Allan Appel Photo
Gardner, Streets, and Hughes in back row with kid choristers.
Slavery still exists in the prison-industrial complex. Voting rights have been reversed. But we can prevail against systemic evils — because we have done it before right here in New Haven.
That history lesson with contemporary resonance highlighted a sermon that kicked off a three-year celebration of the historic Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ as it moves towards its 200th anniversary in 2020.
Saying that “the oppressive side of history is seeking to repeat itself” these days, guest speaker Rev. Michelle Hughes Sunday addressed 100 congregants at the current home, built in 1967, of the country’s oldest African-American Congregational church.
The church is setting out on a three-year campaign hailing its history, which includes a role in the abolition struggle and the victory for human rights that was the Amistad case. The congregation is also thinking in practical terms about the future of its mission: Specifically, whether to undertake a major renovation or raze its modernist building and embark on building a new structure on its site across from the planned new Q House.
In either instance, Rev. Frederick Streets, who has helmed the congregation since 2011, estimated the cost to be no less than about $800,000.
Hughes and Streets in front of the fundraising tree.
The point of Sunday’s launching service, specifically the 197th anniversary was a reminder both of the 120-member church’s deep history in the battle for universal rights of human beings and its specific role in New Haven history.
In an interview before he took to the dais, Rev. Streets said that the church has played a pivotal role in developing a black middle class in town during the decades between 1950 and 1980; that it spawned economic development in, among other achievements, building nearby elderly housing — as well as giving the land for the original Q‑House; and that from its membership civic leaders have emerged.
“The first black mayor of New Haven was president of our board of deacons —John Daniels,” Streets recalled.
The program featured inspirational music and hymns and a moving, textured rendition of Louis Armstrong’s “Black and Blue” by Rev. Hughes’ friend, the singer Arzula Gardner.
Longtime Amistad Committee Chair Al Marder, at right.
Before Rev. Hughes spoke, church member Charles Warner, Jr. gave a thumbnail history lesson. He traced the congregation’s roots to 1820 when white abolitionist Simeon Joceyln and two dozen members of Center Church marched out, eventually to form Dixwell. because they no longer wanted to sit only in the Center Church balcony.
“God showed no favor to his children based on color,” is how Warner paraphrased the simple but revolutionary central sentiment of that 1820 moment.
The same people, including Dixwell’s early pastors, helped establish the American Missionary Association. That in turn led to the founding of the Historically Black Colleges all over the American South in the last half of the 19th century.
Those schools for over 100 years trained men who had been in bondage to take control of their own lives and destiny and to become the African-American community’s leaders, he said.
Hughes, who was representing the UCC Church in Connecticut, warned that “the oppressive side of history seeks to repeat itself.” That’s why “many of us are feeling ‘black and blue’,” she said referencing the song, which includes this refrain: ” God looks at my skin/ I’m lovely to him … God knows why I’m black and blue.”
Charles Warner, Jr. offering thumbnail profile of Dixwell’s legacy.
Hughes called the present political moment “an era of De-Construction.” She said it’s critical to remember whose shoulders and sacrifices people in relative comfort today stand upon. She urged people to stay in touch with the universal message of the Biblical texts — her chapter and verse came from Deuteronomy 8: 11 – 20 — particularly at a time “when those who say they believe in gospel [also] champion hate and bigotry.”
“As we remember the journey of the Amistad slaves, we have to remember that the slave trade didn’t die … it turned into the prison-industrial complex, profiting off their bodies .… It was evil then, it is evil now. We must not forget where we have been, where we are now, we must not forget the thousands of black men and women who are incarcerated, so many for non-violent crimes.”
Hughes warned that even many Congregationalists do not sufficiently know Dixwell’s storied history and its involvement in social justice. “I hope we’ll have faith to challenge systemic injustice [again] and not become weary,” she said.
Streets said that the committee leading the rebuilding effort will be looking at first drawings as soon as next week and make the determination whether to proceed with a major renovation or a new building on the site. In either case, with an 18-month construction schedule, the goal is to cut the ribbon on a completed new facility in the bicentennial year, pf 2020.
