Members of many black churches in New York and around the country concluded services at the stroke of midnight Wednesday with the same simple act that has signaled the arrival of the new year in their tradition for almost 150 years.
They got up off their knees.
It is the concluding ritual moment of Watch Night, a midnight prayer service first adopted in 1862, on the eve of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. This time around, with the first black president-elect poised for inauguration, it was a moment layered with profound meaning.
Black churches in the cities and suburbs of New York, Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles were filled to capacity on Wednesday for Watch Night, also known as Freedom’s Eve. The Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton of Riverside Church in Manhattan described the passing year as one in which, for many black Americans, “the rhetoric of freedom in America came to be an actuality.”
Two points: As far as Watch Night is concerned, it originated in Moravia (now the Czech Republic) and then was adopted by the Wesleys as one of the disciplines of Methodism. Whether large numbers of Black churches stayed open late on the night of 31 December 1862 is open to question. At the very least, given the absence of any form of communication faster than the telegraph, how would they have known that Lincoln had or had not promulgated the Emancipation Proclamation? For a more informed (in comparison to the factually challenged NYT puff piece posted here) see http://www.snopes.com/holidays/newyears/watchnight.asp
Second point is more interesting, perhaps. Until now, there hasn’t been a single response or comment posted on the blog regarding this story. Could it be that anything remotely connected to race is so “radioactive” that T19 commenters (hardly known for their reticence on just about any other subject!) are engaging in self-censorship in these matters? If so, it hardly bodes well for the “post racial” Presidency we are about to inaugurate.