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Friends United Meeting |
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March 1999
A Friend on the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage
By Skip Scheil
Skip Schiel, a Friend from Boston, walked on the first leg of the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage from Massachusetts to New Orleans. The Pilgrimage sought to trace, in reverse, the "middle passage" of the "triangular" slave trade. During the 16th to 18th centuries, merchants traded rum for African captives who were taken to the Caribbean to sell for molasses which, in turn, was taken to New England and Europe to be made into rum.
"I have said the meetings of the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] for quite a while were something hellish....We discovered that each one of us had a great deal of baggage that apartheid had put on our shoulders and that our relations showed this. But God has been good. I mean we walked through the valley of the shadow of death together in a way. And we emerged on the other side."
Desmond Tutu, chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission,
and honorary head of the board of advisors of
the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage.
Nearly four months into the year-long Pilgrimageafter we were treated to a private meeting with Reverend TutuI ask, is the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage a living prayer or a living hell? We mirror the larger United States society. For instance, white privilege operates in our pilgrim community, exacerbated by the slightly larger proportion of whites to blacks. Among the African American pilgrims, whose ancestors were forcibly imported into this country via the middle passage, racially based suffering is enormously deeper than for the European-derived pilgrims. For some black pilgrims, rage seems to be close to the surface. For white pilgrims, guilt seems closer.
An example of the rage surfaced as we were finishing dinner in the basement of First Iconium Church in Atlanta. One of the pilgrims banged on a pot, demanded our attention, and then spoke harshly about purported racism within the Pilgrimage. Another exclaimed, "This Pilgrimage is for black people and black people only! The Pilgrimage is not about whiteness, we are not here to help you deal with racism." One black pilgrim claimed white people should simply give over their money to the black pilgrims. A white man retorted, "I'm not about to agree to substituting black privilege for white." He was shouted at.
Insults and accusations zipped back and forth. Few were listening. A white woman told me later, "I was so angry I considered throwing my money at them." Lying awake, unable to sleep, I wondered if the result would be an exclusively African American pilgrimage, as perhaps it should have been from the onset? Or maybe we'd find a way to merge backgrounds and needs into something truly inclusive and unitedthe original vision of a multifaceted, multicolored, living prayer.
Lessons Learned While Walking
First lesson: slavery existed in the North for at least a century, and in states like Massachusetts that now tend to be known as hotbeds of the abolition movement. In Boston, we learned that enslaved people had been sold at Faneuil Hall, a building in the highly popular tourist district, Quincy Market. I've lived in Boston since 1965, and only on the Pilgrimage did I learn this fact.
A surprise for many of us was discovering that Washington, DC, had been a major slave trading center. Many holding pens and auction sites dotted the Mall area and nearby neighborhoods. Within a few miles of the Capitol, homes with slave quarters still exist. For instance, I learned that a house built in 1818 by Commodore Decatur had been sold to Mr. Bagley, a slave trader. He added a separate kitchen and rooms for his enslaved people.
In New York City we prayed at the burial site of enslaved Africans, accidentally unearthed during a building project. This site sits squarely in the Financial District, a stone's throw from the World Trade Center. What proportion of the wealth and power now piloting the "American Dream" has its roots in Northern-based slavery?
Second lesson: resistance to slavery. In 1829, David Walker, a free black entrepreneur who owned a used clothing business in the heart of Boston, wrote a tract against slavery. He'd stick copies of his "Appeal" in the pockets of pants and shirts purchased often by sailors. They would unknowingly circulate the inflammatory words, "Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties. Now is the day and the hour." Southerners put a price on Walker's head: in Georgia$1,000 dead or $10,000 alive. Less than a year after the "Appeal" appeared, David Walker was found dead in his house, possibly poisoned.
In Trenton, we crossed a small canal. On the other side was an elderly black woman hobbling with the aid of a cane. We stopped, circled around her, and listened: "My name is Harriet Tubman, I've heard about your Pilgrimage and wish to commend and thank you. You are doing a service for our people. I know what walking is, I've made nearly 20 trips between the North and South, bringing over 300 slaves along what people call the Underground Railroad. We came through this city by way of this canal, and at night. Trenton was never a station stoptoo many people here hated blacks, wanted to see slavery continue. Yes, you're surprised I'm sure, you thought pro-slavery was only in the South..."
Thomas Garrett was a friend of Harriet. He lived in Wilmington, Delaware, operating the local Underground Railroad station stop and helping free some 2,700 enslaved people. A member of the Religious Society of Friends, he was too radical for his Quaker meeting; they dropped him from membership. He was fearless, often threatened, was even tried and convicted for his efforts. But he was never harmed.
I was proud of Mr. Garrett, ashamed at how his peers responded, glad to place him in my pantheon of Friendly luminaries. In Princeton and Camden, New Jersey, in Philadelphia, and at other spots we were greeted, hosted, and aided by Friends communities. How would theyand Ihave acted during slavery times?
Third lesson: although the Civil Rights Movement was not as fully commemorated in the North, except for a few cities like Chicago and Cleveland, the racial foment of the sixties did manifest in the North, usually related to the Black Con-sciousness Movement. The only reflection of this rich history we experienced was in Harlem at the Audubon Ballroom where, in front of his wife and children, Malcolm X was assassinated by people connected with the Nation of Islam. He became a vivid part of my daily prayer while walking.
Fourth lesson: contemporary racism. It exists in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the mayor read to us his proclamation about ending racism in his fair and just and striving city, while standing to one side, holding her words till he finished and hurriedly exited, a young high school student spoke heatedly about the racism in her school. Or Trenton, New Jersey, where we'd met "Harriet Tubman," but also where black people hosting us told us how racist the city is. They were not surprised that the city never included an Underground Railway station. Or Philadelphia, where we discovered that opposite the newly created African American museum a new federal prison was being built, probably to hold a disproportionate share of African American people.
In New Haven, Connecticut, we saw the legacy of slavery extant: the dilapidated housing, the garbage on the street, mournful expressions on resident's faces, their distrust and even hostility to us. Local organizers, as if embarrassed, tried to rush us through, but Smitty, sensitized by his childhood in Harlem, had us form a prayer circle. This became our first of many prayer offerings at sites of suffering and sites of hope.
New Orleans to Chicago: Coming Home
I bid my fellow pilgrims good-bye in New Orleans as they headed for the Florida Keys and a boat they hoped would sail them to Cuba. When last I saw them, they weren't sure how they'd get out of Cuba and over to Haiti and Jamaica, let alone to West Africa via the Middle Passage.
I headed North to the land of my origins, the South Side of Chicago. My family had been the first of our neighborhood to act on our fears of racial mayhem. What experience had we had then, in 1955, with living in a mixed race community? None. We guessed what would happen: We'd seen the decrepit African American housing of the South Side north of us; we'd read of the firebombing of a black family trying to move into a nearby area; I'd had one fight with a young black man on the elevated train, and we heard reports from the local high school of fights between white and black students. My parents, Pearl and Fran, became the first white people to flee from our Avalon neighborhood.
For over twenty-five years my fear of black people was so strong I blocked myself from going back to the neighborhood. Pearl and Fran returned; Elaine, my sister, returned; but not meuntil, 1982. My daughter, Katy, then 12, but fearless, called to me, "Dad, you really want to go back to the South Side, don't you? Let's go together."
We arrived. No change in the old neighborhood except for people's skin color. Same buildings, same condition, same social class of peopleteachers, factory workers, business owners. Why had I so feared?
Growing up in Chicago I slowly came to realize that most of the black people had roots in the South. Eight years ago, because of the Chicago Fellowship of Friends, I'd met Charlotte Thomas, living in Cabrini Green. Charlotte introduced me to her mother, Bernice.
Bernice had been raised on a cotton plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi. She told me how she'd cut her hands pulling cotton from bolls, how the blisters had formed on her hands while hoeing, and how fiercely her arms ached. When she became pregnant with Charlotte she vowed, "I will not raise my kids as I've been raised. Never again. I will leave for the North." A precipitating incident was the murder of a boy from Chicago near her home. Emmet Till, 13 or so in 1955, was visiting relatives in LeFlore County, near Clarksdale. Unfamiliar with the codes of the South, he said something considered uncouth to a white woman in a store. They found Emmet's mutilated corpse some days later in the Tallahatchi River. Bernice heard this story, and when Charlotte was six months old, took her and her sister on the Illinois Central train to freedom land, Chicago.
1955, the year of Emmet Till's murder, was the year my family fled the South Side. It was also the year of Rosa Parks and the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Forty-three years later, I found myself in New Orleans, leaving a pilgrimage about slavery and racism, wondering what to do next. And the answer camefollow my own pilgrimage path. I will retrace my racial history through my journey to the north. The still small voice within me seems to be singing the words of the Quaker hymn:
My life rolls on in endless song,
above earth's lamentation.
I hear the real though far off hymn,
that hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear that music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul,
how can I keep from singing.
Skip Schiel is a photojournalist living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This article is edited from writing Skip did while on pilgrimage. He says it represents his first impression and he now hopes to deepen his comphrehension of the Pilgrimage experience by returning to the South for four months to photograph. Skip maintains a web site with his photography: www.ccae.org/~schiel.
Copyright (c) 1999 Friends United Meeting