New Haven Independent

In a kind of secular sermon, by turns congratulatory and grimly challenging, Sen. Harp (pictured with the church pastor Dr. John Henry Scott, III and his son Julien) astonished some 75 parishioners — whose congregational forebears led the civil and human rights struggle for victims of La Amistad— with a finding she herself found astonishing:

“Do you know,” she said, “how the folks who plan ahead for the number of prison beds needed in the future make their calculations? The answer is that they look at third grade reading scores, because they are a predictor of the prison population of the future.”

Citywide, she said, only 37 percent of African American kids are on goal in all subjects, as opposed to 74 percent statewide, itself not such a great statistic.

In focusing on education before the city’s oldest black congregation, Harp continued pressing a theme that has sparked backlash from some in the education establishment — as evidenced by this article and comments thread.

The African-American trend lines in health are also of high concern, Harp reported. Infant mortality in New Haven among African-Americans is on a par with the rate in developing countries, and African-Americans are nearly three times as likely to get prostate cancer, or have a limb amputated as a consequence of diabetes. They’re twice as uninsured as whites and receive, she said, a lesser quality of health care, regardless of their income.

Harp ought to know. A celebrated advocate for children and families, she co- chairs the powerful state legislative budget committee, is a trained social worker, and serves as director of services for the homeless at Hill Health Center.

Harp spoke after numerous proclamations were read by Dawn Scott, one of the chairs of the anniversary committee (pictured with former Mayor John Daniels, a deacon of the church). The proclamations’ subjects ranged from the governor to the presidents of local colleges.

Mayor John DeStefano hit the congratulatory nail on the head: “A church doesn’t endure 188 years,” he said from the pulpit, “because of its buildings or ministers, but its values and faith across the generations. That’s the treasure that’s inherited, and how you spend it is what matters. And this church spends that treasure in a way that’s deeply meaningful to our city.”

History matters deeply at the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church because it informs the present. When it became the hub of support for the slaves who revolted aboard the Amistad in 1839, New Haven’s — and America’s — oldest organized African-American church was already 20 years old.

Among the modern achievements of the church that were cited by speakers were the creation of the Dixwell Community Q House in 1920s; in the 1930s, the first scouting troops for African-Americans; in the mid-20th century, creation of the Florence Virtue Homes, cooperatives homes in Dixwell; and Pastor Scott’s recent inauguration of a church-based wellness program.

“Let’s not forget the problems we’ve solved in the past,” said Sen. Harp, with an eye on the deep health, educational, and justice disparities afflicting the community today. She suggested that solutions to moral and value challenges taken up by government all too often drop the ball halfway to the goal when funding dries up. Therefore, she said, churches must lead again, as they have historically.

As usual on Sunday, there was rousing singing from the Joyful Praise Choir (pictured above), and the children came forward to present themselves and to be blessed and known by their additional “parents,” the members of the congregation.

Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ has about 175 members, including some whites and Latinos. It is immensely proud of its color-blindness and of its origins. A 19-year-old white man named Simeon Jocelyn (namesake of the park across from Humphrey’s East) and 24 free ex-slaves walked out of the Center Church because blacks were permitted, in 1820, to pray only in the segregated balcony.

Pastor Scott said that Dixwell Congregational is a sister church to Trinity Congregational in Chicago, to which presidential aspirant Barack Obama belongs.