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 couple of caveats: Holly was not the first Black Episcopal Bishop, but he was the first Black consecrated by Episcopal bishops; he was consecrated as bishop of the (then independent) Anglican Orthodox Church of Haiti. He did become a bishop of TEC later when the Dominican Republic was added to his purview as an Episcopal diocese (and I believe Haiti also became an Episcopal diocese at about the same time).
In any case, I had the privilege some time ago of serving as Interim Rector of his original parish, St Luke's, New Haven, where his heritage is still remembered, so he gets my vote
Bishop Holly did not benefit from the pleasure of seeing his wife, two children and mother live but persevered in doing God's work. For those who struggle to make a decision as to your voting choice, the cardinal rule is still this: MADNESS..as in the raison d'etre for the name LentMadness. You're (we're) supposed to struggle in making a final decision. That's the agonizing fun here ! What's that called? Two words that really contradict one another? Memory black-out today!
oxymoron?
Dear Friends: I have not yet decided for whom I will give my vote. But, I have copied the biographies on Google Translate into Haitian Creole and sent them to our administrative priest (Pere Fruitho Michaud) for our partnership school at St. Cyprien, Haiti. I am thankful for belonging to a community of people who believe in love, mercy and responsibility for our fellow travelers on this planet paradise.
I'm having a hard time choosing today. Frankly, I'm disturbed that Bishop Holly was an active Mason in addition to his church work.
Could you provide a link or reference where you see that he was a Mason?
I am not finding that in any research I've done on him.
Thanks!
I have one question on this: Why?? (puzzled look upon my face)
I had to vote for Holly. The work he did in Haiti resonates today as they rebuild their country.
Bishop Holly received my vote today, mainly because I think he deserves a bit more notoriety. I thought Stowe might be the runaway vote today with her powerful addition to literature and US history, but I'm glad it is close. Both are quite admirable.
This was a tough one for me. They are both very deserving of the golden halo. I voted for Holly because nearly everyone knows HBS and what she accomplished, but Holly deserves recognition for what he did. I missed knowing about his Masonic affiliation - which does make me a bit uneasy - but back in the day, I understand lodge memberships enabled men to make connections that would further their good causes. Maybe still so today.
James was amazing bit Harriet gets my vote. She is just such an icon for that time of life and she was so helpful to so many.
I too would appreciate a reference to HBS's use of BCP cadences.
Tough choice. As much as I admire HBS, I have to go with Bp. Holly because of the tremendous witness that the Diocese of Haiti has today. All that resulted from the ministry and vision of one man, who went ahead with his ministry despite the initial lack of support from the Episcopal Church as well as the U.S. government.
What a tough choice! There is so much to admire about each of the contenders. In the end, I'm voting for Bishop Holly, because HBS is already so well known, and I think the Bishop's life and work deserve more public acclaim.
What a dilemma! As I read Holly's bio, I was convinced nothing would keep me from voting for him. Then I read HBS' bio, and felt a kindred spirit. I think I'll decide using the "dilemma method" of theological reflection taught in EfM (Education for Ministry...oh just google it). My mentor would be so proud (sniff).
This was a very hard choice. Bishop Holly's Haitian mission laid a foundation for the Episcopal Church there. But Harriet Beecher Stowe used her talents as a writer to shine a bright light on the sin of slavery in this country. I think both of these saints would fall into the Bishop Curry category of "Crazy Christian." I cast my vote for the lay woman.
Tobias Haller has written a wonderful icon of Bp. Holly for this his feast day - http://jintoku.blogspot.com/2014/03/bishop-for-new-world.html
How intriguing that this pair seems to have sparked the greatest number of comments, so far. My 4th grade teacher read Uncle Tom's Cabin to us many years ago, & it left a great impression on me, as well as so many others. However, Bishop Holly won my vote, with the fact of his self-education, particularly as an African-American in the early nineteenth century, his dedication to the church, his mission to Haiti. Such an impact, such courage!
This was a real tough one. I only just read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" this past year and it had such an impact on me. But I feel that I had to vote for Holly considering how much has grown out of his works, not to mention the terrible personal losses suffered in his first year in Haiti. He definitely had the power of the Holy Spirit working thru him to carry on his mission.
Holly it is for me. I sat up at keyboard when I read that he so courageously and successfully implemented the emigrate to Haiti strategy that I thought was merely a shameful pipe dream of our racist abolitionist leadership in the 1860s. I learned in Doris Kearns Goodwin that Lincoln favored foreign colonization to resolve rampant fears of the chaos that was expected following black emancipation. See the article on Lincoln and proposed foreign colonization by freed African Americans at
http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=34&subjectID=3
see p20 where we are informed us of the outcome of the 1863 Lincoln admin's scheme to colonize Haiti:
"a ship-load of colonists was collected from among the contrabands about Fort Monroe, and during that month the Ocean Ranger sailed for Ile A' Vache with colored emigrants variously stated to number from 411 to 453 persons about one-third of whom were women and children."
After [fraudulent promoter] Kock was dropped from the project, "a group of honest contractors began the export of negroes, receiving fifty dollars for each American negro deported, on official certificate of his having been landed in Hayti," wrote Lincoln biographer William E. Barton. "After about eighty thousand dollars had been expended, it was found that the region set apart for this colony was wholly unsuitable, and the negroes were brought back at the expense of the original agents who had given a fraudulent description of the country."
What's happening with the voting software? When I press "Vote" nothing happens!
Well, now that I just posted a problem it became unstuck and took my vote!? It is neck to neck.... Go Harriet!
I believe Bishop Holly was also the first Bishop of La Iglesia Episcopal Dominicana, because originally Haiti and La República Dominicana, being on the same island, were served by one diocesan structure. It was after his time that they became separate institutions. And it should be recognized that he went to Haití not simply for his own freedom, as another commentator viewed it, but in hope of building a free republic for all African descendants in the Americas. You could argue that he personally had a pretty decent life in academic and church circles even in the US, but he was more concerned about the future for the African diáspora than for his own privileges. Had it been only for himself, he could have relocated to Europe, where he received greater respect than in the US.
Voting for Bishop Holly mainly because I suspect, as much as I admire her, he had a much harder life than Harriet.
I'm a United Methodist with some Quaker ancestry, including my great-grandparents Thomas and Mary Catherine Stafford. Owning a large farm in central North Carolina, they didn't believe in slavery. Instead, they employed free black workers on their farm. I don't know where they found them, whether they bought them and set them free or what. But I do know that they provided housing and other necessities for them, and built a church and a school on the place for them. My great-grandmother taught them to read and write and whatever else she could, in defiance of laws of the time that made it illegal to teach a black person to read and write. When the War Between the States started, my great-grandfather and his cousin fled to Indiana or Illinois for the duration; their Quaker faith would not permit them to fight, so they were in danger from their neighbors. They traveled at night and hid in the daytime to escape capture by both sides, the North who would have considered them spies and the South who would have considered them traitors. I know nothing of their experiences in what is now the middle West. I do know that the privations of this period wrecked their health. Fortunately for our family, they did return, much the worse for wear, after the war. My grandmother was born in the post-war era. She was very active in the Prohibition movement and was a suffragette. Anyway, how could I not vote for Harriet?
Very interesting reasoning. Maybe the SEC should look into your family for some saints for Lent Madness 2015.
Fascinating story! Thank you so much for telling it to this community.
My first intention was to vote for Harriet but after finding "Facts about the Church's Mission in Haiti" written in 1897 by Holly and seeing this quote I felt compelled to vote for him.
I had come to Haiti to bear a pure Gospel testimony to a nominally Christian people whose knowledge of Christianity had been received from a church which had also fallen away from its original purity.
Well, I voted for Bishop Holly, but this was a tough one. One thing that swayed me is that the write-up on HBS didn't seem to talk a whole lot about her faith, except for her family background. That was the tie-breaker for me. I sure wish we could have read more about her amazing faith, because it must surely have been very strong for her to do all she did. Hmmm…just like Anna Cooper--whose write-up mentioned religion/faith exactly none. But I'm not bitter about Joseph losing. Nope. Not at all. You have to let these things go. After what he did for Jesus…nope. Let it go.
A lot of tough match-ups this year. If this one brings anguish, wait until the Wesley brothers face off against each other! Fie! Still, maybe because I so recently watched a video of Bishop Curry's GC sermon, Stowe it is for me.
This is the hardest of all so far. In the end I voted for HBS because of the way women were discounted in so many ways and how she worked in various ways to change society. This still has me gritting my teeth and praying my TMJ doesn't go crazy!
This was a difficult decision, but I voted for Bishop Holly
I voted for the Bishop in honour of my grand daughter who went to Haiti on a mission trip while in high school .Two memories stand out.A year later the Episcopal priest she came to know in the town of Janette up in the mountain,came to Milwaukee to visit with the Diocese and asked them to find Ashlie so he could renew their friendship,So they visitted at her after school job at the PicknSave grocery store.Second story,every time the group went by bus down to Port au Prince the leader did a head count.He kept coming up 1 person short.The villagers would ride in the back of the bus so he only counted the white kids.Ashlie who happens to be Black always sat with the villagers!
In the middle of reading a wonderful new 2014 biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe subtitled "A Spiritual Life", by Nancy Koester, there is no doubt in my mind that she should go all the way. The effort it took to write while mothering small children is no small thing, and what she felt called to write moved the conscience of the church as well as the nation.
Yes, a difficult choice. It seemed to me that Stowe had "friendly environments" in which to work. Also, getting Bowdoin faculty and student critiques of each chapter of Uncle Tom's Cabin must have been very useful. Rev. Holly seemed to have had to work in more hostile environments and rely more on his own strengths (and God's). That's why I voted for Holly.