The Anti-Racism Commission's monthly newsletter goes out to all ARC supporters and training participants. Please forward it to others who might benefit from our resources and workshops. And check out our blog site for past articles, training information and ongoing resources.

More than 30 church musicians, clergy, and lay people came together at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral in West Philadelphia to participate in the May 14 workshop "Singing the African American Spirituals with Integrity," co-presented by the Anti-Racism Commission and the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral.

Clinicians Dr. Jay Fluellen, Dr. Lynnel Joy Jenkins, Ms. Carrie Walker Lessene, and Dr. Thomas Lloyd, demonstrated through singing several different approaches to teaching the Spirituals and connecting with their historical context. Thomas Lloyd began with the history of the Fisk Jubilee Singers bringing the Spirituals to public attention for the first time in the face of the overwhelming popularity of blackface minstrelsy, and talked about how predominantly white congregations can connect with the Spirituals today as part of the mix of music in liturgy. Lynnel Jenkins demonstrated through the original oral tradition of the Spirituals can be still brought alive today in songs like "Wade in the Water" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Jay Fluellen showed how the Spirituals influenced later Gospel styles with "Lord, I have seen thy salvation" and with "My Lord, What a mornin'" how the Spirituals can be presented with varied stylistic approaches. Carrie Lessene taught a rousing version of "This Train" and introducing her haunting new arrangement of "Poor Wayfaring Stranger."

The Intermezzo Choir Ministry led by Ms. Lessene presented riveting performances of two concert Spirituals arranged by herself and by the Intermezzo's founder, the late Dr. Verolga Nix.

The Rev. Dr. Chaz Howard, Chaplin at the University of Pennsylvania and assisting priest at the Cathedral gave a tender and passionate homily on the text of Psalm 137: "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a stranger's land?" tracing how the Spirituals connect us to generations past in a way that can motivate us to move forward with hope and confidence.

Videos of the Spirituals workshop are now public on the Cathedral YouTube channel. The YouTube description beneath each video includes direct links to specific clinicians and songs.

Spirituals Workshop Part I

Spirituals Workshop Part II

Gathering Songs, Readings, Prayers, and Homily

We hope that by sharing these more widely to our various constituencies, this informal singing workshop model might be a way for more congregations and communities to become more familiar with the history and power of this important body of music and all that it can bring to our struggling world!

At ARC's anti-racism trainings, participants are encouraged to put their learning into action in their communities. POWER Interfaith provides a way for faith communities to amplify their actions for racial justice in Philadelphia and beyond. In this article, Casey Butcher (Community Organizer with POWER) explains how to get involved....

By Casey Butcher and POWER Interfaith

POWER – Pennsylvanians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild – is a multi-racial, multi-faith, faith-based organization fighting for racial and economic justice on a livable planet. We use our belief in God’s goodness and compassion for suffering to organize and empower the people of Philadelphia, Southeastern, and Central Pennsylvania to live and work together so that God’s presence may be known on every block. POWER intentionally welcomes and invites people of all races, nationalities, income levels, faith traditions, and cultures in order to build broad-based coalitions that can leverage people power for policy change and win material benefits for the uplift and betterment of our communities.

Started 11 years ago with a founding convention at Philadelphia’s historic Tindley Temple United Methodist Church with over 40 congregations and 2,000 members present, POWER has grown to include over 100 member congregations in 7 Pennsylvania counties. And we want to expand more! We need POWER congregations all over the commonwealth to have greater capacity to impact election outcomes and policy decisions in Harrisburg. Our parent organization, Faith-in-Action, is comprised of similar federations in 20 states across the nation.

POWER offers congregations an opportunity to join an interfaith network with a proven track record that is focused on grassroots organizing for policy change and voter turnout at local and state levels. With an important election coming up in November 2022, POWER’s civic engagement and congregational organizing teams are getting busy collaborating with faith and lay leaders to build voter engagement teams in as many of our member congregations as we possibly can. We approach this work as a 501c3, so faith-based organizations can feel safe doing civic engagement work in accordance with the law.

We also have campaign teams working on a variety of urgent fronts: education budgeting, climate justice and sustainable infrastructure development, police and criminal justice reform, and affordable housing. We hold relationships with state representatives and senators, city councilpeople, and a variety of sister organizations who fight with and alongside us.

In Philadelphia, POWER’s community organizing team is focused on new organizing in working class communities of faith, and in developing campaigns with the input and leadership of new members. Casey Butcher is a part of this team, and he’s been meeting with community and faith leaders in South Philadelphia–including Madre Jessie Alejandro of the Church of the Crucifixion–in the hopes of creating a multi-racial, inter-denominational and interfaith working group that can cohere around a specific campaign with winnable demands that will improve the lives of all South Philadelphians. The aims of this campaign will be defined and agreed upon by everyone who’s sitting at the table. So far he’s met with African American, Latinx, Burmese, Korean, and Indonesian faith leaders and community members, and as he continues his listening campaign, he hopes to meet with, learn from, and extend an invitation to collaborate to an ever-widening diversity of folks. The Beloved Community has always been a Rainbow Coalition, and we believe that a neighborhood organizing effort should be as diverse as possible from the start.

Several Episcopal churches are already POWER members: Calvary St. Augustine in West Philadelphia, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church of Germantown, St. Luke and the Epiphany, St. Peter’s Church, and Church of the Holy Trinity in Center City Philadelphia, and St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, Whitemarsh in Lancaster County. St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church of Germantown is a founding POWER member congregation and has been one of our most active congregations throughout POWER’s 11-year history. Our organization knows from experience that Episcopalians have a lot of passion, know-how, and commitment to offer in the fight for justice.

If you’re interested in learning more about POWER Interfaith’s work and about how your congregation can get involved, please email Casey Butcher (cbutcher@powerinterfaith.org) or call 703-423-9259.

In these trying times we need each other. Please join us in organizing to witness, empower, and rebuild a Pennsylvania that works for all.

Call to Worship by Jody Miller Shearer

Reader 1:

We come into this space, as people blessed by the touch of God;

 as people enriched by cultures born into and discovered;

 as people wounded by racism; as people yearning for healing;

 as people working for the Kingdom.

ALL: God, be with us.

Reader 2:

We come into this space, with anticipation of the work before us;

 with an openness to discovery;

 with a commitment to working for reconciliation;

 with a willingness to challenge and be challenged;

 with anticipation of discovery.

ALL: Christ, come near us.

Reader 3:

We come into this space, to spend time with the Scriptures;

 to learn about prejudice;

 to become aware of privilege; to explore cultures;

 to encourage each other to action.

ALL: Holy Spirit, bless our time together.

Amen.

This prayer was reprinted with permission in Seeing the Face of God in Each Other: The Antiracism Training Manual of the Episcopal Church. More prayers for racial justice can be found on our blog THE ARC.

• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority by Tim Wise
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander 
• How To Be Black by Baratunde Thurston

• A History of the African-American Spiritual: How the African-American Spiritual Has Maintained Its Integrity in the Face of Major Social and Musical Challenges by Thomas Lloyd
• The Great Erasure by Charles M. Blow
• A Year of Racial Justice Protests: Key Trends in Demonstrations Supporting the BLM Movement by The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
• A Year in Review: Racism, Repression and Fightback by Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ)
• The Mark of a Criminal Record by Devah Pager

• Defund the Police, We're Having A Moment by Baratunde Thurston (55 mins)
• ‘His Name Is George Floyd', Post Reports (75 mins)
• Confronting Racism in Policing, Deep Dive with Laura Arnold (23 mins) 

TED Talks about resistance and change

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story (20 mins)
• Baratunde Thurston: How to deconstruct racism, one headline at a time (17 mins)
• Peggy McIntosh: How to recognize your white privilege - and use it to fight inequality (19 mins) 

Sat. Jul. 30 from 9 am to 12 pm on Zoom

Fee: $15. Scholarships available.

Explores the ways in which racism manifests in America’s educational, employment, entertainment, finance, healthcare, housing, justice, mass media, and religious institutions.

The Anti-Racism Commission is here to connect you to trainings, resources and support that are rooted in our baptismal covenant. The next training will be Introduction to Systemic Racism on Aug. 27.

The Anti-Racism Commission was created by diocesan convention resolution in 2005 with the mandate “to affect the systemic and institutional transformation in the diocese away from the sin of racism and toward the fulfillment of the Gospel and the baptismal mandate to strive for justice and respect the dignity of all persons.”

Consisting of 12 members, a mix of clergy and lay and persons of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, the commission aims to increase awareness of the history and legacy of racism in our country and to engage members of the diocese in dismantling its effects.

To learn more about how ARC can help your parish engage in the work of racial justice and repair, contact The Rev. Barbara Ballenger (barbballenger@gmail.com) or The Rev. Ernie Galaz (frernie@christchurchmedia.org), ARC co-chairs.