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A UU Minister’s perspective on Reperations

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A UU Minister’s perspective on Reperations

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First Parish in Needham Unitarian Universalist

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Northern Reparations

Rev. Catie Scudera
First Parish in Needham
February 3, 2019

Growing up in northern Virginia, the existence of slavery in our country was an inescapable fact. I can't remember if it was introduced to us as early as our fourth grade Virginian history class - though in retrospect, I wonder what the black students of my elementary school wore on "colonial dress-up" day - but surely the history of slavery was taught in our required American history courses in middle and high school. Just as surely, our teachers did not describe to us in thorough detail the brutality of slavery: the devastation in Africa of so many people and resources stolen; the extent of disease and death in "the Middle Passage"; the cruelty of the so-called "masters" and overseers; how families were routinely torn apart across neighborhoods, towns, state lines, and oceans; and, how lack of freedom impacts the body, mind, and soul of generations.

We are entering the 400 th year since the first Africans were brought to the American colonies, specifically to the Jamestown settlement in my home state of Virginia. These enslaved people were Angolans, and had been taken by Portuguese slavers before their ships were raided by British pirates, who took the Angolans prisoner and sold them in Virginian port cities.

For myself, reflecting on Virginian slavery while living in Massachusetts reminds me of a Henry David Thoreau classic, his 1854 essay Slavery in Massachusetts. The essay was based on a speech our Unitarian spiritual ancestor gave that same year at an anti-slavery rally after the "deportation" and re-enslavement of black Bostonian Anthony Burns due to the Fugitive Slave Act (which itself was signed by one of our own Unitarian presidents, Millard Fillmore).

Thoreau began like this: "I lately attended a meeting of the citizens of Concord, expecting... to speak on the subject of slavery in Massachusetts; but I was surprised and disappointed to find that what had called my towns[folk] together was the destiny of Nebraska, and not of Massachusetts, and that what I had to say would be entirely out of order. I had thought that the house was on fire, and not the prairie; but though several of the citizens of Massachusetts are now in prison for attempting to rescue a slave... not one of the speakers at that meeting expressed regret for it; not one even referred to it! It was only the disposition of some wild lands a thousand miles off which appeared to concern them. The inhabitants of Concord are not prepared to stand by one of their own bridges, but talk only of taking up a position on the highlands beyond the Yellowstone River."

In this 400 th anniversary year of slavery in the North American colonies, I don't want to make that same mistake. Let's talk about our own "bridges," the "house on fire," here in Massachusetts.

In 2017, the Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism organizing collaborative challenged Unitarian Universalist congregations to reflect on how white supremacy lives on in our institutions. For the second "UU White Supremacy Teach-In," the organizers asked us to research the history of black membership in our institutions and black residents in our localities. As we here in Needham prepared for the second Teach-In, I dutifully read the Wikipedia entry on Needham's census records and demographics, and I typed into Google: "Needham slavery." Thanks to Google Books, I began to pull on a thread about slavery in Needham which has unraveled my assumption that slavery didn't happen here in our small, poor New England farming town.

What I'm about to share with you, you may find disturbing, unbelievable, and shocking. I know I found it so, as did other members of our congregation who helped me with this research: Jeanette Anderson, Marianne McGowan, Becky Siebens, and Tad Staley.

What I first uncovered in late 2017 was First Parishioner George Kuhn Clarke's History of Needham, Massachusetts, 1711-1911, a 200 th anniversary history of our town. I have a physical copy, which, to my memory, was gifted to me by our own Jamie Turbayne. What I had never noticed before was that on page 565 begins a chapter on slaves in Needham. Interestingly, in my paper copy, that chapter's pages are "unopened," which means the binder did not perform the cut to allow the pages to be opened and read. So, I'm not the first to have not read this chapter.

George Kuhn Clarke wrote, "The institution of human slavery never flourished in Needham, but a few blacks were held in bondage here, as the Church records and inventories of estates testify. At the time of the War of the American Revolution, Captain William Faris, a Loyalist, and William Bowdoin, Esq., were the only slave holders in town, and were each taxed for one slave. [Though, the late Horace Mann stated that he found the names of four slaves of Captain Faris:- Jack, who went to England in 1779, Sylvia, who was sold to Sir Henry Frankland, Terence, who died of the smallpox, and Phebe... {who} was supported by the Faris family in her old age.] In 1775, 'two negro children belonging to Captain William Faris named Prince and Silvia' were baptized by the minister of the First Church."

(That's us!)

I was horrified, and did not know what to do with this information. I needed time to think, reflect, and recalibrate. It had never occurred to me that slavery happened here.

Speaking with Becky and Marianne from our Racial Justice Task Force, we decided to perform further research and share the beginnings of what we found with all of you through worship and adult education events during this Black History Month. Our research is not complete, but here's what we can tell you:

Our Archives Committee chair, Jeanette Anderson, has yet to find much information about William Bowdoin, whether he was part of First Parish, or who he held in bondage. Captain Faris, Jeanette learned, was not a member of this congregation - he was an Anglican who attended services in Cambridge and was formally excused from paying taxes to First Parish in Needham. We don't know why, then, he had Sylvia and Prince baptized here by our second minister, Reverend Samuel West, especially as West would become a founding member of the American Unitarian Association and, by our understanding, was devoutly anti-slavery.

I'll admit, when I learned Captain Faris was Episcopalian, I felt relieved! I actually thought to myself, "Ah, he's someone else's problem!" Isn't that awful?

But, the same week Jeanette uncovered Faris's affiliation, Tad, Marianne, Becky, and I met with Dr. Gloria Greis, the Executive Director of the Needham History Center and Museum. Dr. Greis has always been a generous partner to First Parish and the Town of Needham in uncovering, preserving, and sharing our history, and we asked her specifically about Prince and Sylvia.

She found so much more.

At this meeting, Dr. Greis handed us copies of two documents: The first, a transcription of two 1890 handwritten letters from Robert Mansfield, who grew up in Needham and attested that he had met a "full blooded African" named Boston Fude, who, with his wife Jenney and their friend Primas King, had previously been enslaved by Charles Deming's family of West Needham, now Wellesley. (Interestingly, Clarke's 1911 history mentions Boston Fude by name as a "free negro" living in Needham in the early 1800's, without mentioning that he had been enslaved before slavery was outlawed in the Commonwealth.) Mansfield concluded one of his letters, "[Boston] and his wife deserve a written monument... at the hands of the citizens of Needham, and especially of Wellesley."

Again, I felt comfortably removed from slavery in Needham, knowing that the Deming slaveholders were really from Wellesley. Not that the separate West Needham church even existed until 1798 nor Wellesley as a separate town until 1881, but still, I felt a comfortable remove.

But, the second document Dr. Greis gave us was from the Vital Records of Needham, a list of births, baptisms, and deaths recorded primarily by our first two ministers, Revs. Jonathan Townsend and Samuel West. In both the births & baptisms and the deaths sections, at the very end of the alphabetized list of white family names, is a separate category for "negroes/servants." Under births and baptisms, we found Sylvia and Prince, both baptized on August 19, 1775. Also listed were: Rose, a "negro child of Mrs. Sarah Deming's," baptized here by Rev. Townsend in May 1750; Jethro, a "negro child - servant to Nathaniel Tolman," baptized here by Rev. Townsend in 1744, and then two more "negro" children without white families attached to them, Violet and Phoebe, both baptized here by Rev. West in 1768 and 1773, respectively.

As I said before, the Demings lived in West Needham, and it's possible that Boston and Rose were enslaved by the same Deming family; there were two Deming families in Needham both with a patriarch named Charles, but only one Charles was married to a Sarah. The Tolman family who enslaved the child Jethro lived right here in "East" Needham in the historic Tolman-Gay House at Central Avenue and Gay Street. Nathaniel Tolman's father, also named Nathaniel, was one of the original members of this congregation, signing the church covenant in 1720 when Rev. Townsend arrived.

On the death rolls for "negroes/servants," we found Rose again, who died just a year after her baptism, and three other "negro children" who died in the 1750's nameless, "belonging to" Andrew Gardner, Samuel Glover, and Jonathan Gay. According to Jeanette's research, Andrew Gardner is not on our church rolls, but two other Gardners (Lucy and Elizabeth) are. Samuel Glover is not in our church rolls, but Lydia Glover, possibly his mother, is; Samuel himself died young in 1756 in the French and Indian War, leaving a widow and young son, also named Samuel. However, Jonathan Gay's family was closely tied to First Parish, donating money for the purchase of our beloved Paul Revere Bell for the 1811 100 th anniversary of the town.

I must lift up, there were so many children enslaved here - I cannot help but wonder, heartbroken: Where were their parents? Twentieth-century historian William Piersen wrote that in New England, enslaved children were often brought up from the West Indies, where the work was too harsh for many children to survive. Furthermore, Piersen wrote that New England slaveholders were not wealthy enough to enslave whole families, so they typically "regarded black babies as an unproductive expense... [and] were willing to sell or give away their slaves' children for other masters to raise." And, we know from Clarke's 1911 history that there were many "free mulattos" in Needham in the early nineteenth-century, after slavery was outlawed; like in the South, some of these children may have been born of their so-called "masters." There is no implication from any source of a happy family picture for these enslaved Needham children.

There was one more name on the Vital Records death rolls, a name that disturbed me greatly: Homer, called the "negro servant" of Reverend Jonathan Townsend, the first minister of First Parish in Needham.

I did not want to believe that our first minister was a slaveholder. I wanted Homer to be an indentured servant, or a free black worker, or any servitude status but enslaved.

My alma mater, Harvard Divinity School, maintains the archives of our denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association. I reached out to Gloria Korsman, a Unitarian Universalist at First Parish in Cambridge herself and a research librarian at Harvard Divinity's library to see if she could find me more information about Rev. Townsend and Homer.

Within the span of a single morning, she found the information I dreaded: in a biographical volume of Harvard College graduates, it states that Rev. Townsend's father-in-law, Captain Gregory Sugars, "provided the means for building the pleasant parsonage which still stands at the corner of Nehoiden Street and Central Avenue. Perhaps from the same source came the minister's slave, Homer, who for periods served the parish as sexton." Indeed, a quick search for the name "Homer" in Clarke's 1911 history revealed this sentence: "On June 5, 1754, the Rev. Mr. Townsend was granted 1 [pound], 1 [shilling], 4 [pence], for his servant's taking care of the meeting-house in 1753; this was probably the negro Homer, who died April 9, 1754."

The Harvard biography went on that one month after Homer's death at the May town meeting, Rev. Townsend threatened to resign unless he received better pay in reliable currency. Though the biographer, university archivist Clifford Shipton, didn't make the connection, I wonder if Townsend could only "manage" serving First Parish for as long as he did because he held an enslaved person in his home. I wonder if our first meetinghouse would have stood as long as it did if it hadn't been for Homer's unpaid labor. I wonder how much of the foundation of our church rests on Homer's shoulders, not to mention the labor of all those enslaved black children whose enslavers paid taxes to our congregation.

At the suggestion of our administrator Susanna Whitman, I spoke with local Euro-American Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. David Pettee, who has done extensive personal research on his New England family's ties to slavery, not unlike the family of the film Traces of the Trade. Rev. Pettee told me that it is common in 20 th-century history books for slavery to become more vague, more watered down, more whitewashed. A Massachusetts census in the 1750's demonstrates that over 100 towns in our Commonwealth held slaves, yet it seems to be a missing fact from our public school history classes. For example, we know that George Kuhn Clarke knew about every slaveholding family in town when Rev. Townsend was minister because in the book, the New England Historical and Genealogical Registry, it was George Kuhn Clarke himself, identified as the "sometimes clerk of the First Church of Needham," who typed Rev. Townsend's handwritten records for the collection. In that Registry, Rev. Townsend's exact words on the death roll were: "April 9, 1754 My Negro-servant Homer died." Clarke knew, and left it out. I wonder if Clarke didn't want to remind the Needham townsfolk that the first minister of his congregation had held a person in slavery.

If it hadn't been for Black Lives of UU, I may have never found the entry on slavery in Clarke's history. We owe that organization our thanks for pushing us to find the truth.

But, we know there's much we still don't know. We don't have the full picture yet, by any stretch.

For one: Jeanette found in Clarke's history a note on another 1770's West Needhamite, Josiah Upham, being paid "for his negros' enlisting" in the Revolutionary War. How many more "negroes/servants" were enslaved here in our town whose names we don't know?

And another: Clarke lists "free negroes" and Native Americans living in our town in the early 1800's; we already feel confident that at least one, Boston Fude, was a formerly enslaved person. Though these "free negroes" have not been the current focus of our research, I'm sure they have stories to uncover and tell. For example, one 18 th-century couple, the formerly enslaved mixed-race Jupiter Coffee and his wife, the white Needhamite Deborah Alden, had their own son Ishmael Coffee's interracial marriage to Hannah Gay of Medway challenged in court nearly fifty years after their wedding in Rhode Island. There are, it seems, Coffee family descendants still living today. There are more stories to tell, and possible relationships to build.

And, there's much we may never know about the enslaved people of Needham whose names have come down through history: Where did they come from? Who were their families? Where are they buried? Do they have descendants?

Obviously, this isn't the only history of racism in Needham or our white residents ties to the slave trade. Slavery in 18 th-century Needham doesn't include Needham's entanglement with slavery and Jim Crow sharecropping through our major knitting industry in Needham Heights; nor our part in the unfair federal mortgage policies best known as redlining; nor the revelations through the recent Needham Equity Audit that students of color face regular incidents of racism, from overt, direct hatred to finding racist graffiti, again, in their schools' bathrooms. Nor does slavery in 18 th-century Needham include 17 th-century slavery, when we were still Dedham, nor does it include the other founding sin of Euro-American civilization: the genocide of indigenous peoples.

But, slavery in Needham, specifically, seems to have been buried, forgotten. I hope that we can recalibrate our assumptions about our town and Commonwealth; reconcile with this history; and work within ourselves and with our town to make some sort of reparation to the enslaved residents of Needham.

Modern black American author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a long piece for The Atlantic about reparations for black Americans after slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and more: "What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt. What I'm talking about is more than recompense for past injustices - more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I'm talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling 'patriotism' while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of history... An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane."

In that same article, Coates documents how one of the earliest successful reparations for enslavement was won by Massachusetts free black woman Belinda Royall, who sued her former enslaver Isaac Royall through the newly-formed Massachusetts legislature in 1783. Her petition pleaded, "The face of your Petitioner, is now marked with the furrows of time, and her frame bending under the oppression of years, while she, by the Laws of the Land, is denied the employment of one morsel of that immense wealth, apart whereof hath been accumilated by her own industry, and the whole augmented by her servitude. WHEREFORE, casting herself at your feet if your honours, as to a body of men, formed for the extirpation of vassalage, for the reward of Virtue, and the just return of honest industry - she prays, that such allowance may be made her out of the Estate of Colonel Royall."

Belinda was granted just over 15 pounds from our legislature. And, the Isaac Royall House of Medford still stands, its large slave quarters intact, as a museum and testament to this time.

Coates admits that he doesn't have the answer to how reparations should be made today; he humbly explains he is just one person documenting a need, but needs others, at all levels of society and government, to seriously consider the reparations question. We, First Parish in Needham, have the power now to decide what to do next, now that we know of the enslavement of men like Homer and of children like Sylvia and Prince.

We can deliberate amongst ourselves in the coming weeks and months about where we go from here, and reach out to other local Unitarian Universalist congregations doing the hard work of raising up uncomfortable and upsetting racist history, such as in Cambridge, Cape Ann, and Nashua. We can choose to ask ourselves, How do we honor these enslaved Needham residents within our own congregation? How do we broach the subject with the children and youth of the church? Do we perform further research, and what do we do with what we find? Should we put up a stone in our memorial garden, or name one of our rooms after those whose names we know? Should we reach out to the UU World, in the hope that our story will encourage other New England UU congregations to seek their own stories? How do we coordinate with the town for a lasting physical memorial to these enslaved people? How do we collaborate with the schools to ensure all our children learn that there was slavery even here in Needham?

There's so much we coulddo, and nothing at the outset is required or "right." So, I hope we all will join in the conversation, uncomfortable and upsetting as it may feel. Even today, Marianne McGowan, Becky Siebens, and Tad Staley will be available for conversation during social hour, and the Racial Justice Task Force plans to sponsor two discussion sessions this month to help all of us process what we've learned and bring us into action. Slavery in Needham and Restorative Justice will also be the topic of next month's Interfaith, Interracial Dialogue Potluck Dinner on March 24 th at Temple Beth Shalom.

Before we sing our closing hymn, I'd like for us to hold a moment of silence for the enslaved people of 18 th-century Needham. Would you take a deep breath with me before I read again their names? ...

Homer

Rose

Jethro

Phoebe

Prince

Sylvia

Violet

Boston

Jenney

Primas

And all those whose names are yet unknown...

We remember you, and we are sorry.

May we not forget them again, and honor the complexity of our past, striving for reconciliation, reparation, and a better future. Blessed be, and amen.

You may wish to follow up Rev. Scudera's sermon by reading the relevant portions of the following documents:

History of Needham, Massachusetts, 1711-1911: Including West Needham, Now Wellesley, George Kuhn Clarke .
Biographical Sketches of Those who Attended Harvard College in the Classes 1713-1721, Clifford K. Shipton
Vital Records of Needham, Massachusetts 1711-1845, Robert B. Hanson, Ed.

The New-England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1902 Vol. LVI.

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Northern Reparations - First Parish in Needham Unitarian Universalist

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Northern Reparations Rev. Catie Scudera First Parish in Needham February 3, 2019 Growing up in northern Virginia, the existence of slavery in our country was an inescapable fact. I can't remember if it was introduced to us as early as our fourth grade Virginian history class - though in retrospect, I wonder what the black [...]

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A central fact obscured by post-Civil War mythologies is that the northern U.S. states were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade right up to the war.

The slave trade in particular was dominated by the northern maritime industry. Rhode Island alone was responsible for half of all U.S. slave voyages. James DeWolf and his family may have been the biggest slave traders in U.S. history, but there were many others involved. For example, members of the Brown family of Providence, some of whom were prominent in the slave trade, gave substantial gifts to Rhode Island College, which was later renamed Brown University.

While local townspeople thought of the DeWolfs and other prominent families primarily as general merchants, distillers and traders who supported ship-building, warehousing, insurance and other trades and businesses, it was common knowledge that one source of this business was the cheap labor and huge profits reaped from trafficking in human beings.

The North also imported slaves, as well as transporting and selling them in the south and abroad. While the majority of enslaved Africans arrived in southern ports-Charleston, South Carolina was the largest market for slave traders, including the DeWolfs-most large colonial ports served as points of entry, and Africans were sold in northern ports including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Newport, Rhode Island.

The southern coastal states from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland were therefore home to the vast majority of enslaved persons. But there were slaves in each of the thirteen original colonies, and slavery was legal in the north for over two hundred years. While the northern states gradually began abolishing slavery by law starting in the 1780s, many northern states did not act against slavery until well into the 19th century, and their laws generally provided only for gradual abolition, allowing slave owners to keep their existing slaves and often their children. As a result, New Jersey, for instance, still had thousands of persons legally enslaved in the 1830s, and did not finally abolish slavery by law until 1846. As late as the outbreak of the Civil War, in fact, there were northern slaves listed on the federal census.

In the south, men, women and children were often forced to work on large plantations, which could employ the labor of hundreds or even thousands of enslaved Africans. In the north, farms were smaller and those farmers who owned slaves would generally have only a small number. However, it was fairly common during slavery in the north to find one or two slaves in the households of farmers, merchants, ministers, and others.

Sources: "Africans in America Part Two: Revolution." WGBH Interactive. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2narr1.html; David Eltis, Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson, and Herbert S. Klein, eds., The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM (Cambridge, 1999); Joanne Pope Melish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and "Race" in New England, 1780-1860 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998).

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Tracing Center | Northern Involvement in the Slave Trade

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A central fact obscured by post-Civil War mythologies is that the northern U.S. states were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade right up to the war. The slave trade in particular was dominated by the northern maritime industry. Rhode Island alone was responsible for half of all U.S.

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Slavery in New England

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by Rev. David Pettee

Here in the North, we have inherited a powerful historical amnesia when it comes to the memory of slavery. Where I live in Massachusetts, we still worship the stories of the Sons of Liberty. We still teach "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" to our school kids. Every third Monday in April is Patriot's Day, when we commemorate again that first shot fired on Lexington Green that was heard 'round the world. In Massachusetts our license plates remind us that we are the 'Spirit of America.' We are the good guys.

In 1754, the Crown requested that every city and town in Massachusetts report the number of slaves over the age of sixteen. 114 communities responded to the census. 109 recorded at least one slave. The town fathers of Boston dutifully recorded 989 slaves, representing nearly 9% of the population.

989 slaves? In Boston? How come I had to discover this fact by accident?

Within walking distance of where I work in downtown Boston, there are numerous buildings and sites that pay homage to Boston's storied colonial past. Every day on my way to work, I pass the Robert Gould Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial on Beacon St. Directly across the street from the memorial is the Massachusetts State House, built on property once owned by John Hancock. We all know John Hancock. Or do we? The plaque that mentions where his house once stood conveniently neglects to mention that Hancock was also a slaveholder.

Today, Bay Staters are very proud of our abolitionist past. We forget that in 1835, William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, was nearly murdered by an angry mob on the streets of Boston. In the 1960's, in the name of urban renewal, the office where the newspaper was published fell unceremoniously to the wrecking ball.

At the base of Beacon Hill in the Boston Public Gardens stands a statue of Charles Sumner, widely considered the most radical abolitionist in the United State Senate before the Civil War. In 1856, after Sumner was nearly caned to death in the Senate chambers by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks, hundreds of people sent money to Brooks so he could buy a new cane. It is quite understandable that many Massachusetts citizens were outraged! Few, however, questioned Sumner's outlandish claim made two years before, when he thundered on the Senate floor that, "No person was ever born a slave on the soil of Massachusetts."

I can still vividly remember the first time I recovered the forgotten story of slavery in my own family. In 2006, I innocently upgraded my Ancestry.com subscription and was stunned to find the 1774 Rhode Island census that indicated that my ancestor Edward Simmons owned four slaves in Newport, RI. I drove to Newport the following day to get to the bottom what was obviously some mistake.

It wasn't. Instead, I found eleven more Newport ancestors who enslaved Africans.

Fast forward to 2012. I have since discovered thirty additional slaveholding ancestors and one ancestor who was a captain of at least five voyages in the transatlantic slave trade. All these people lived only in New England.

So much for slavery as a Southern institution...

I first heard about the work of Joe McGill last year when I was in South Carolina co-representing Coming to the Table at the annual meeting of the National Genealogical Society. I was struck by Joe's vision of wanting to preserve the few existing slave quarters that are still standing in this country. Lifting up the history of any building forces us to reckon with the meaning of this structure. It is so easy to forget that slavery helped build the North because it is so hard to see that legacy any more.

When the invitation came to spend a night in the slave quarters at the Bush-Holley House in Greenwich, CT with Joe, Grant Hayter-Menzies and Dionne Ford Kurtti, I jumped at the prospect. I wanted to try to better understand what enslaved people must have experienced every night. I wanted to honor those who were forced to live here.

Even with a Thermarest pad under my sleeping bag, the floor felt so hard and unforgiving. While the attic offered some privacy, it was easy to hear noises from the floor below, and the creaking as people walked up and down the stairs. The people who lived in that attic through bitterly cold winters and oppressively hot summers must have spoken in a whisper, hoping to maintain as much dignity as they could-dignity that was constantly undermined by people just like my ancestors.

As I lay awake, I thought about Joe and Dionne, asleep on either side of me, and wondered what this experience must be like for them, sharing this space with two descendants of slaveholders. The rain that pitter-pattered on the roof was a timeless noise that helped me finally fall asleep. Startled by snoring, I awoke quite suddenly at 4am, all twisted in my sleeping bag, feeling hot, clammy and disoriented. Back in 1750, the people who lived in that attic were probably already in the kitchen baking bread by 4am, preparing breakfast for their masters.

Despite the enjoyable company, it was most certainly not a restful night.

To learn more about slavery in the North, click here.

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by Rev. David Pettee Here in the North, we have inherited a powerful historical amnesia when it comes to the memory of slavery. Where I live in Massachusetts, we still worship the stories of the Sons of Liberty. We still teach "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" to our school kids.

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Listen to this story about the Underground Railroad, then reflect:

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Listen to this story about the Underground Railroad, then reflect:

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How did it feel to hear the story of the danger a slave would experience on the Underground Railway?

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Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky

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“These three words have been said many times in many ways. And they still need to be said. Today.”

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Black Lives Matter. These three words have been said many times in many ways. And they still need to be said. Today.

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How does it feel to hear this story about love and diversity?

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How does it feel to hear this story about love and diversity?

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In My Mother’s House by Patricia Polacco

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The Power of Meditative Stories to Destress

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The Power of Meditative Stories to Destress

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Meditative Story combines extraordinary human stories with meditation prompts embedded into the storylines - all surrounded by breathtaking music. Think of it as an alternative way into a mindfulness practice, through vivid stories and cinematic music and production values. Meditative Story is an original series produced by WaitWhat and supported by our members. Our community tells us that they listen to the same episodes over and over again, and according to data provided by Apple Podcasts, Meditative Story may have the highest engagement of any podcast in the world. And that makes us proud!

Meditative Story combines extraordinary human stories with meditation prompts embedded into the storylines - all surrounded by breathtaking music. Think of it as an alternative way into a mindfulness practice, through vivid stories and cinematic music and production values. Meditative Story is an original series produced by WaitWhat and supported by our members. Our community tells us that they listen to the same episodes over and over again, and according to data provided by Apple Podcasts, Meditative Story may have the highest engagement of any podcast in the world. And that makes us proud!

Meditative stories

I appreciate the effort of Deron and his coworkers to do something kind and meaningful, and quiet. I love the music and the short guided meditations as well as the stories. The meditation leader, Rohan, has a soft, thoughtful, pleasant voice, and his suggestions are excellent.
I have been familiar with David Whyte and his poetry for many years, and first became aware of Meditative Story through him. The first story I listened to was his "We become the places we love." That story, as well as most of his other work, is spellbinding and beautiful.
I am a retired psychotherapist, and I think what many people need is to be able to calm themselves, and to be grateful for what they have, even if they are grieving. These stories, music, and meditations do just that.

A Rare Treat

This last year, as with many people, we have had to make changes to our business to survive. Meditation and mindfulness have played a big part of keeping me on track during the pandemic, I have been practicing meditation for about 15 years and can't imagine life without it. At times my meditation practice has been the one thing I can rely on and turn to, it has literally been a life saver for me. Your Meditative Story podcast resonates strongly with me, as I listen to the stories on the podcast I can feel my breathing deepen, my heartbeat relaxes and slows down. The time spent listening to Meditative Storyi is something that I now treasure, it is a rare treat. The stories are engaging and interesting, each one seems so personal. The presentation of the stories with the narration, sounds and guidance is grounding. The lack of advertising is something that feels right, I think it would completely ruin the atmosphere and benefits of Meditative Story if advertisements were present.

Khudson

I love meditative story! I've been listening around 2years, it always centers me. I've found a community where I belong. I've often re listened. I enjoy Rohan's wisdom & voice. I'm happy to become a member. I drink tea daily & have most of my life, so the partnership with tea drops is a win win for me!
Keep up the great work!

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‎Meditative Story combines extraordinary human stories with meditation prompts embedded into the storylines - all surrounded by breathtaking music. Think of it as an alternative way into a mindfulness practice, through vivid stories and cinematic music and production values. Meditative Story is an or...

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This is a classic improv game that teaches the value of accepting each others ideas and cooperating with one another. The game may be played in pairs onstage or with the whole group in a circle.

First, demonstrate this yourself by making a simple statement. Tell students that you are going to make up a conversation between two people in which every sentence (except the first one) starts with the words "Yes, and..." Additionally, every new statement should become more exaggerated, furthering the scene.

"The river is full of fish." (opening statement)
"Yes, and one of them is enormous."
"Yes, and he's swimming toward us."
"Yes, and he looks hungry."
"Yes, and we are trapped in this boat."
"Yes, and he looks more like a whale than a fish."
"Yes, and now the motor won't start."
"Yes, and he's about to swallow us."
"Yes and I just remembered that this boat is also a plane."
"Yes and lucky for you I just got my pilot's license."

Next, have a pair of students go onstage to play the game. Coach as necessary to keep the statements moving quickly while escalating the action. Call 'cut' when a particularly interesting or funny moment occurs. Ending on a high-note makes the actors feel better.

Here is how to play if students are in a circle: Have students make clear eye contact with someone and make a statement. The player he made eye contact with then makes eye contact with someone else and says, "YES, AND..." and builds on the statement.

What is the value of accepting each others ideas and building on them?
How did it feel to have your ideas accepted?
How does it feel when you have an idea and others don't like it or put it down?
How does this game help us become better actors?

*How can Drama Notebook give away so many free games? Well, what you see here is only the tippy tip of the giant iceberg of ideas, games, imagination and creativity that is inside.

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This drama warm-up is part of a collection of 40 classic drama games found on Drama Notebook.This is a classic improv game that teaches the value of accepting each others ideas and cooperating with one another. The game may be

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How Anansi stories were human trafficked to America

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How Anansi stories were human trafficked to America

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ADIDWAN, Ghana (Reuters) - Nana Assenso stands at the grave of his uncle, remembering the man he loved but also a past that has haunted his family for generations.

His uncle was called Kwame Badu, a name that has been passed on through the family in remembrance of an ancestor with that name who was captured and sold into slavery long, long ago.

"Growing up, I was told the story of two of my great-great-grand-uncles Kwame Badu and Kofi Aboagye who were captured and sold into slavery," says Assenso, 68, the chief of Adidwan, a village in Ghana's interior. He followed the family tradition and named his youngest son Kwame Badu.

This month marks 400 years since the first recorded African slaves arrived in North America to work plantations in English colonies. In the centuries after, European slave traders shipped millions of African men, women and children across the Atlantic Ocean. Many died in horrific conditions on the slave boats, while survivors endured a life of misery and backbreaking farm work.

For some of them, the terrible journey began here, deep inside Ghana. Captured by slavers, they were marched along dirt tracks for 200 kilometers (125 miles) to slave castles perched on the Atlantic Coast, where they boarded ships for North America. They never saw their homeland again.

From here in Adidwan, the slaves were forced south, passing through the gold-mining town of Obuasi.

Kwaku Agyei is a pastor and elder in Obuasi. He tells the story of the slave trade to young workers in his neighborhood, the indignity of it mixed with pride in his ancestors.

"They captured us because they realized we were very strong," the 71-year-old says. "They sent our ancestors to work on sugar plantations. The slave trade made us realize that the white man was cruel."

But many rulers of West African empires, such as the Ashanti kingdom, whose descendants still live in this part of modern-day Ghana, also profited, selling captured slaves in exchange for guns, cloth, alcohol and other Western manufactured goods.

"Our elders exchanged their children for 'nice things' like matchboxes," Agyei says.

But once again, his pride in his heritage shows through. "I can say our ancestors were the ones who developed America," he says.

Abdul Sumud Shaibu, 50, also lives in Obuasi and tells of his strong ancestors. He shows a photograph of his grandfather that he saved to his mobile phone. "My ancestors were giants," he says. "They were well-built and strong. Look at the height of my grandfather in this picture."

They did battle with slave raiders, he says. In those fights, sometimes they lost. And sometimes they were captured into slavery.

Near the journey's end in Ghana, the captives were given a last, ritual bath in a river before being sold. Today, the Assin Manso site is a sacred place of remembrance. In this area of mangrove swamps, an image of slaves chained by the feet promises, "Never again."

In the river, 75-year-old New Yorker Regis Thomson sits within circle with five other women from her church and prayed.

"When I think of what my ancestors had to go through..." the U.S. tourist says, adding that she would go back and tell of her experiences so today's children are made aware of their past. "We have a lot of work to do."

After they bathed in the river, the captives were then taken on the final leg of their journey in Ghana, to the last place they'd ever see in their homeland: slave forts on the Atlantic like the Cape Coast and Elmina castles.

Saviour Asante, 30, a hairdresser in Obuasi, had given little thought to slave history growing up. That changed with a visit to Cape Coast castle. "I cried the whole day," she says. "It was a very painful experience to hear these stories."

From the castles, where European authorities lived in comfort right above the dungeons that held the slaves, the captured Africans walked through the Door of No Return onto the ships that would take them to America.
reut.rs/2K7eBrQ

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museums & historic places (trbc level 5)

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Retracing a slave route in Ghana, 400 years on

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ADIDWAN, Ghana (Reuters) - Nana Assenso stands at the grave of his uncle, remembering the man he loved but also a past that has haunted his family for generations. His uncle was called Kwame Badu, a name that has been passed on through the family in remembrance of an ancestor with that name who was captured and sold into slavery long, long ago.

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What is our responsibility as storytellers and world shapers?

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How do stories help us understand the world around us?

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How do stories help us understand the world around us?

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Why is the spider such a powerful symbol for stories?

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The Magic Tree (1969) | An Animated African Folktale

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Anansi the Spider (1969) | Animated African Folk Tale

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Anansi and the Sky Kingdom (Animated Stories for Kids)

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Anansi and the Pot of Beans (Animated Stories for Kids)

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The spider Anansi was born through the Akan people of present-day Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

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Anansi Goes to Lunch (Animated Stories for Kids)