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John Brown Vigil
Dec. 3rd, 2009 05:48 pmShiloh Baptist Church, which is across the street from me, held a vigil the day of John Brown's execution (December 2, 1859) -- this was at their earlier, smaller, building, where they packed the house with 400 people. Most of the swells in the abolition community were at another vigil at National Hall (12th and Market).
For the 150th anniversary, Shiloh hosted a vigil service that combined elements of both 1859 events, drawn from accounts written in the diary of a contemporary, Amos Webber and chronicled in Nick Salvatore's book We All Got History. Having read the book, I mentioned this to the pastors at Shiloh as well as to the organizers of the John Brown commemoration, and put them in touch with each other. Oh, and I also loaned the pastors the book. They ran with it from there and put together this re-creation. Shiloh's current pastor, Rev. Edward Sparkman, took the role of Shiloh's pastor in 1959. Other attendees, portrayed by actors and living historians, were Lucretia Mott, Harriet Tubman, the Unitarianpastor and abolitionist William Furness, the poetess Frances Watkins Harper, abolitionist Robert Purvis, and singer Elizabeth Greenfield "The Black Swan." Oh, and the spirit of John Brown, standing on top of the full immersion baptist tank in the rear and spectrally lighted from below by a simple lamp that was plugged and unplugged by a church lady pressed into service as a stagehand. Ladies from Shiloh's choir and Shiloh's organist provided incidental music.
It was quite a moving event. I sat in the Amen Corner with the prayer and praise ladies, who slipped easily into a call-and-response time warp. Since Rev. Sparkman sounded remarkably like himself, despite his false mutton-chops, they responded with "uh-huh," "amen," and "preach it" and they sang along with every spiritual and hymn. This made it easy to lost track of the distinction between past and present...
The picture is crap, so I applied an artistic filter to cover some of my sins. But I'm happy to have it.
The organizers plan to put up the video of the event on YouTube. When they do, I think I'll send an email to Nick Salvatore, whom I met at an author talk and book-signing some years ago. I think he'll like this.
For the 150th anniversary, Shiloh hosted a vigil service that combined elements of both 1859 events, drawn from accounts written in the diary of a contemporary, Amos Webber and chronicled in Nick Salvatore's book We All Got History. Having read the book, I mentioned this to the pastors at Shiloh as well as to the organizers of the John Brown commemoration, and put them in touch with each other. Oh, and I also loaned the pastors the book. They ran with it from there and put together this re-creation. Shiloh's current pastor, Rev. Edward Sparkman, took the role of Shiloh's pastor in 1959. Other attendees, portrayed by actors and living historians, were Lucretia Mott, Harriet Tubman, the Unitarianpastor and abolitionist William Furness, the poetess Frances Watkins Harper, abolitionist Robert Purvis, and singer Elizabeth Greenfield "The Black Swan." Oh, and the spirit of John Brown, standing on top of the full immersion baptist tank in the rear and spectrally lighted from below by a simple lamp that was plugged and unplugged by a church lady pressed into service as a stagehand. Ladies from Shiloh's choir and Shiloh's organist provided incidental music.
It was quite a moving event. I sat in the Amen Corner with the prayer and praise ladies, who slipped easily into a call-and-response time warp. Since Rev. Sparkman sounded remarkably like himself, despite his false mutton-chops, they responded with "uh-huh," "amen," and "preach it" and they sang along with every spiritual and hymn. This made it easy to lost track of the distinction between past and present...
The picture is crap, so I applied an artistic filter to cover some of my sins. But I'm happy to have it.
The organizers plan to put up the video of the event on YouTube. When they do, I think I'll send an email to Nick Salvatore, whom I met at an author talk and book-signing some years ago. I think he'll like this.
