Here's a match-up that may have you scratching your hair shirt. James Theodore Holly, pioneering African-American bishop and missionary versus Harriet Beecher Stowe, author and abolitionist. Two 19th century figures who had a major impact upon race relations in the United States and abroad.
Yesterday F.D. Maurice defeated David of Wales in a day that saw a brief technical glitch in the initial daily e-mail sent out to subscribers. "Yes, Virginia, there are Lent Madness gremlins."
What's that? You say you don't receive these fantabulous e-mails insuring that you never miss a vote? Go to the home page and look on the right side just under the Voting 101 video -- enter your e-mail address and voila! You'll receive every match-up in your inbox at 8:00 am Eastern Standard Time.
Finally, as we enter into another exciting and occasionally heart-wrenching day of voting, remember that what we say about confessing our sins to a priest in the Episcopal Church also applies to engaging in Lent Madness: "All may, none must, some should."
James Theodore Holly
James Theodore Holly was the first bishop of the Episcopal Church in Haiti and the first African-American bishop in the Episcopal Church. He was born in 1829 to freed blacks in Washington, D.C. Holly was self-educated and taught himself Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Creole over the course of his life.
As a young adult, Holly devoted his time to the cause of abolitionism and greater inclusion of African Americans in the Episcopal Church. He also worked alongside Frederick Douglass and Lewis Tappan and served as an editorial assistant for The Voice of the Fugitive, an abolitionist newspaper in Canada. Although he was baptized and remained Catholic through his young adult years, in 1852—a year after he married his wife Charlotte—Holly was received into the Episcopal Church. Three years later, he was ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church and in 1856, a priest.
Holly founded the Episcopal Society for Promoting the Extension of the Church Among Colored People, a forerunner of the Union of Black Episcopalians. While a member, he passionately advocated for the Episcopal Church to make a public statement in opposition to slavery.
Emboldened by his belief that people of color could experience unique opportunities and freedom outside of the United States, Holly, his family, and a small group of emigrants left the United States for Haiti in 1861. During their first year on the island, many of the emigrants died, including Holly’s mother, his wife, and two children. Nevertheless, Holly went on to found Trinity Episcopal Church as well as a host of schools and health clinics. He was ordained the first missionary Bishop of Haiti in 1874.
Holly’s leadership and vision helped create a more culturally inclusive church in a period of great racial upheaval. Along with Holly’s dogged determination of a life of equality for all, his ministry expanded the geographical and cultural parameters of the Episcopal Church and served as a voice for the voiceless. At the time of his death in 1911, the Episcopal Church in Haiti had more than 2,000 members, fifteen parish churches, and fifteen ordained clergy. And today, the Episcopal Church in Haiti, with nearly 90,000 members, is the largest diocese in The Episcopal Church.
Collect for James Theodore Holly
Most gracious God, by the calling of your servant James Theodore Holly you gave us our first bishop of African American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led your people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom you call from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
-- Maria Kane
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe put pen to paper and changed the world. She actually wrote more than twenty books in her lifetime but is best remembered for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which brought home the moral evil of slavery in graphically emotional terms.
Born June 14, 1811, Stowe was raised in a progressive and very devout household. She enrolled in a school run by her older sister and received an education in the classics, unusual for a girl at the time. At twenty-one, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio (now known primarily as the headquarters city of Forward Movement, sponsors of Lent Madness) to join her father, who had moved there to serve as president of Lane Theological Seminary. There, she met Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor at the seminary and fellow abolitionist. They got married in 1836 and had seven children. Their home became a stop on the Underground Railroad and Harriet continued with her writing and work as an abolitionist.
Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a response to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This law stated that if any former slave was captured in the North, they had to be forcibly returned South and returned to their owner, or sold.
By this time, Stowe and her family had moved to Maine, where her husband was teaching theology at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. Stowe would gather students and faculty to read over the chapters as she completed them. The book was published in June of 1851, when Stowe was forty-one years old. In a letter to an English Lord Chief Justice, “I wrote what I did because as a woman, as a mother, I was oppressed and broken-hearted with the sorrows and injustice I saw, because as a Christian I felt the dishonor to Christianity.” Initially, the novel came out in installments in the newspaper The National Era. She was paid only $400—considered a small payment, even for that time. When Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in novel form, the book sold a staggering 300,000 copies in less than a year.
The book not only articulated slavery as intellectually wrong but also as emotionally wrong, with the effects of slavery played out in the tragic lives of its characters. And the book sparked outrage over slavery like nothing else had to that point. In 1862, Stowe went to the White House to meet with President Lincoln. Her son reported that Lincoln greeted her with “So you’re the little lady who wrote the big book that started this war.”
Stowe kept writing through the rest of her life, though nothing ever matched the success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. And she kept fighting injustice. In her family’s summer home of Mandarin, Florida, she founded several integrated schools and promoted the ideal of equal education.
She died in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1896.
Collect for Harriet Beecher Stowe
Gracious God, we thank you for the witness of Harriett Beecher Stowe, whose fiction inspired thousands with compassion for the shame and sufferings of enslaved peoples, and who enriched her writings with the cadences of The Book of Common Prayer. Help us, like her, to strive for your justice, that our eyes may see the glory of your Son, Jesus Christ, when he comes to reign with you and the Holy Spirit in reconciliation and peace, one God, now and always. Amen.
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213 comments on “James Holly vs. Harriet Beecher Stowe”
A really tough choice today. Had to vote for Harriet though. Her book was influential when written and even now.
I appreciated learning of Bishop Holly and his work in Haiti. The church and people of Haiti are certainly in great need today.
Again, another difficult choice. I ended up going with Bishop Holly for his important work in Haiti. After the most recent earthquake the Episcopal Church was an important source of relief for the country. Without his work, we would not have had the boots on the ground to help stem the suffering.
So hard today! Both brave, committed, grace - filled souls willing to answer God's call in words and actions despite the mores of their days. Both stories will stay with me today as I consider my own willingness to step out and step up. Voted for Harriet as not only her actions but her words live on today as each new generation reads her book and hears with new ears the old story of human depravity and the ability of humanity to rise above sinful brokenness and speak (or write) a word of truth for this day and days to come.
Re: H.B. Stowe, you may be interested to know that just over the border in Ontario, Canada is the historic site known as Uncle Tom's Cabin. Rev. Josiah Henson's memoirs of his time receiving escaped slaves via the underground railroad was acknowledged by Stowe as the inspiration for her book. The Mennonites, Quakers, and Anglicans of Canada received over 30,000 people in "stations" between Nova Scotia and British Columbia; the majority came to Southern Ontario. The historic site is in Dresden, Ontario, near Chatham. Google it!
Hi Barbara!
That's true. In fact, I've found more information from Canadian-maintained sites dealing with the American history around slavery and abolition than I've found American ones. (This was true when I was writing for Harriet Tubman last year as well.)
To me, that speaks volumes about how far to go we Americans have in acknowledging and dealing with the unpleasant realities of our own history.
I'm finding that reading the comments of others helps me make difficult decisions such as this one...but not this time!
Wow - this is a tough one. I will have to think about it for a bit. I didn't vote on the day of the Egyptians, so can I have 2 votes today?? Just kidding.
Deep respect to Beecher Stowe for harnessing the power of story and using it so effectively against injustice. My vote goes to Holly today, though, for Haiti. Thanks to his CB and the commenters for bringing that story alive.
I would probably have voted for Harriet anyway, but having grown up in the Episcopal Church in Brunswick, ME, it would just be wrong not to vote for the hometown hero.
Tough choice; voted for Stowe, though she nearly lost my vote when I read about her family's SUMMER home in Mandarin, Florida. Didn't they know to spend WINTER there??!!
Maybe that was a form of penance.
I went with Holly, partly because our Diocese supports a school in Haiti and also because after watching "12 Years a Slave" this weekend, I can only admire a freedman who was able to survive and thrive in spite of all that could have happened and much that did.
Now I'm wondering, if Bishop Holly was born to free parents, was he a freedman? Perhaps I don't have that quite right, but I trust you get my gist.
According to Wikipedia, "His parents were freed slaves of African descent and his mother was Roman Catholic. Holly was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and attended public and private schools."
This is a toughie for Mainers. Having just renewed our companion diocese relationship for a third five-year term, the ties between many parishes in both dioceses are close and long-standing. Indeed Maine's first bishop, the Rt. Rev. George Burgess, was sent by the House of Bishops to study the church Haiti just five years after Holly began his mission. Burgess died at sea near Port au Prince in 1866. But on the OTHER hand, Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin just down the road at Bowdoin College. Wouldn't it be great to have a second strong and fearless lay woman with ties to Maine win the Golden Halo? Yes it would. Personally I'm deeply torn with today's match-up but, as the mother of a Bowdoin sophomore, I have say Go Stowe!
Heidi, I totally agree with what you have said. I have worked at Bowdoin and eaten at The Stowe House before it became a housing for the college. I also found out that HBS and I share the same birthday!!! A few years between us however!! I have never read Uncle Tom's Cabin, but once Lent Madness is over I will be reserving this and reading it. Like you I say Go Stowe!!
Another tough choice. While Holly certainly did marvellous things for the church and is admirable in his accomplishments, Stowe did great things in the broader world. I'm going with sphere of influence.
Even though I was awed by the achievements of Bp. Holly I had to vote for the heroine of my childhood, Harriet Beecher Stowe. As a dyslexic child I credit the biography of her childhood and adulthood for being so fascinating that I taught myself to read. I probably read it 25 times or more. So some 65+ years later she gets my vote!
As somebody who worships and serves at St. Luke's in New Haven, CT, my vote is naturally for Bishop Holly, who is a past rector of St. Luke's!
Also it is Bishop Holly's Feast Day!
Great match-up! But three things touched me as I read - our sister diocese is Haiti, I am in awe of those who can teach themselves multiple languages, and Holly served as "a voice to the voiceless", which put me in mind of my son's recent large ensemble composition, "For Those Without a Voice". My vote went to Holly.
Anyone who can live an abolishonist's life, write a bunch of books AND raise 7 kids is a saint in my book.
Patty, you are completely right!!! I am the mother of 3 girls. Harriet raised more than twice that number, AND was an abolitionist, AND a writer! I'm tired just thinking about it.
I wonder if Bp. Holly read Mrs. Stowe.
SEC!! This is so unfair. We're going to have to whistle you for a flagrant foul and a technical for pitting these two much loved and much revered saints against one another.
Good match up. Very difficult choice. Although Holly was so accomplished, I had to go with Stowe due to her major wider impact on the" peculiar institution" of slavery.
This was a difficult one for me, as I hail from the Caribbean basin and am well versed with the plight of the Haitian. I had to vote with my heart.
My heart always starts with those who leave their comfort zone to live the Gospel life; and Holly was a true light. Historically my family was also part of the underground railroad in Ohio, and helped craft the 13th amendment (James Ashley). Stowe wrote and caught people's hearts and imaginations with the horror of domination and cruelty of slavery. She raised children, started schools, modeled her faith and shaped/shamed a nation. Both have my support, Harriet has my vote.
Plus, she didn't have Sesame Street either.....
I voted for Bishop Holly for two reasons: in the diocese of Southern Virginia, my mother's home diocese and mine for several years during college, the importance of black Episcopalians and their contributions to the life of the diocese cannot go understated. Before it closed last year, St. Paul's College (an Episcopal HBCU) in Lawrenceville was not only an amazingly positive influence during the 19th and early 20th centuries for Brunswick Co. and Southside Virginia generally, but it continued to be through the 21st, winding up being the largest employer in the county. Growing up in the diocese of SE Florida, the importance of the diocese in Haiti was easy to see and the importance the church has been in Haiti to this day is simply amazing. The man had to have the patience of Job (it certainly seems like he had the suffering of Job), but the good he did for the church both within and beyond the US is amazing.
fortunately for me this face-off happened on my day off. I was all set to vote for HBS but then I came to the realization that she DID start a war and, although the $400 seems trite, if invested at 5% interest compounded annually it would now be worth $1,083,244.37. I think HBS was laughing all the way to the bank. My vote goes for the Good Reverend Holly. He's my Buddy!
I don't think you know what the Civil War was really about It was fought to preserve the union not to stop slavery. HBS's book was aimed at making people to understand the immorality of slavery. She was able to help the people of the world come to that understanding. As a woman in a time when women were most often held down, she went forward with her belief that all men should have the freedom to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. She spent her life teaching women who were not accepted in traditional schools and living her faith instead of just espousing it. She raised seven children at the same time. She was friends with Fredrick Douglass and Salmon P. Chase. They helped her make the case for the end of slavery. President Lincoln even commended her work. As for the $400 dollars she made for the book, it didn't come all at once and I am sure it was spent taking care of her family. My church had a debate between the two last night. I was lucky enough to take the roll of Harriet. Our voters were overwhelmingly for Harriet.
That simply is not correct. Take a deeper look at events leading up to the Civil War. The violence and actions of people in both North and South were the result of arguments over slavery! Also take a look at the history of the Emancipation Proclamation and why Lincoln issued it, but waited to win a major battle before doings so. Yes, the Civil War was fought over slavery. You are simply mistaken and don't know enough Civil War history!
Harriet Beecher Stowe was vilified for her book. She did not have a "friendly environment" in which she worked. She was hung in effigy and there were other violent incidents involved in the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin!
Both wonderful saints, I'm voting for spunky Harriet because she is a white person who's perspective of slavery via "Uncle Tom" ultimately changed the hearts of white people around the world, and who would probably be pissed at me for not voting for the brilliant Bishop of Haiti.
So, let me just say that this is truly a worthy Lent Madness Matchup! I paused over the vote button for a while, because what I read, in addition to what I already know about these two candidates, made it impossible to choose quickly. I voted for Bishop Holly because he embodies the true essence of what we, as either lay or ordained Christians, need to be about in bringing the gospel message into the real world, and being authentic about it. I found it hard not to vote for Harriet Beecher Stowe, too because she did the same thing, in a different path. In the end my vote went to the Bishop because, as a deacon, I love it when the Bishop leads by example!
Vote button in the email still doesn't work. Have to click on Comments and navigate to voting page. Thanks for a great matchup!
Another tough choice. I voted for Harriet Beecher Stowe because she fought the good fight on home ground and went for the jugular. If, as Lincoln said, she "started this big war," she used the pen, the weapon more powerful than the sword, and slavery was eventually abolished.
All honor to both "contestants" today, nevertheless. They both made significant contributions in the areas in which they served.
Go Stowe. What a woman!
I have to admit I have a definite bias towards Bishop Holly because of the fact that I am an active member of St. Luke's Episcopal in New Haven, CT, where he served as Rector before going to Haiti (1856-1861). He was truly a man of God as evidenced by the fact that Haiti is now the largest Diocese in the Episcopal Church.