forced to submit to slavery.
With the same variety of brains and emotions, the same range of ability and personality, black people could find slavery no more a blessing than could white people.
HYMN
Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen
THE STRUGGLE
SCRIPTURE
Exodus 6:5-7
READING II: "Uprisings And Defeats"
Rebellions began in the seventeenth century aboard the first slave ships bound for the American colonies. As slaves continued to fight for their freedom, the bondage laws were made harsher and harsher.
A plot by Gabriel Prosser, the slave preacher, to attack Richmond in 1800 was betrayed, and he and his followers were hanged. Another plot, led by the free African-American, Denmark Vesey, was exposed in Charleston in 1822, and he and his followers were executed. Nat Turner was educated and a preacher. Deeply religious, like many of the other African-American rebels, Turner felt that he was called by God to lead "the children of Egypt" out of bondage.
The rebellion, which took the lives of some sixty white people, failed, and more than one hundred black people, innocent and guilty, were struck down before the rebellion was quelled. Many slaves seeking freedom simply ran away. Sometimes they joined the Indians -- Native Americans. Because of the dangers of uprisings, most of the Southern states had laws requiring free black people to carry passes, prohibiting all black people from congregating in large numbers, and from holding church services unless supervised.
HYMN
Precious Lord, Take My Hand
FREEDOM FIGHTERS
SCRIPTURE
Isaiah 61:1-4
READING III: "Born To Be Free"
African-American leaders were active in antislavery politics from the beginning. Frederick Douglass started life as a slave on a Maryland plantation. He never knew his father and saw his mother only a few times before her death. Although slaves were forbidden education, the boy managed to learn to read and write.
In 1838 at the age of 21, he fled slavery. In the years ahead, his growth was spectacular. As lecturer, editor, writer, organizer, diplomat, he earned the leadership of black people in their struggle for emancipation.
Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree about 1797, the property of a Dutch master in New York. While she was still a child, Isabella's parents died, and she was sold and resold, finally becoming the property of one John Dumont in whose service she remained until New York State freed its slaves in 1827. But Isabella's master did not want her to go, so she ran away. One day in 1843, Isabella decided to leave her job as a domestic servant to travel. "The Spirit calls me," she said, "I must go." With only a few coins in her purse, Isabella departed, feeling the call, although free herself, to preach and teach against slavery, under a symbolic new name. She declared, "The Lord gave me Sojourner because I was to travel up and down the land showin' the people their sins and bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare truth unto people."
Harriet Tubman was an even greater irritant to the slave-owners than Sojourner Truth, for not only did she make speeches in the North but time after time she want into the South and brought slaves out to freedom. At one time $40,000 was offered for her capture. Born a slave on the Eastern shore of Maryland about 1823, when she was about 25 she ran away, leaving her husband, parents, brothers and sisters behind. On nineteen secret trips into the dangerous South, Harriet Tubman guided more than 300 slaves to freedom, including her aged parents. Harriet Tubman was one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad. She also served as a spy for the Union army during the Civil War. She was called the Moses of her people.
HYMN
Come Out de Wilderness
MOVEMENTS AND CAUSES
SCRIPTURE
Isaiah 49:8-10
READING IV: "Pathways Old And New"
The "underground railroad" was a term for the series of stopping points that ran northwards along many paths. Friends -- black and white -- gave them food and a bed for the night and started them toward the next station. As time went on, a free black person's chance to get an education improved in the North. The Massachusetts abolitionists stopped segregated schools in Boston and New Bedford by 1855. Most other Jim Crow -- that is, officially segregated -- Northern states maintained separate schools much longer. Black people who migrated to the Midwest generally had to wait until after the Civil War for free public education.
"Freedom for all, or chains for all." That was the cry of the abolitionists to Lincoln. They tried to make it clear that the Union cause would not be a triumph unless the war was fought to end slavery. African-Americans had to fight a double battle, against slavery in the South, and against Jim Crow in the North.
By the time the Civil War ended 180,000 Black troops had served in Lincoln's army and 30,000 in the Navy. A quarter of a million had helped the military as laborers. To put an end to slavery, 38,000 black people gave their lives in battle.
HYMN
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
SCRIPTURE
Galatians 3:26-29; 5:1
READING V: "The March For Freedom"
The march on Washington on August 28, 1963, was a major milestone in a journey that had begun with the first slave ship in 1619. The impetus for the march developed from a single action taken by Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955. Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus resulted in a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was elected by the people to lead the movement that resulted from these actions and brought a voice of reason and a cry for equality through peaceful resistance by African-Americans.
Although the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution had in 1870 prohibited racial discrimination in voting, nearly a century later, few black Southerners had ever been allowed to cast a ballot. The civil rights bill sent to Congress in 1963 held great promise for ending discrimination in restaurants and other public accommodations, but it offered no comprehensive remedy for discrimination in voting rights.
When Martin Luther King, Jr., traveled to Norway in December 1963 to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, he referred to himself as "trustee for the 22 million Negroes of the United States of America who are engaged in a creative battle to end the night of racial injustice." As a messenger of the truth, Dr. King stood for all that is Christian, all that is Christ-like -- peace and equality for all.
And the fight goes on. The same diversity of culture with which their foreparents came to America, has enabled black people to be inventors and poets and singers and politicians and sportspersons and dancers and businessmen and comedians and preachers. Most importantly, black people are Christians. African-Americans have made major contributions in all areas of American life. Yet inequality, injustice, and opposition prevail in all walks of American life against African-Americans. It can be found in schools and colleges, in businesses, and in the Church. The Voting Rights Acts of 1965 saw more social change, more court decisions, and more legislation in the name of civil rights than any decade in our nation's history. Those changes were forced by millions of Americans who, with a sense of service and justice, kept their eyes on the prize of freedom.
As the journey for freedom for all people continues, we are all called join the march, so that the whole of God's creation, all of God's creatures, can experience the wholeness that life in Christ gives to all.
HYMN
I Want Jesus To Walk With Me
PRAYER
God of peace and justice, we crave the peace of your presence in our lives and in our world. We need the freedom from oppression that true justice brings. We long for an end to conflict and violence of self and against one another.
Grant us grace that our lives may reflect the peace that passes understanding. Give us the assurance of your love that we might create pathways of peace and justice for all people. May we know the power of your spirit that we may grow into your likeness and give you honor and praise. Amen.
HYMN
We Shall Overcome
BENEDICTION
"For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay." (Habakkuk 2:3)
This celebration attempts through scripture, story and spiritual songs to trace, in brief, the journey of African-Americans who have maintained a theological, Christian basis for their actions. However, we must not lose sight of non-Christians and non-African-Americans who have participated in the struggle for freedom and equality for African-Americans and all oppressed people everywhere.
HYMN OF PRAISE
Lift Every Voice And Sing
PRAYER
Freeing God, you call us from the bondage of sin into the freedom of your love. We come to you walking the pathways of disillusion and despair, discouragement and fear. Hope dies within us as the challenges of life beat down upon us and oppression weighs heavily on us. Help us to see you in all our experiences, and to know that your love is ever present, sustaining us and surrounding us with your constant care. Take our road-weary lives and transform us to be new people, lifted up and shining through the darkness by the light of your love. Amen.
THE JOURNEY REMEMBERED
SCRIPTURE
Psalm 137
READING 1: "The Starting Point"
A Dutch warship brought the first cargo of twenty black people to Virginia in 1619. Millions of other black people were torn from their African homes and carried to the New World before the slave trade was ended.
In Africa, their cultures were rich and varied, as different from one another as were the African peoples themselves.
They came in chains, brought by men who chose to use slaves because they would bring greater profits than the masters could get from their own labor or from other types of labor.
Black people were no better fit physically to do the hard labor of the agricultural South than were the white people. Nor were black people better fitted psychologically to live in slavery. In the past, it must be remembered, long before America was colonized, white people of many countries had been forced to submit to slavery.
With the same variety of brains and emotions, the same range of ability and personality, black people could find slavery no more a blessing than could white people.
HYMN
Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen
THE STRUGGLE
SCRIPTURE
Exodus 6:5-7
READING II: "Uprisings And Defeats"
Rebellions began in the seventeenth century aboard the first slave ships bound for the American colonies. As slaves continued to fight for their freedom, the bondage laws were made harsher and harsher.
A plot by Gabriel Prosser, the slave preacher, to attack Richmond in 1800 was betrayed, and he and his followers were hanged. Another plot, led by the free African-American, Denmark Vesey, was exposed in Charleston in 1822, and he and his followers were executed. Nat Turner was educated and a preacher. Deeply religious, like many of the other African-American rebels, Turner felt that he was called by God to lead "the children of Egypt" out of bondage.
The rebellion, which took the lives of some sixty white people, failed, and more than one hundred black people, innocent and guilty, were struck down before the rebellion was quelled. Many slaves seeking freedom simply ran away. Sometimes they joined the Indians -- Native Americans. Because of the dangers of uprisings, most of the Southern states had laws requiring free black people to carry passes, prohibiting all black people from congregating in large numbers, and from holding church services unless supervised.
HYMN
Precious Lord, Take My Hand
FREEDOM FIGHTERS
SCRIPTURE
Isaiah 61:1-4
READING III: "Born To Be Free"
African-American leaders were active in antislavery politics from the beginning. Frederick Douglass started life as a slave on a Maryland plantation. He never knew his father and saw his mother only a few times before her death. Although slaves were forbidden education, the boy managed to learn to read and write.
In 1838 at the age of 21, he fled slavery. In the years ahead, his growth was spectacular. As lecturer, editor, writer, organizer, diplomat, he earned the leadership of black people in their struggle for emancipation.
Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree about 1797, the property of a Dutch master in New York. While she was still a child, Isabella's parents died, and she was sold and resold, finally becoming the property of one John Dumont in whose service she remained until New York State freed its slaves in 1827. But Isabella's master did not want her to go, so she ran away. One day in 1843, Isabella decided to leave her job as a domestic servant to travel. "The Spirit calls me," she said, "I must go." With only a few coins in her purse, Isabella departed, feeling the call, although free herself, to preach and teach against slavery, under a symbolic new name. She declared, "The Lord gave me Sojourner because I was to travel up and down the land showin' the people their sins and bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare truth unto people."
Harriet Tubman was an even greater irritant to the slave-owners than Sojourner Truth, for not only did she make speeches in the North but time after time she want into the South and brought slaves out to freedom. At one time $40,000 was offered for her capture. Born a slave on the Eastern shore of Maryland about 1823, when she was about 25 she ran away, leaving her husband, parents, brothers and sisters behind. On nineteen secret trips into the dangerous South, Harriet Tubman guided more than 300 slaves to freedom, including her aged parents. Harriet Tubman was one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad. She also served as a spy for the Union army during the Civil War. She was called the Moses of her people.
HYMN
Come Out de Wilderness
MOVEMENTS AND CAUSES
SCRIPTURE
Isaiah 49:8-10
READING IV: "Pathways Old And New"
The "underground railroad" was a term for the series of stopping points that ran northwards along many paths. Friends -- black and white -- gave them food and a bed for the night and started them toward the next station. As time went on, a free black person's chance to get an education improved in the North. The Massachusetts abolitionists stopped segregated schools in Boston and New Bedford by 1855. Most other Jim Crow -- that is, officially segregated -- Northern states maintained separate schools much longer. Black people who migrated to the Midwest generally had to wait until after the Civil War for free public education.
"Freedom for all, or chains for all." That was the cry of the abolitionists to Lincoln. They tried to make it clear that the Union cause would not be a triumph unless the war was fought to end slavery. African-Americans had to fight a double battle, against slavery in the South, and against Jim Crow in the North.
By the time the Civil War ended 180,000 Black troops had served in Lincoln's army and 30,000 in the Navy. A quarter of a million had helped the military as laborers. To put an end to slavery, 38,000 black people gave their lives in battle.
HYMN
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
SCRIPTURE
Galatians 3:26-29; 5:1
READING V: "The March For Freedom"
The march on Washington on August 28, 1963, was a major milestone in a journey that had begun with the first slave ship in 1619. The impetus for the march developed from a single action taken by Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955. Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus resulted in a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was elected by the people to lead the movement that resulted from these actions and brought a voice of reason and a cry for equality through peaceful resistance by African-Americans.
Although the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution had in 1870 prohibited racial discrimination in voting, nearly a century later, few black Southerners had ever been allowed to cast a ballot. The civil rights bill sent to Congress in 1963 held great promise for ending discrimination in restaurants and other public accommodations, but it offered no comprehensive remedy for discrimination in voting rights.
When Martin Luther King, Jr., traveled to Norway in December 1963 to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, he referred to himself as "trustee for the 22 million Negroes of the United States of America who are engaged in a creative battle to end the night of racial injustice." As a messenger of the truth, Dr. King stood for all that is Christian, all that is Christ-like -- peace and equality for all.
And the fight goes on. The same diversity of culture with which their foreparents came to America, has enabled black people to be inventors and poets and singers and politicians and sportspersons and dancers and businessmen and comedians and preachers. Most importantly, black people are Christians. African-Americans have made major contributions in all areas of American life. Yet inequality, injustice, and opposition prevail in all walks of American life against African-Americans. It can be found in schools and colleges, in businesses, and in the Church. The Voting Rights Acts of 1965 saw more social change, more court decisions, and more legislation in the name of civil rights than any decade in our nation's history. Those changes were forced by millions of Americans who, with a sense of service and justice, kept their eyes on the prize of freedom.
As the journey for freedom for all people continues, we are all called join the march, so that the whole of God's creation, all of God's creatures, can experience the wholeness that life in Christ gives to all.
HYMN
I Want Jesus To Walk With Me
PRAYER
God of peace and justice, we crave the peace of your presence in our lives and in our world. We need the freedom from oppression that true justice brings. We long for an end to conflict and violence of self and against one another.
Grant us grace that our lives may reflect the peace that passes understanding. Give us the assurance of your love that we might create pathways of peace and justice for all people. May we know the power of your spirit that we may grow into your likeness and give you honor and praise. Amen.
HYMN
We Shall Overcome
BENEDICTION
"For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay." (Habakkuk 2:3)
