Date: August 12, 2021
The African American Episcopal Historical Collection (AAEHC) is a trove of surprises – defying my expectations in many ways. For example, I did not think that my time spent would be a return visit to some of the warmest and most comfortable occasions of my boyhood. Walking back through what has gone on before satisfies some deep-seated need. It’s like reading the promises of deliverance that are the Exodus saga, as they are grounded in the exhortation to remember. That is what I want to shout out to today’s lawmakers who try to prohibit teaching the history of how America is defined in many ways by its struggles to embrace, or overcome, racial hatred. What theologians understand is that “Remember” – remember how and by whom we were delivered — is the first signpost on the road to liberation and freedom. My seemingly insatiable curiosity about the past finds me in AAEHC’s lap recalling the reassuring boyhood rituals of remembering.
Browsing in and about the Collection takes me back to those times when I sat with my aunt on her living room floor as she and I slowly leafed through and turned the pages of her carefully assembled scrapbooks — scrapbooks that told the stories that white newspapers refused to tell – the stories in documents and pictures of our family’s past, and of Richmond’s high-achieving Black community – the history of our people. I spent endless hours memorizing the faces and names from pictures in the yellowed newspaper clippings. There were the obligatory pictures of the family in post-graduation smiles and poses – the graduate in full academic regalia. There were many pictures of wedding reception receiving lines. I loved those. The image of each guest told a back story – related or not, scoundrel or not, fashion plate or not, Lothario or not.
But what also always arrested me were the pages of the local telephone directory that my aunt had kept. All the residential listings were in alphabetical order but preceding the listing for every Black household was a letter “c” in bold print. That’s how the local telephone company served the interests of white subscribers who did not want to mistakenly call a colored family.
So, when the opportunity to take my hand at helping to shape the recorded history of Black Episcopalians, it was as if I’d arrived again to sit with my aunt on her living room floor to leaf through the yellowed clippings. But the warmth returned in another unexpected way. And it was clear at the close of the first oral history interview I conducted. I was surprised by the shared intimacy of the journey through their pasts – an intimacy we now shared – as they leafed through their own scrapbooks and yellowed clippings — their pictures, their trends, their disappointments, their complexities. They free themselves of the ghosts in their past. It deepens our friendship – this “shared time on their living room floors – turning the pages.”
Riley Temple, MTS, JD
Collection Growth Specialist for the African American Episcopal Historical Collection
Bishop Payne Library