Public History in the Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review: Research, Reckoning, Education, and Formation

JUST PUBLISHED in Anglican and Episcopal History Journal: a summary of much of our work thus far on the Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review. From the article: 

"The full scope of the diocese’s complicity with slavery needed to be discovered before any other steps were taken. This was the consensus of the newly minted Reparations Commission of the Diocese of New Jersey in the summer of 2022. In the wake of the George Floyd protests, and under the leadership of then diocesan bishop, William H. Stokes, in November 2020, the diocese took up the charge of General Convention Resolution A143 and approved the formation of a year-long Reparations Task Force to begin to investigate its history with slavery and racism. Years of running anti-racism trainings had worked to build diocese-wide support for the effort. This broad support was clear from the rapid affirmation by the diocesan convention of converting the Task Force into a formal Commission following its initial work in 2022. The first members of the Commission considered their first most pressing goal to be establishing how the church had participated in the early days of New Jersey’s development of a slavery economy..." 

For the full article go to https://www.jstor.org/stable/27327198 or contact us!

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

Marlpit Hall, Middletown: A Site of Memory

Figure 1: Marlpit Hall, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski,
taken with permission of the Monmouth County Historical Association.

Marlpit Hall[1] is a well-preserved Middletown, New Jersey colonial-era residence which was owned by Edward Taylor and his descendants. It is now operated as a Museum by the Monmouth County Historical Association. Taylor and his family were Anglican and Episcopal enslavers who were part of the leadership of the Christ Churches of Middletown and Shrewsbury for decades. Interpretive materials at the exhibit state that 

 

“from Edward Taylor’s purchase [of the property] in 1771 until at least 1832, the Taylor family of Marlpit Hall… had an unbroken chain of slave ownership. The men, women, and children who worked on the family’s farm fields, grist mill, and inside the house itself helped to maintain the Taylor family’s lifestyle.” 

 

The exhibit at Marlpit Hall, which is entitled “Beneath the Floorboards: Whispers of the Enslaved at Marlpit Hall,” rightly focuses on the experiences of the people enslaved by the Taylors. Among these were at least ten for whom Marlpit itself was their primary residence, including York, Tom, Mary Ann, Elizabeth Van Cleaf, William Van Cleaf, Hannah Van Cleaf, Matilda Leonard, Clarisse Leonard, Ephraim Leonard, and George. 

Figure 2: Quarters of the enslaved at Marlpit, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski,
taken with permission of the Monmouth County Historical Association.

Figure 3: The kitchen at Marlpit, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski,
taken with permission of the Monmouth County Historical Association.

 

            One of the Anglican priests mentioned in the exhibits here at Marlpit Hall is Thomas Thompson, who served in New Jersey for about five years in a number of congregations in Monmouth County. While he did baptize some enslaved Black people (including at least one person he himself enslaved), he also was a staunch defender of slavery, writing a well-known treatise in defense of the trade. He wrote this treatise on the heels of his service as the chaplain to the slave trading company based in Cape Coast Castle off the coast of West Africa, a post he took up immediately following his service in New Jersey. 

            Another Anglican mentioned in the exhibit is the influential Lewis Morris, who contributed to the founding of multiple churches in New Jersey and would later become governor. He owned the iron works at Tinton Falls, where he enslaved over sixty people. As the exhibit states, “The enslaved labor working at Tinton Manor provided the template for Monmouth County’s budding slave society.” 

The exhibit also mentions Morris’ cousin and business partner (also named Lewis Morris) who had been killed in the 1690’s by two enslaved men (Jeremy and Agebee). They were avenging Morris’ un-punished abuse and murder of a Black woman he enslaved.[2] Christ Church, Middletown is built over the site where Jeremy and Agebee were executed.

It is perhaps unsurprising, in light of their treatment by Episcopal enslavers, that enslaved African-Americans often did not ultimately affiliate with the Episcopal church. Rape of enslaved women by White male heads of household (and their sons) was common, and it is not unlikely that Matilda Leonard’s designation as “mulatto” in exhibit documents evidences this reality. She went on to marry Rev. James Simmons of St. James African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Matawan. (Note: the African Methodist Episcopal Church is not part of The Episcopal Church, and was formed in response to mistreatment of African-Americans by the Episcopal Church).

Figure 4: Detail of exhibit showing the house where St. James AME Church, Matawan first met,
with (probably) Matilda Leonard pictured, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski,
taken with permission of the Monmouth County Historical Association.

The Marpit Hall exhibit provides excellent information about the history of slavery in New Jersey, material evidence of the lived experience of slavery for those who were enslaved at Marlpit, and documentation of the lives of their Anglican and Episcopal enslavers.

As you take the tour, and as you look around the beautiful home, remember the words of U.S. Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen who, in 1824 said “survey... your comfortable habitations, your children rising around you to bless you. Who, under Providence, caused those hills to rejoice and those valleys to smile? ... Remember the toils and tears of black men”[3] and women. 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] The address is: 137 Kings Hwy.; Middletown, NJ 07748; Museum is open May-September, Fri-Sun 1-4pm. Other times for groups by appointment. See also: https://visitnj.org/marlpit-hall; https://www.journeythroughjersey.com/sites/marlpit-hall/; https://www.app.com/story/news/history/2021/10/20/middletown-marlpit-hall-slavery-exhibit- shackles/8507793002/.  

[2] See Weeks, Not for Filthy Lucre’s Sake, 113.

[3] As quoted in Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 189.

The Dimissory Letter of James C. Ward: First ordained Black Deacon in the Diocese of New Jersey

Not much is known[1] about the canonical residency of the first ordained Black deacon in the Diocese of New Jersey, but diocesan records indicate that the Rev. James C. Ward was indeed canonically resident approximately from 1829 to 1831. He is mentioned as being received into the diocese in the convention journal of 1830, though no assignment or place of service is noted. There are no known records of him officiating or teaching during this time, though he had previously been a school teacher in Pennsylvania, and would go on to teach again in Maryland after his tenure in New Jersey. The diocesan convention journal of 1832 indicates that he had moved to Maryland with the approval of Bishop Croes. 

 

Figure 1: The Morgan Library and Museum, New York City (Elisa.rolle, Pierpont Morgan Library, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Though the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City holds the manuscript of the letter dimissory furnished by Croes in 1831 for Ward’s transfer, the letter sheds little light on Ward’s activities in the diocese. It is essentially a form letter, offering little in the way of clues:

 

The Rev.’ James C. Ward (a coloured man,) a Deacon of this Diocese, having made application to me for a letter dimissory to the Rt. Rev.’ the Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland, I hereby cheerfully grant his request, and do certify, that he has not, so far as I know, been liable to evil report for error in religion or viciousness of life, during the the [sic] three years last past.[2]

 

It seems most likely that Rev. Ward moved to New Jersey in the hope of teaching for the diocese or a church of the diocese in a segregated school, even though none were then formally or consistently in operation. Apparently no adequate opportunities became available, and he moved to the Diocese of Maryland, where such a teaching position had become available. It was not for decades yet that segregated Episcopal-affiliated schools in New Jersey were taught by Black instructors, and it seems that at the time the Rev. Ward first sought to do so, no White parishes were willing to sponsor him.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] See an initial treatment in Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski “Rev. James C. Ward (1777-1834), the first African American clergyman in the Diocese of New Jersey,” DNJRJR, October 9, 2023.

[2] John Croes to Revd. James C. Ward, July 16, 1831; Record ID 108178, Accession number MA 365.121, courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.

Perth Amboy Ferry Slip: A Site of Memory

The ferry slip at Perth Amboy hosts a UNESCO port marker as a site of memory associated with the Middle Passage of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Perth Amboy served as the primary port of entry for ships bringing enslaved persons from Africa and regularly hosted a slave market.

Figure 1: Perth Amboy ferry slip plaque (front), photo Jolyon Pruszinski

 

Figure 2: Perth Amboy ferry slip plaque (back), photo Jolyon Pruszinski

The text of the marker reads:

 

            Enslavement and the Trans-Atlantic Human Trade: 

 

Near this site enslave Africans disembarked at Perth Amboy, the principal port in eastern New Jersey. During colonial times, numerous slave ships such as the Catherine, William, Africa and Sally were present in Raritan Bay, sending their captives upon the city pier – now the present-day site of the Historic Ferry Slip. In one day alone, the Catherine arrived with 240 enslaved people, leaving 17 dead at sea, and depositing 130 survivors in Perth Amboy.

In Africa, traders captured approximately 24 million children, women and men, half of whom died on the march to coastal prisons or within the prisons awaiting transport across the Atlantic. Chained and tightly packed in dark, filthy, stifling hot cargo holds, 12 million endured ocean crossings that often took months. During these voyages, known as the Middle Passage, 2 million people died from disease, malnutrition, dehydration, abuse and suicide.

African slavery in New Jersey began with the early Dutch settlement named New Netherland. Ideally suited as a maritime port of entry, Perth Amboy, the colonial capital of East Jersey, was an arrival location for ships during the trans-Atlantic human trade. Because the colony of New Jersey imposed no tariff on the importation of captive Africans, many traders disembarked their human cargo at this location, avoiding taxation while supplying buyers in New Jersey and other colonies.

In 1790, New Jersey’s enslaved African population was 11,423. It was the last Northern state to adopt gradual emancipation in 1804. By 1854, the Eagleswood section in Perth Amboy became a major station of the Underground Railroad. Slavery was not completely abolished until 1865[1] by the adoption of the 13^thAmendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 2019, Perth Amboy was designated a “Site of Memory” by the UNESCO Slave Route Project.

 

Anglicans and Episcopalians were intimately involved in the legal establishment of slavery in New Jersey, in defending the trade, and in profiting from enslavement.

One of the most recent instances of Episcopal engagement with the slave trade in Perth Amboy occurred in 1818 in connection with the Van Wickle slave ring. As many have documented elsewhere,[2]  Van Wickle was one of the most notorious enslavers during the period of gradual abolition in New Jersey. As a Middlesex County Judge he facilitated the illegal trafficking out-of-state of well over one hundred African-Americans who were either already free in New Jersey, or who would have become free under gradual abolition. They were permanently enslaved in the south through Van Wickle’s actions. Public outcry shut down the operation of the ring in late 1818, but not before Van Wickle had convinced the other lay leaders of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Spottswood to defend his actions in print.[3] Van Wickle managed to orchestrate the sailing of one last ship of enslaved persons out of Perth Amboy, late in 1818, after public pressure on the ring had already begun to mount. On October 26, 1818 the ring smuggled forty-eight people[4] out of Perth Amboy aboard the Schoharie. These are their names from the shipping manifest: 

 

William M. Clare, 25; John C. Marsh (of New York); John C. March (on board); Jafe Manning, 21; Robert Cook, 17; Ben Morris, 22; Sam Prince, 19; Sam Peter, 30; George Phillips, 18; James Thompson; Edward Gilbert, 22; Dan Francis, 20; James, 15; Charles, 19; Susan Wilcox, 36; Nelly, 18; Betsey Lewis, 28; Jane Clarkson, 23; Eliza Thompson, 21; Jane Cook, 15; Ann Moore, 29; Julian Jackson, 21; Jane Smith, 33; Peggy Boss, 21; Mary Harris, 21; Sally Cross, 20; Rosanna Cooper, 22; Mary Simmons, 18; Hannah Jackson, 18; Hanna Crigier, 18; Harriet Silas, 15; Fanny Thompson, 14; Elizabeth Ann Turner, 16; Susan Jackson, 20; Hanna Johnson, 20; Hannah, 18; Cane, 22; William Stone (New York); Jack, 22; Lewis, 22; Peter 14; Frank, 21; Caleb Groves, 50; John, 21; Collins, 35; Othello, 16; Anthony Fortune, 21; Joseph Henricks, 19; Jane, 23; Susan 21; Lena, 38. 

 

Van Wickle was never even indicted for his crimes.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] This is an inaccuracy in the site marker text. Slavery was not fully abolished by the 13^th Amendment because the text of the amendment specifically allowed slavery as a legal punishment for a crime.

[2] See the various primary sources and public history project related to Van Wickle and the slave ring listed in Jolyon Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854): Middlesex County Judge, Notorious Enslaver, and Respected Episcopalian Lay Leader,” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[3] Again, see Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[4] Documented at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org.

The Enslaved in the Parish Register at Christ Church, Shrewsbury

This address and reading were delivered by Christ Church, Shrewsbury historian Jamie Greene and parishioners Bill Cuff, Connie Goddard, and Robert Maber at the Stations of Reparations service of repentance on March 25, 2023 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Freehold.[1]

 

Figure 1: Christ Church, Shrewsbury parishioners at the Stations of Reparations Service, 2023.
Screen capture of the St. Peter's, Freehold recording: 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1x6bEZOmGU.

“As you enter the narthex at Christ Church, Shrewsbury, on the left you’ll see a large plaque commemorating Lewis Morris at whose home in 1702 our first church service was held. On the right you’ll see another plaque with a list of rectors including Samuel Cooke, the sixth rector, who was the driving force behind our current 1769 church building. Both men were slaveholders. Lewis Morris owned scores to work his bog-iron works. Rev. Cooke and his family had multiple slaves. But as slaveholders in Shrewsbury and Christ Church, Shrewsbury they were not alone. Historian Rick Geffken who is with us here today found that there were fifty-seven Shrewsbury slaveholders in 1771. Twenty-five of those worshipped at Christ Church. Rather than focus on the enslavers though, we’d like to remember today some of the fifty-four “negroes” and “mulattos” who were baptized at Christ Church between 1733 and 1775 using the original language found in our parish registers for those years.”

 

August 5, 1746.

John: Negro servant of Thomas Clayton, resident, Freehold; under sentence of death.

 

September 18, 1748.

Henry: Negro servant (of Mr. Leonard) whose name was “Fortune.”

 

June 13, 1749.

Peter: A free negro living with Mrs. Deuill.

 

September 8, 1749.

Zebulon: Son of a mulatto woman commonly called “Black Robin.”

 

September 22, 1749.

Anthony: A negro child belonging to Mrs. Jane Forman.

 

October 28, 1749. 

Edith: 8-month-old mulatto, infant daughter of Edith Finemore.

 

August 19, 1750. 

William: A negro servant of Mr. Tunis Dennis, commonly called “Forturian.”

 

July 24, 1751.

Sarah West: Father (Robin West) is a mulatto.

 

October 4, 1751.

Elizabeth: A negro woman of Mrs. Morford.

 

March 30, 1752.

Oliver: A negro child belonging to Samuel Leonard.

 

August 23, 1752.

Elizabeth: A negro woman belonging to the widow Forman.

 

August 23, 1752.

Diego: A negro belonging to Mr. Joseph Throckmorton.

 

May 6, 1756.

Rachel: Adult negro servant of Ms. Isabella Kearny [sister in law of Rev. Samuel Cooke] and the children of Rachel (Mary, Margaret, Robert Johnson, Bella).

---

[1] Transcript created by Jolyon Pruszinski from the St. Peter’s, Freehold video broadcast of the service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1x6bEZOmGU. Additional documentation is available in the article “Remembering the Enslaved at Christ Church,” hosted on the Christ Church, Shrewsbury homepage: https://christchurchshrewsbury.org/?p=6658. Note: often at this time, a designation of “mulatto” suggests rape as a likely circumstance of conception.

Sandy Hook: A Site of Memory

One of the most notorious Episcopal enslavers during the period of gradual abolition in New Jersey was Middlesex County Judge, and long-serving church warden of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Spotswood, Jacob Van Wickle. Culminating in 1818, he orchestrated an illegal slave-trading ring that resulted in the fraudulent removal out-of-state of well over one hundred enslaved African Americans, some of whom had formerly been free and had been kidnapped by the agents of the ring. Many scholars and public history projects have sought to document his actions,[1] and documentation of his Episcopal affiliation and leadership has been made previously on the DNJRJR, including the efforts of fellow church leaders to deny any illegal behavior.[2] On March 10, 1818 the first ship carrying individuals trafficked by the ring set sail from Sandy Hook, New Jersey.[3]

Figure 1: Sandy Hook, NJ from Mount Mitchill Scenic Overlook, photo by Jolyon Pruszinski

The ship manifest of the Mary Ann documents[4] the names and ages of those thirty-nine individuals kidnapped or trafficked under false pretenses and sold south into permanent slavery: 

 

Peter, age 15; Simon (age unknown, a free person); Margaret Coven (age unknown, a free person); Sarah, age 21; Dianna, age 7 months; Rachel, age 22; Regina, age 6 weeks; Hager, age 29; Roda, age 14; Mary, age 2; Augustus, age 4; Flora, age 23; Susan, age 7 months; Harry, age 14; James, age 21; Elmirah, age 14; George, age 16; Susan Watt, age 35; Moses, age 16; Lydia, age 18; Betty, age 22; Patty, age 22; Bass, age 19; Christeen, age 27; Diannah, age 9; Dorcas, age 1; Claresse, age 22; Hercules, age 2; Lidia, age 22; Harriett Jane, age 3; Bob (no age given); Rosanna (no age given); Claus (no age given); Ann (no age given); Rosino, a child; Jenette (no age given); Charles, a child; Elias, a child; Robert, a child.

 

Van Wickle was never indicted for his actions.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] Some excellent documentation of primary sources related to Van Wickle and the slave ring are available through the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center which hosts New Jersey slavery records. See “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)” at https://records.njslavery.org/s/doc/item/1284, accessed September 26, 2023. See also Francis Pingeon, “An Abominable Business: The New Jersey Slave Trade, 1818,” New Jersey History 109.3 (1991): 15-35; James J. Gigantino, II, “Trading in Jersey Souls: New Jersey and the Interstate Slave Trade,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 77.3 (2010): 281-302; Calvin Schermerhorn, The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 69-80; Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present Day (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), 79; and Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 157-160. See also the presentation from the Lost Souls Memorial Project (“Inside the Van Wickle’s Slave Ring: ‘Exposing a Scene of Villany’” at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org/wp-content/uploads/Inside-Van-Wickles-Slave-Ring.pdf, accessed September 25, 2023); the material published by the East Brunswick Historical Society (“Van Wickle and Morgan Slave Ring Leaders East Brunswick, NJ (1818)” at https://purehistory.org/van-wickle-and-morgan-slave-ring-leaders-east-brunswick-new-jersey-1818/, accessed September 26, 2023); “The 1619 Project” article by Anne C. Bailey, “They Sold Human Beings Here,” New York Times, February 12, 2020 at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/12/magazine/1619-project-slave-auction-sites.html, accessed September 26, 2023; the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center article “Removal to Louisiana: The Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://scarletandblack.rutgers.edu/archive/exhibits/show/hub-city/removal-to-louisiana, accessed September 26, 2023); Regina Fitzpatrick “New Jersey State Archives Van Wickle Slave Ring Free Digital Collection,” at https://www.njstatelib.org/news/vanwickleslaveringcollection/, accessed September 26, 2023; and the State of New Jersey, “Documents at the New Jersey State Archives relating to the Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://www.nj.gov/state/darm/WebCatalogPDF/VanWickle/VanWickleTableOfContents.pdf, accessed September 26, 2023.

[2] Jolyon Pruszinski, “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854): Middlesex County Judge, Notorious Enslaver, and Respected Episcopalian Lay Leader,” DNJRJR, September 18, 2023.

[3] Sandy Hook can be viewed from Mount Mitchill Scenic Overlook in Atlantic Highlands, NJ: www.monmouthcountyparks.com. Take Rte. 36 / Ocean Ave east to jug-handle signs for “Red Bank / Scenic Road.” Follow signs for the park.

[4] Also to be found at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org.

NEWS: Diocesan Reparations Commission Making the Case for Reparations

Figure 1: Commission Retreat participants, June 8, 2024: Dr. J. Pruszinski, W. Coleman, 

Cn. B. Bach, Rev. S. Sutton, Rev. P. Shoaf-Kozak, Cn. A. Buchanan, Rev. Cn. C. Sang, 

Rev. B. Rauen Sciaino, J. Gloster, Bishop S. French, J. Rodriguez (photo).

The Reparations Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, co-chaired by Canon Annette Buchanan and Canon Barbie Okamoto Bach, is actively making the case for reparations in the Garden State.
        In March the Commission organized its second Stations of Reparations, a Lenten service of repentance, which was hosted by St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, Asbury Park on Saturday March 16, 2024. Modelled on the traditional Stations of the Cross, the service focused on the Post-Civil War history of systemic racism in the diocese. The first Stations service, held in 2023, was the inspiration for the recent Province II collaborative service of repentance for slavery in which the Diocese of New Jersey was a participant. The March St. Augustine’s service featured testimony from members of Monmouth County Episcopal churches including Charles ​Hughes of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Red Bank, Rev. Chase Danford of Trinity Episcopal Church, Asbury Park, and ​Linda Shomo of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, Asbury Park, as well as testimony about the general history of racism in the diocese based on Commission research. The service was well attended, with dozens of churches from the diocese represented among the participants. The Commission is planning additional future services in other parts of the diocese.

Figure 2: Stations of Reparations Service, St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, Asbury Park, NJ, 

March 16, 2024 (Photo by Jolyon Pruszinski).

        On April 25, 2024, the Commission organized an educational reparations webinar, sixth in the "Journey Toward Reparations" series, subtitled “New Jersey's Opportunity to Learn from New York & California.” Guest speakers included New York State Senator James Sanders, Jr., the Reverend Charles Boyer of Greater Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church in Trenton, and the Reverend Dr. Darrell Armstrong of Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton. The panel was moderated by the Reverend Charles Wynder, Jr., Dean of the Chapel at St. Paul’s School, Concord, NH. Co-sponsored by New Jersey Faith Allies for Reparations, a coalition of thirty-four  faith and social justice organizations with the single goal of convincing legislators to pass bills A602/S3164 to establish a state task force to study the case for reparative justice for the lasting harms of slavery, the webinar provided an excellent chance to hear from those who have been on the front lines of advocacy for reparations in state settings.
        Commission historian, Jolyon Pruszinski, Ph.D., preached at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Ewing, New Jersey for their April 28 Anti-Racism event sponsored by the St. Luke’s Black Lives Matter committee. He and co-convener Cn. Barbie Bach presented after the service to a packed room on the historic connection between Episcopalians/Anglicans in New Jersey and slavery and racism, as well as ongoing effects in the Church, and the role of reparations in repairing, restoring, and making amends for the historic wrongs of slavery and racism.
        May 23^rd saw organization of the New Jersey Faith Allies Lobby Day at the State House in Trenton. Reparations Commission members are critical leaders in this movement and the Lobby day included direct engagement with over 20 individual legislators. Lobby day was followed quickly by a Rally Day on June 6^th in front of the State House Annex. Participants urged New Jersey legislators to take action on the aforementioned task-force bills. Co-sponsors of the Rally Day included the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ), the People's Organization for Progress, Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) of New Jersey, and the Montclair Branch of the NAACP.

        The Commission retreat on June 8^th saw Commission members connecting with and learning from Alexizendria “Zena” Link of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, who has been intimately involved in the creation and organization of the Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice (https://episcopalcoalition.org). This new non-profit entity, set up by the Episcopal Church's 80th General Convention as a voluntary association “dedicated to the work of becoming the Beloved Community,” will serve as a hub for “facilitating… supporting, and networking efforts of Episcopal dioceses, parishes, organizations, and individuals for racial justice and equity.”[1] A Reparations Commission exhibit booth at the General Convention in June will highlight diocesan racial justice efforts and provide an opportunity to network with other diocese pursuing racial justice while we await full operationalization of the Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice.
        Commission activities in research, education, and organizing are ongoing. These include efforts to uncover and share the history of congregations in the diocese, preservation of the oral histories of African American lay and clergy people, and solicitation of the needs of historically Black congregations in the diocese in support of near-future resource commitments for reparations. This summer be on the lookout for forthcoming information regarding an in-state pilgrimage connecting various historical sites with the Episcopal Church’s history of slavery and racism. The Commission would also be happy to visit your church to present, preach, or support your racism research and reparative initiatives. Please contact Canon Annette Buchanan (email), Canon Barbie O. Bach (email), or Dr. Jolyon Pruszinski (email) to make arrangements.
 
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

[1] https://episcopalcoalition.org/about.