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Awakening to Justice: Faithful Voices from the Abolitionist Past
"O where are the sympathies of Christians for the slave and where are their exertions for their liberation? . . . It seems as if the church were asleep." David Ingraham, 1839 In 2015, the historian Chris Momany discovered a manuscript that had been forgotten in a storage closet at Adrian College in Michigan. He identified it as the journal of a nineteenth-century Christian abolitionist and missionary, David Ingraham. As Momany and a fellow historian Doug Strong pored over the diary, they realized that studying this document could open new conversations for twenty-first-century Christians to address the reality of racism today. They invited a multiracial team of fourteen scholars to join in, thus launching the Dialogue on Race and Faith Project. Awakening to Justice presents the groundbreaking work of these scholars. In addition to reflecting on Ingraham's journal, chapters also explore the life and writings of two of Ingraham's Black colleagues, James Bradley and Nancy Prince. Appendixes feature writings by all three abolitionists so readers can engage the primary sources directly. Through considering connections between the revivalist, holiness, and abolitionist movements; the experiences of enslaved and freed people; abolitionists' spiritual practices; various tactics used by abolitionists; and other themes, the authors offer insight and hope for Christians concerned about racial justice. They highlight how Christians associated with Charles Finney's style of revivalism formed intentional, countercultural communities such as Oberlin College to be exemplars of interracial cooperation and equality. Christians have all too often compromised with racism throughout history, but that’s not the whole story. Hearing the prophetic witness of revivalist social justice efforts in the nineteenth century can provide a fresh approach to today's conversations about race and faith in the church.
240 pages, Paperback
Published March 26, 2024
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June 12, 2024
Summary: How a long-forgotten journal led a team to recover the stories of three abolitionists and their times.
Imagine working as an archivist when a large box arrives of miscellaneous memorabilia, that sat forgotten for many years in a college supply closet. Most of it looked like it came from the 1950’s except for an old notebook with a marble cover that was filled with handwriting with dates going back to the late 1830’s. This is what happened in 2015 when an archivist at Adrian College called Chris Momany, chaplain and religious historian.
As he read, he was stunned to find a drawing of a ship, Ulysses, impounded in Jamaica holding 556 slaves in incredibly cramped and sordid conditions. He was able to figure out that he was holding the diary of David Ingraham, an abolitionist missionary to Jamaica. He had been part of a group known as the “Lane Rebels” who left Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati to enroll at Oberlin College, where Charles Finney was on faculty of an abolitionist school that admitted Blacks. The college president was Asa Mahan, who became a mentor, and later left Oberlin to become Adrian College’s president, which may be how the notebook ended there.
But what to do? Consulting fellow historian Doug Strong, the two wondered if the journal might be the basis of a project studying the people around Ingraham, who died of tuberculosis in 1841 for what may be learned from these abolitionists for our day. Thus was formed The Dialogue on Race and Faith Project, convening a multiracial group of fourteen scholars who met together, traveled to Cincinnati and Oberlin, and produced the collection of papers that make up this work, amply fulfilling the vision of Momany and Strong. In particular, they focused on two others associated with Ingraham, James Bradley, a former slave and Lane Rebel, and Nancy Prince, an African American from Boston, who taught with Ingraham in Jamaica. Both wrote memoirs that served as compelling primary sources of their experiences in abolitionist and mission work.
After an introduction that sets the three in the revivalist/holiness context around Lane and Oberlin and the ministry of Finney, Christopher Momany offers a composite biography of Ingraham, Bradley, and Prince. In chapter two, Sègbégnon Mathieu Gnonhossou, describes what Ingraham found onboard the impounded Ulysses, and offers a detailed account of slaving in West Africa. David D. Daniels III, in chapter three recounts the experiences of both racism and inclusion encountered by Bradley and Prince in the North. Prince spent some years in Russia, which at the time was more racially enlightened than New England.
How were the abolitionists sustained in this arduous struggle, both at home and in Jamaica? R. Matthew Sigler explores in chapter four the important role of worship and personal devotional in the lives of the three. Chapter five examines the theological underpinnings of these “ordinary abolitionists.” showing how a sense of the all-embracing love of God and devotion to Christ spurred them both to evangelism and advocacy for justice for the slaves.
Diane Leclerc, in chapter six considers the hardships faced by both black and white women in this era. She details the exploitation of Black women’s bodies, and also the hardships faced by women like Sarah Ingraham Penfield, who followed her parents to Jamaica, also following them in death by tuberculosis while facing isolation due to her insistence on equality, the Oberlin Principles, convictions not shared by other missionaries. Philanthropy, such as that of the Tappans, played a vital role in the efforts of the abolitionist, as Esther Chung-Kim shows in chapter seven. Albert G. Miller shows the struggle Oberlin, both the town and the college, faced in maintaining racial equality in enrollments, campus housing, and restrictive title deeds for properties in Oberlin.
Read the appendices! They provide a helpful timeline of the persons and events and crucial writings of Bradley, Prince, and Ingraham, including a facsimile of his journal page with a diagram of the layout and confining dimensions of Ulysses. Hearing their own words about their faith and passion to fight slavery is stirring, including Ingraham’s plaintive question:
“O where are the sympathies of christians for the slave + where are their exersians (sic) for their liberation. O it seems as if the church were asleep + Satan has the world following him.”
I love this example of how a community of Christian scholars collaborate, using the discovery of a journal, to tell both the stories of Ingraham, Prince, and Bradley as well as the larger stories of slavery, racism, and abolitionist activism in their time and the inspiration it gives for our own day. As an Ohioan, I’ve been inspired by our Underground Railroad history, tracing its routes through the campus of Ohio State and through the areas around my home town of Youngstown. I’ve known some of the history of Lane and Oberlin, including seeing the historic buildings shown in archival photos in the book. Reading this work makes me both proud of this spiritual and abolitionist history and determined to carry it forward in our day.
____________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Imagine working as an archivist when a large box arrives of miscellaneous memorabilia, that sat forgotten for many years in a college supply closet. Most of it looked like it came from the 1950’s except for an old notebook with a marble cover that was filled with handwriting with dates going back to the late 1830’s. This is what happened in 2015 when an archivist at Adrian College called Chris Momany, chaplain and religious historian.
As he read, he was stunned to find a drawing of a ship, Ulysses, impounded in Jamaica holding 556 slaves in incredibly cramped and sordid conditions. He was able to figure out that he was holding the diary of David Ingraham, an abolitionist missionary to Jamaica. He had been part of a group known as the “Lane Rebels” who left Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati to enroll at Oberlin College, where Charles Finney was on faculty of an abolitionist school that admitted Blacks. The college president was Asa Mahan, who became a mentor, and later left Oberlin to become Adrian College’s president, which may be how the notebook ended there.
But what to do? Consulting fellow historian Doug Strong, the two wondered if the journal might be the basis of a project studying the people around Ingraham, who died of tuberculosis in 1841 for what may be learned from these abolitionists for our day. Thus was formed The Dialogue on Race and Faith Project, convening a multiracial group of fourteen scholars who met together, traveled to Cincinnati and Oberlin, and produced the collection of papers that make up this work, amply fulfilling the vision of Momany and Strong. In particular, they focused on two others associated with Ingraham, James Bradley, a former slave and Lane Rebel, and Nancy Prince, an African American from Boston, who taught with Ingraham in Jamaica. Both wrote memoirs that served as compelling primary sources of their experiences in abolitionist and mission work.
After an introduction that sets the three in the revivalist/holiness context around Lane and Oberlin and the ministry of Finney, Christopher Momany offers a composite biography of Ingraham, Bradley, and Prince. In chapter two, Sègbégnon Mathieu Gnonhossou, describes what Ingraham found onboard the impounded Ulysses, and offers a detailed account of slaving in West Africa. David D. Daniels III, in chapter three recounts the experiences of both racism and inclusion encountered by Bradley and Prince in the North. Prince spent some years in Russia, which at the time was more racially enlightened than New England.
How were the abolitionists sustained in this arduous struggle, both at home and in Jamaica? R. Matthew Sigler explores in chapter four the important role of worship and personal devotional in the lives of the three. Chapter five examines the theological underpinnings of these “ordinary abolitionists.” showing how a sense of the all-embracing love of God and devotion to Christ spurred them both to evangelism and advocacy for justice for the slaves.
Diane Leclerc, in chapter six considers the hardships faced by both black and white women in this era. She details the exploitation of Black women’s bodies, and also the hardships faced by women like Sarah Ingraham Penfield, who followed her parents to Jamaica, also following them in death by tuberculosis while facing isolation due to her insistence on equality, the Oberlin Principles, convictions not shared by other missionaries. Philanthropy, such as that of the Tappans, played a vital role in the efforts of the abolitionist, as Esther Chung-Kim shows in chapter seven. Albert G. Miller shows the struggle Oberlin, both the town and the college, faced in maintaining racial equality in enrollments, campus housing, and restrictive title deeds for properties in Oberlin.
Read the appendices! They provide a helpful timeline of the persons and events and crucial writings of Bradley, Prince, and Ingraham, including a facsimile of his journal page with a diagram of the layout and confining dimensions of Ulysses. Hearing their own words about their faith and passion to fight slavery is stirring, including Ingraham’s plaintive question:
“O where are the sympathies of christians for the slave + where are their exersians (sic) for their liberation. O it seems as if the church were asleep + Satan has the world following him.”
I love this example of how a community of Christian scholars collaborate, using the discovery of a journal, to tell both the stories of Ingraham, Prince, and Bradley as well as the larger stories of slavery, racism, and abolitionist activism in their time and the inspiration it gives for our own day. As an Ohioan, I’ve been inspired by our Underground Railroad history, tracing its routes through the campus of Ohio State and through the areas around my home town of Youngstown. I’ve known some of the history of Lane and Oberlin, including seeing the historic buildings shown in archival photos in the book. Reading this work makes me both proud of this spiritual and abolitionist history and determined to carry it forward in our day.
____________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
June 20, 2024
In 2015, staff members in the alumni office at Adrian College found a box in a supply closet filled with an assortment of objects—newspaper clippings, a photo of a former president of the college, a freshman beanie that dated back to the 1950s, and a journal. The journal seemed significant so Dr. Chris Momany, the college’s chaplain and resident religious historian was brought in to look at it. It was a journal written by the 19th century abolitionist and missionary, David Ingraham, and the history it contained included valuable insight into the abolitionist movement. The authors of Awakening to Justice believe that the study of revivalist social justice efforts in the 19th century can help us approach reconciliation efforts today. This book is their attempt to do so.
Awakening to Justice is a unique project. The authors—Jemar Tisby, Douglas Strong, Christopher Momany, Segbegnon Matieu Gnonhossou, David Daniels III, R. Matthew Sigler, Diane Leclerc, Esther Chung-Kim, Albert Miller, and Estrelda Alexander—are all part of the Dialogue on Race and Faith. When Ingraham’s journal was brought to their attention by Momany, the group decided to study the journal and pen their reflections on it. Each chapter presents a different facet of the saga that unfolds through the journal, which is focused on the three individuals in the 1830s and their abolitionist efforts.
Chapter one, written by Momany, offers a composite biography of the three figures—David Ingraham and his friends James Bradley and Nancy Prince. The next chapter focuses on the trio’s primary abolitionist efforts as revealed in the book, namely justice for the 556 people kidnapped into slavery aboard the Ulysses. As the work progresses, each author takes on a different part of the story, drawing a connective tissue between the work of the 1830s and present-day efforts almost two hundred years later.
Altogether, Awakening to Justice offers a well-rounded contemplative history. I do wonder how the book might have been different had it been written by a single voice—not that the collaborative style is bad, but I do wonder how it would have affected the end product. This is a book of history, but it is not a history book. Rather, it is the musings of a group of activists who have studied this particular part of the past and used what they’ve learned to affect their own praxes—and now offer what they’ve learned to others as well. It’s a reminder that history matters. This isn’t just all in the past. It still has value for today. We can learn from those who came before us, because it is by standing on their shoulders that we can see a better future with greater clarity.
Awakening to Justice is a unique project. The authors—Jemar Tisby, Douglas Strong, Christopher Momany, Segbegnon Matieu Gnonhossou, David Daniels III, R. Matthew Sigler, Diane Leclerc, Esther Chung-Kim, Albert Miller, and Estrelda Alexander—are all part of the Dialogue on Race and Faith. When Ingraham’s journal was brought to their attention by Momany, the group decided to study the journal and pen their reflections on it. Each chapter presents a different facet of the saga that unfolds through the journal, which is focused on the three individuals in the 1830s and their abolitionist efforts.
Chapter one, written by Momany, offers a composite biography of the three figures—David Ingraham and his friends James Bradley and Nancy Prince. The next chapter focuses on the trio’s primary abolitionist efforts as revealed in the book, namely justice for the 556 people kidnapped into slavery aboard the Ulysses. As the work progresses, each author takes on a different part of the story, drawing a connective tissue between the work of the 1830s and present-day efforts almost two hundred years later.
Altogether, Awakening to Justice offers a well-rounded contemplative history. I do wonder how the book might have been different had it been written by a single voice—not that the collaborative style is bad, but I do wonder how it would have affected the end product. This is a book of history, but it is not a history book. Rather, it is the musings of a group of activists who have studied this particular part of the past and used what they’ve learned to affect their own praxes—and now offer what they’ve learned to others as well. It’s a reminder that history matters. This isn’t just all in the past. It still has value for today. We can learn from those who came before us, because it is by standing on their shoulders that we can see a better future with greater clarity.
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