Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and Bishop Magness invite
Episcopal churches to take part in a national action to remember and
honor the first enslaved Africans who landed in English North America in
1619 by tolling their bells for one minute on Sunday, August 25 at 3:00
p.m. The national bell ringing is among the Healing Day events being
held at Fort Monroe National Monument to commemorate the 400th
anniversary
Watch Presiding Bishop Curry's video message here.
"The National Park Service is commissioning, and asking,
churches and people from around this country to commemorate and remember
that landing and the bringing of those first enslaved Africans to this
country by ringing bells. And if possible, by tolling the bells of
churches and to do so on August 25 at 3:00 in the afternoon," said
Curry. "I'm inviting us as The Episcopal Church to join in this
commemoration as part of our continued work of racial healing and
reconciliation. At 3:00 pm we can join together with people of other
Christian faiths and people of all faiths to remember those who came as
enslaved, who came to a country that one day would proclaim liberty. And
so we remember them and pray for a new future for us all."
The national bell ringing is among the Healing Day
events being held at Fort Monroe National Monument to commemorate the
400th anniversary of that landing.
"The 2019 commemoration of the arrival of the first enslaved
Africans to North America is for me a highly personal occasion," said
Bishop Magness. "As a descendent of slaveholders, and as a white male
who came of age in the racially polarized south during the 1950s and
1960s, I am painfully aware of my own complicity in furthering and
perpetuating the subjugation of my African American brothers and
sisters. At a time when the racial divide in this country seems to be
growing rather than diminishing, we are in dire need of a moment, an
event when we can stop and take stock of our responsibilities to bring
the races together, perhaps in a new manner that truly is an embrace of
what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ."
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