Massachusetts Conference Edition
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by Marlene Gasdia-Cochrane, Editor
February/March 2007
When newly elected Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick put his hand on a Bible and took his oath of office in January, he touched a part of Massachusetts Conference United Church of Christ history. Patrick, an African-American, chose to use a Bible given as a gift by a group of Africans to one of the UCC’s congregational forebears, President John Quincy Adams. Adams was among the American patriots who helped win the Africans’ freedom in the United States Supreme Court after they had been kidnapped and held captive on the Schooner Amistad, rebelled, and then imprisoned.
The Amistad story is significant history within the United Church of Christ, since many black and white Congregationalists in New England formed the Amistad Support Committee that aided the illegally captured and traded Africans, the Rev. Dr. J. Ben Guess, Office of General Ministries for the national setting of the UCC, wrote in a recent article. The Amistad Support Committee went on to continue its anti-racism work as the UCC-related American Missionary Association. That organization became part of the UCC’s Justice & Witness Ministries in 2000.
Before the Inauguration Ceremony, Patrick attended an Interfaith Prayer Service at Old South Meeting House in Boston. Conference Minister & President Jim Antal was one of the clergy invited to participate in that service, along with former Minister & President Nancy Taylor, now the senior pastor at Old South Church, United Church of Christ, in Boston.
The Amistad-UCC connection inspired an estimated 8,000 members and friends of Massachusetts Conference churches to attend the MACUCC Amistad Celebration Day in Boston in October, 2003. The hosting of the Freedom Schooner Amistad was a mission initiative by the Conference to help members and the community learn more about the tragic phenomenon of modern day slavery, and talk together about a wide range of issues of race and justice.