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The Church and Slavery

A bronze plaque mounted on a post in a park in Chatham-Kent, commemorating the birthplace of the British Methodist Episcopal Church. Fallen leaves cover the grass around it, and a historic building is visible in the background. Photo by Blessing Ogunyemi.

Recorded audio interview with Professor Lorne Foster, completed by Blessing Ogunyemi for the Harriet Tubman Institute, York University. 

TRANSCRIPT:

Professor Lorne Foster: I come from Chatham, Ontario, and the BME Church was a centre for Black community, a centre for resistance as well. Just around the corner from where I was born, John Brown and others came to the BME Church to organize the raid on Harpers Ferry, which is considered to be one of the factors that precipitated the Civil War in the United States and the ending of slavery. So, the church has been the source of Black enslavement, and it’s probably fair to say it’s also been the source of Black liberation at the same time, and that is an ironic and contradictory situation that the church has in terms of its relationship to the Black people and Black communities.