Updated Feb. 21, 2024
Do you know where you’re standing?
Why EGC’s new “Fact Friday” series explores the church’s history and legacy in Boston one short video at a time.
by Hanno van der Bijl, Managing Editor, Applied Research & Consulting
Did you know that the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill was co-founded by Cato Gardner, a formerly enslaved man born in Africa?
Or that Twelfth Baptist Church was the spiritual home of Wilhelmina Crosson, a pioneering Black school teacher in Boston, who also was instrumental in launching the precursor to Black History Month?
How about this gem: Boston’s oldest church congregation is not downtown — it’s in Dorchester. On June 6, 1630, the First Parish Church in Dorchester was the first congregation to meet in what is present-day Boston. The First Church of Boston did not organize until about two months later.
These are just some insights from the Emmanuel Gospel Center’s new “Fact Friday” video series on Instagram.
“The city’s churches have a rich history,” said Caleb McCoy, marketing manager at EGC. “I think those legacies impact how we view the church today, so it’s important to share that information with as many as possible.”
The Fact Friday team includes Jaronzie Harris, program manager for the Boston Black Church Vitality Project, and Rudy Mitchell, senior researcher at EGC. Since February, this dynamic duo has been creating videos exploring the church’s long history in Boston, leaving EGC’s Instagram followers hungry for more.
“People who live in Boston may walk by church buildings but they may not know, one, what has gone on there in the past and, two, what’s going on here in the present,” Mitchell said.
Bridging that gap between the past and present is one of the project’s key motivators.
“It’s been fun for me to share but also to learn,” Harris said. “Doing this project is engaging me in research. I have to go and find out about these things, which I enjoy doing.”
Harris said learning about St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church’s rich history, for example, led her to discover some surprises about the church’s ministry today as she listened to a recent sermon.
“It was interesting to hear this minister preaching Black theology from a different tradition about a festival I didn’t know about,” Harris said. “I haven’t heard that type of militant preaching in Boston before.”
Caleb McCoy (right) films a recent Fact Friday video with Rudy Mitchell (left) and Jaronzie Harris (center).
The city’s Black churches have a rich legacy of gospel ministry and social action.
“Almost every time you look at one of the Black churches in the 1800s, you see they were deeply involved in the abolitionist movement and advocating for the rights of enslaved peoples,” Mitchell said. “A lot of rich history inspired continued activism in more recent times.”
The team believes the Black church’s spiritual legacy continues to buoy the community as it faces its own headwinds today.
“We are in a time that’s very racially charged right now,” McCoy said, “but it’s important to know that Black Christianity and the Black church has a legacy that’s gone before us and has a rich history in the fight for equality and justice in our own city.”
The team also enjoys parsing out curiosities such as why a church on Warren Street in Roxbury is called “The Historic Charles Street AME Church.”
In addition to digging around the past, the project has a forward-looking orientation. Boston, for example, was home to the first YMCA in the United States. What would such an innovative approach to ministry look like today?
“The Bible often tells us to remember how God was at work in the past, and we certainly can learn from history,” Mitchell said. “Even though the form and methods may change, we can be inspired to be used by God in our own time for similar purposes.”
For decades, EGC has been channeling its research and learning into specific programming and events. The Boston Church Directory, for example, demonstrates how its use of applied research is a dynamic process, bringing people in along the way.
But learning is ongoing, and it’s important to share that process, Harris said.
“I’m learning these things for Fact Friday, sure, but I’m also learning these things to better support my churches, to better understand the Boston landscape,” she said.
EGC also tries to provide a larger perspective on Christianity in Boston not just across different denominations and cultural groups but also over time. At times that research has uncovered illuminating insights.
“Historically, we saw that, between 1970 and 2010, more new churches started in Boston than in any other comparable period in Boston’s history,” Mitchell said.
Many of those churches have important stories to tell, known only by a few. Through various research projects, EGC tries to get those stories out in the open.
“We have all this historical information,” Harris said. “So how can we tell a story that is digestible for a broader audience?”
Here are some of the churches, institutions, sites, and individuals the team has covered so far:
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Additional Resources
Curious to learn more about the story of the church in Boston? Give these resources below a try.
Daman, Steve. “Understanding Boston’s Quiet Revival.” Emmanuel Research Review. December 2013/January 2014. Accessed January 22, 2015.
Hartley, Benjamin L. Evangelicals at a Crossroads: Revivalism and Social Reform in Boston, 1860-1910. Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2011.
Hayden, Robert C. Faith, Culture and Leadership: A History of the Black Church in Boston. Boston: Boston Branch NAACP, 1983.
Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North, rev. ed. New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 2000. See chapter 4: “Community and the Church.”
Johnson, Marilynn S. "The Quiet Revival: New Immigrants and the Transformation of Christianity in Greater Boston." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation V 24, No. 2 (Summer 2014): 231-248.
Mitchell, Rudy. The History of Revivalism in Boston. Boston: Emmanuel Gospel Center, 2007.
Mitchell, Rudy, Brian Corcoran, and Steve Daman, editors. New England’s Book of Acts. Boston: Emmanuel Gospel Center, 2007. The New England Book of Acts has studies of the recent history of ethnic and immigrant groups and their churches and a summary of the history of the African-American church in Boston.
