We Have to Reconcile Our Past
From Amelie with Love
Dear Friends,
This week, members of the congregations of St. John’s and St. Peter’s have been busy preparing for our second “Annual” Juneteenth Collaboration. We are eager for this opportunity to celebrate together through song, prayer, marching, worship, fellowship, and feasting. I hope you will join us!
Last year Juneteenth became an official state holiday, and our two congregations were among a number of organizations that offered opportunities for gathering and celebration. But this year, the opportunities for gathering are far more numerous – torch lit walks, art displays, brewery concerts, yoga classes, festivals with food trucks, vendors and fireworks are examples – not only here in Richmond, but throughout the nation.
A particular “event” that struck me as I listened to the news reports is the upcoming Decca Records release of “Requiem for the Enslaved” composed by Carlos Simon, scheduled to coincide with Juneteenth, 2022. This evening-length piece, which infuses spirituals with the form of a liturgical mass, tells the story of the 272 enslaved persons sold to pay the debts of Georgetown University, where Simon serves as Assistant Professor of Music. I was so moved by the story and Simon’s composition that I want to share it with you.
The Georgetown sale took place in 1838. None of the human chattel who worked the fields in Maryland to support the school were spared. Husbands, wives, grandparents, children, babies: all were auctioned off, then loaded onto a boat bound for New Orleans and three plantations near Baton Rouge. The sale generated $3.3 million in contemporary dollars for the Maryland Jesuits.
In 2016 Georgetown started researching the school’s debt to slavery, propelled by student protests. Genealogists traced the families of those enslaved, and students and professors began making regular trips to Louisiana to visit descendants. When Simon joined the faculty last year he decided, “I have to be a part of this conversation.” He journeyed to Bayou Maringouin, met with descendants, examined the documents from the time, bills of sale and shipping manifests detailing the human cargo. “I talked with a lot of the descendants before I wrote a note.”
Simon discovered that the first four notes of the old spiritual, “Oh When the Saints,” correspond to the first notes in an ancient Gregorian chant, and he meshes these elements in a gospel-infused Catholic mass. His Requiem begins with an invocation featuring a low flute, then a troubled trumpet, intoning “The Saints,” as voices of Georgetown students recite the names of the enslaved. They ask “Eternal rest give unto them oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.” Throughout the recording, spoken word artist Marco Pave asks, “What does it mean if your body was never free? What happens to the soul of the slave if the shackles release?”
Carlos Simon is now on staff at a university that profited from slavery, but he said the students and faculty are determined to rectify that history. “We have to do better, we have to reconcile with our past,” he said.
May this be true for us all,
Amelie+
