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Churches want Amistad to make lasting impression

September, 2003
By Nancy S. Taylor

From the Berkshires to the South Shore, churches across the Massachusetts Conference are working to make sure the impact of the Freedom Schooner Amistad’s visit to Boston is a lasting one.

The Quincy Point Congregational Church UCC has teamed up with the National Park Service and local library to plan a “prelude event” to the visit. It will use exhibits and speakers to educate the community about the Amistad incident, including its connections with John Quincy Adams and the Congregational church.

In Greenfield, the Second Congregational Church UCC is working with the local Interfaith Council to plan a series of Amistad-related events that will open up discussion on the issues that have arisen as the community’s demographics have changed.

And at the First Congregational Church in Shrewsbury UCC, an Amistad night of storytelling and singing will kick off a continuing effort to connect parishioners with their denomination’s heritage.

In all these churches, organizers say they want to make sure the lessons of the Amistad incident linger long after the ship sets sail.

“We’re going to try to think of this as more than a one month event, but maybe a six-month or year-long event,” said Anne Hoffmann, associate pastor of the Shrewsbury church.

She said the September dinner will kick off efforts to look at the Amistad story through worship, church school and mission giving. The church is also planning to send two busloads to the MACUCC Amistad Celebration Day on October 25th.

Hoffmann said the proceeds from the dinner will go to benefiting the historically black colleges founded by the American Missionary Association. The AMA, which was started by members of the original Amistad committee that formed to help the Mende captives, is now a part of the UCC.

“This dinner is a celebration of not simply the Amistad story, but the effect of the story on the church. This is an opportunity to think of ourselves as awash in a stream of history, to renew our conversation about our UCC identity,” Hoffmann said.

In Greenfield, Joan Vander Vliet said church leaders saw a great opportunity to address the current day issues that have arisen as more ethnic groups have settled in the area.

“Because the Amistad incident addressed issues of justice, and we have all these wonderful educational materials, we thought this would be a terrific time to take the message that has come from the Amistad and apply it to today’s concerns in the community,” said Vander Vliet, who is spearheading the effort.

Vander Vliet said the church plans to show Steven Spielberg’s movie, Amistad, and To Kill a Mockingbird and follow the screenings with discussions.

The town’s Interfaith Council is also working on plans for a community forum on the community’s changing ethnicity, and an ecumenical worship service.

“We’ve got the opportunity to address important issues,” Vander Vliet said. “We’ve got three buses going to the Amistad event – this lets us take that a step further.”
Quincy Point Pastor Ann Suzedell said as soon as she heard the Conference was bringing the Amistad to Boston, she knew the church had to do something because of the strong Quincy connections.

Quincy’s own John Quincy Adams argued the case of the Mende people before the US Supreme Court, winning their freedom. The captives had been illegally sold into slavery, then charged with mutiny and murder after killing their captors aboard the Amistad. In thanks, the freed captives later presented Adams with an inscribed Bible, which is part of the collection at the Adams National Historic Park in Quincy.

Suzedell contacted the Adams park, which had already heard about the visit, and they enthusiastically agreed to co-sponsor an event. The Thomas Crane Public Library also came on board.

Anticipating Amistad: A Prelude Event will be held Sunday, October 12, from noon to 4 PM at the Adams National Historic Park. Participants will be able to view the Mende Bible and other artifacts, and hear presentations on:

• The Amistad Defense, by John Quincy Adams biographer Lynn Hudson Parsons;
• The Congregational Connection, by Congregational Library historian Hal Worthley,
• The Mende People by anthropologist Joseph Opala.

There will also be a teach-in by students of Quincy’s Broad Meadows Middle School, which has received national recognition for its advocacy work against child slavery, particularly in Pakistan. And, there will be hands-on children’s activities led by children’s television personality Ron Daise.

“When we began on this, I thought we’d have a good educational event and now I’m in the place where I think we’ll have an inspiring event,” Suzedell said.

She said that when members of her church returned from the Conference Annual Meeting with Amistad buttons featuring the phrase “Voices of Justice,” that became a theme for the event organizers.

“There will be a human rights presentation that week at the library, and they will have reading lists,” she said. “And we’re thrilled to have the chance to make the connections with the Congregational church. That connection was missed in the Spielberg movie, so it has been missed in the public mind.”

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