Moving forward on race
December, 2003
The Pilgrim Congregational Church in Sherborn has been involved in an urban-suburban partnership with the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain for years. In that time, the two churches have held monthly meetings at one another’s churches, worked on Habitat for Humanity projects together, traded preachers and sent delegates to one another’s women’s retreats.
But despite that relationship, they’ve rarely discussed the obvious: race.
“Our group has focused mostly on fellowship. We’ve done a lot of feel-good things,” said Margaret Robinson, who was involved in starting the partnership. “And we’ve had good discussions about the Bible. But in the back of my mind, I’ve always thought ‘we really need to talk about race. We need to work on this.’”
The group finally found a way to start that conversation after 15 members of Pilgrim Church went to Boston together to visit the Museum of Afro American History and to tour the Freedom Schooner Amistad while she was in Boston.
“They knew we had been there, and agreed that it would be good to have as a topic,” she said. So at the group’s regular November meeting, they had a frank, open discussion about slavery, racism and prejudice. They talked about how they first learned of slavery, and about modern day slavery in Sudan.
“It was really a wonderful beginning, and opening,” Robinson said. “They seem anxious to continue the conversation, and so do we. This is one of the most enriching things I’ve ever been involved in.”
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