Sunday Worship
7:30 a.m. Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Recovery Morning Prayer 8-8:45 a.m
8:45 a.m. Holy Eucharist, Rite II
11:15 a.m. Holy Eucharist, Rite II
6:00 p.m. BreakingBread@6
Weekday Worship
8:15 a.m. Morning Prayer
12:15 p.m. Holy Eucharist
It is with humble heart that the Isaac Project Phase 1 Committee begins our initial report on what we have been researching and what we have to report in the weeks ahead. For those of you who may not remember, the Isaac Project was kicked off earlier this year. As described previously:
What is The Isaac Project?
On September 1, 1842, Mr. T. Washington presented a man named “Isaac” for baptism at Christ Church. No birthdate is recorded. No last name is recorded. Written in the comment section of our Baptismal Register is simply “a slave belonging to Mr. T. Washington.”
In the midst of the civil unrest during the summer of 2020 instigated by the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, and others, The Very Rev. Timothy E. Kimbrough proposed The Isaac Project to the Vestry, seeking to quicken institutional awareness around practices, actions, ministries, and systems that have, either intentionally or implicitly, fostered racism and inhibited the comprehensive pursuit of holiness, righteousness, and the justice of God, by the people, Vestry, and clergy of Christ Church Cathedral.
The proposal, later adopted by the Vestry, outlines five phases of The Isaac Project—origins and parochial development; public repentance and renewal; penance; institutional reform; and renewal by the Spirit, refreshment for service.
Tell me more about Phase One.
The Phase One committee has been charged by the Vestry to consider and narrate the history of Christ Church from its founding to the present day, with a keen awareness of how a congregation with an antebellum past may have benefitted from and grown based on prevailing anti-Black, racist sentiments of the society and people they were serving and continue to serve today.
At its start in January 2021, Melinda Balser, Janice Malcolm, and Win Bassett (Chairperson) comprised the Phase One committee, with Fletch Coke serving as an advisor initially. Win stepped down for growing family commitments in the summer of 2021 and Lawrence Blank-Cook took on the role of Chairperson while Becca Walton became a clergy consultant. This small committee will seek to narrate a fuller story of Christ Church and race, examining the Parish registers, Vestry minutes, Diocesan reports, local news sources, Vestry membership, memorials and gifts, and missions. We hope this will serve to prepare for Christ Church’s third century in ministry.
In order to complete this task, we organized ourselves into subject and research areas and created a shared timeline of all relevant and documentable facts:
Overall sponsorship and guidance and the historical Vestry Minutes – Janice Malcolm and Melinda Balser
Original Vestry Members and their history – John Bridges
The First 100 Years – Richard Goode
Nashville History – David Ewing
Physical building and material culture – David Ewing, John Bridges and Becca Walton
Church demographics and diocesan reports – Becca Ingle and Lawrence Blank-Cook
Gifts and memorials – Becca Walton
Missions – Brad Daugherty
The scope for phase one is an overview of our findings and the questions that this research raised for us and our potential conclusions. Additionally, we will prepare a bibliography and a recommendation regarding future phases of the Isaac Project. As time and the current Covid Pandemic permits, we anticipate an in-person discussion of our approach and initial findings in the coming weeks. Until then, we will continue to update you here in Happenings and will provide an overview of each area of research.
Faithfully,
The Isaac Project Phase 1 Committee
As we begin to place a context for the exploration of the Christ Church’s historic relation to racism, beginning in the 19th Century, our process started with a review of the church registries. We reviewed all baptisms, marriages, and confirmations, with particular attention to any mention of race.
In the Registry of Baptisms, there were 18 persons baptized between 1841-1869 for whom race was recorded. Two were prisoners, and only five had last names recorded, the first of those in 1867. None of the eighteen had age or date of birth noted and most appear to be identified as “servants” (with the exception of Isaac who is listed as a “slave”). The question remains as to who actually articulated the relationship–the person recording the baptism or the sponsor.
To access all records, click here.
In Christ Church’s confirmation records, race is noted twice in reference to John Harris and Burrill Anderson.
In Christ Church’s marriage records, race is noted three times.
In addition to looking at the Parish Records, we also looked at the Parish Annual Reports contributed during the 19th century Diocesan Annual Conventions. The records that we reviewed showed the following about Christ Church:
While other parishes, in their Annual Convention Report, and such as St. Paul’s Franklin, noted the number of individuals baptized, confirmed or married by race, Christ Church did not.
In the 12th Convention in May 1840, Christ Church reported that we established "regular weekly service for colored people nine months ago" (so about Sept. 1839). The note continues with the comment from the Rector, “I have not thought it best to bring them forward immediately, as I could readily do, to Confirmation and Communion.” See Figure 1 below for all of the text. (Source: Click here.)
At the 36th Convention in 1868, the first designation of race was made in reference to the composition of the Parish population through the Sunday School numbers: “White teachers, 20; scholars, 125. Colored teachers, 16; scholars 150.” See Figure 2. (Source: Click here.)
Note: our research goes through 1886 at this time.
Questions that this raises for us:
A. Is the term “servant” synonymous with “slave” in 19th Century Tennessee?
B. How should the name of the project be changed to reflect all of the individuals in these lists? C. How do we honor these individuals in future phases of this endeavor?
C. How do we make our records more accessible for anyone trying to do historical or genealogical research? (Such as the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society/Nashville Chapter, click here.)
Demographics Figure 1
Demographics Figure 2
Christ Church Episcopal was founded in 1828 in the Masonic Lodge at what is now the corner of Fourth Avenue, North, and Church Street. (It would be 169 years before Christ Church would become a Cathedral.) To read more about our history, please review this content. We must thank Fletch Coke for her tireless work in preserving our archives over the last several decades.
As part of the Issac Project, we wanted to understand more about our community’s relationship to race and slavery, so we researched founding vestry members and priests and their relationships as well. There were five men on the initial Vestry; all were men of means and all owned enslaved people. Additionally, we found that one priest also owned enslaved people.
As early as 1800, the Federal Census began listing the number of enslaved people for individual white citizens – just numbers, not names. Those records, along with Deeds stored at the Tennessee State Library and Archives indicate that the first Vestry members and other leaders in the congregation were involved in the slave trade. This is not a surprise, but it is a tragic chapter in our history.
The buying and selling of enslaved people was common practice throughout the South. For example, in 1833, Thomas Washington bought Isaac, the enslaved man who was baptized at Christ Church in 1841, from the estate of John Roanes for $1,059. He bought an enslaved woman, Lavinia, known as “Aunt Viney,” in 1835.
The history of Christ Church and our members is complex as can be seen with another founding Vestry member, Francis B. Fogg. Fogg was a respected attorney and became a Union sympathizer during the Civil War. Records indicate, however, that he handled many transactions necessary to buy and sell enslaved people – not just for his fellow parishioners at Christ Church, but in Nashville at large. His name is on the high school, a couple of blocks down Broadway from the Cathedral.
Beginning in 1831, the pews at Christ Church were auctioned off every year to cover the church’s budget. There were no annual campaigns. The selling of pews was the source of contention in the parish until the sales stopped, 90 years later. Of the 80 people who paid for pews in 1831 (one of them, Mrs. Rebecca Symmes, was a woman), at least 33 were owners of enslaved people.
When we began our research, we asked ourselves the question of how did race play a role in Christ Church’s history. This research about our founders makes us ask:
How can we understand Christ Church’s role in the 19th century with regards to race and slavery?
How do we reconcile the teachings of our faith with the actual practices of our community in the past?
What choices do we want to make going forward as we seek and serve all persons through Christ in the next 100 years?
Nearly 100 years ago, some two-dozen authors contributed to Christ Church Nashville, 1829-1929, the centennial history of this parish. The 300-page volume provides a treasure of information chronicling the Cathedral’s early days, yet the writers often tell a wholly celebratory story, depicting a century of persistent progress. Click here to access a full copy of the book.
Commending noteworthy accomplishments is certainly right and good. It is also important—especially as we approach the Cathedral’s bicentennial—that we shun hagiography and disavow sentimentalized legends. For a faithful and useable history must narrate the marbled life-story, the successes and errors, of this community.
As we investigate our past, we will invariably agree and disagree with how our forebears navigated particular moments. It is incumbent upon us to ascertain the context in which they acted, and extend our ancestors an appropriate measure of grace.
Even so, candor about the past is required, for as the Liturgy illustrates proper confession precedes absolution. Attempts either to ignore, or to obscure sins in the historical record are a disservice to our ancestors, yet far more critically an injustice against those whom our forebears violated. Let us be contrite and compassionate, penitent as we name iniquities. May God bless us with the faith, wisdom, and integrity to narrate our history honestly, prophetically, and well. May we honor the canons of truth telling, as together we renew and reinvigorate the ministry of Christ Church Cathedral to all people.
Questions that our review of the text has generated:
How might we comment on or add an addendum to the first 100 years?
How do we want to tell the narrative of the second 100 years?
How should the narrative of Christ Church Cathedral be aligned with historical events?
The first Christ Church building was at the corner of Church and Sixth streets. Architect Hugh Roland designed the Gothic structure. The cornerstone was laid in 1830, and the church was consecrated almost exactly a year later. For a more detailed account of the founding and building of the church, see Fletch Coke’s history, found here.
Beginning in the 1870s as Nashville’s population grew, church leaders recognized that the building was too small. In 1883, the vestry purchased the lot on which the current church stands. Architect Frances Hatch Kimball designed the building, and groundbreaking happened in 1890, though delays related to the cost of the building and a financial depression delayed its completion until Advent of 1894. Later additions to the Victorian Gothic church were the tower (1947) and chimes (1949). Again, Fletch Coke’s history provides more details about the architecture and building of the church.
An important question regarding the building and interior decoration of the 1831 and 1894 churches is the identity of the craftspeople and laborers who built the structures and crafted sacred objects. We do know that out of 52 original pew renters of the 1831 church, at least 22 owned enslaved people at the time of the 1850 census. This number has been derived from searches of the 1850 census, which are not yet complete; the number is likely higher.
Many of the church furnishings were given as gifts and memorials in 1894, when the second building was completed. You can view a full list here.
There are several items that have clear connections to the institution of slavery. Two brass urns given in 1894 by a formerly enslaved woman named Lavinia or “Aunt Viney” (no last name known) bear the inscription “'In Memory of my Mistis Mrs. Thomas Washington,” using dialect for the term “mistress” used by white enslavers. A Davidson County Deed Book lists the purchase of an enslaved woman named Lavinia, at that time in her mid 20s, in 1835 by the Washington family. We assume, but can’t know for sure, that it is the same person. If so, she would have been in her 90s at the time of the gift. It is difficult to know the nature of the relationship between Mrs. Mary Washington and Lavinia. While they may have had true bonds of affection, it was also common in the 1890s for people to cite such relationships as a way to soften the image of slavery, portraying the institution as benevolent. The urns are still used on Palm Sundays to hold palm fronds.
Katherine Polk Gale, daughter of Bishop (and Lieutenant-General in the Confederate Army) Leonidas Polk, was an active member of Christ Church after the Civil War. She gave a bronze altar book stand in memory of her three children for the 1894 church. Her memoir, Recollections of Life in the Southern Confederacy, has numerous notes of enslaved people owned by the Polk family in Nashville, New Orleans, North Carolina, and Mississippi. The Polk family’s papers, including Recollections, have been digitized by UNC and can be read here. The altar book stand is in storage at the Cathedral, no longer in use.
How did the fact that many Christ Church founders owned enslaved people affect the labor used to build the 1830 church? What role did enslaved laborers play during the building of the first Christ Church, from July 1830 to July 1831? What about free Black craftsmen?
What role did Black laborers and craftspeople play in the building of our current church building, consecrated in 1894?
What can items of material culture in the church (urns, stained glass windows, etc.) tell us about how enslaved people experienced Christ Church?
How can we make our records readily available to researchers?
One important aspect of Christ Church’s self-understanding and re-telling of its history has been its role in founding other Episcopal churches throughout the greater Nashville area. Repeatedly its histories have referred to it as the Episcopal “Mother Church” of Nashville. And indeed this is true, and to be praised: Christ Church and its people have helped to found eighteen missions over the years, many of which went on to become long-standing missions or parishes. However, as part of a review of our history, we wanted to better understand our mission work specifically as it relates to race relations and Christ Church’s participation in, or resistance to, the systemic racism of our society. This is what we have found so far.
In its first decade of existence, Christ Church established a weekly worship service for African Americans (as mentioned in the Demographics update); this service did not include communion (though the rector acknowledged that he “readily could”) and the minutes of the 13th Annual Diosecean Convention refer to it as a “lecture.”
After the Civil War, Christ Church also contributed through the Diocese to a number of missions targeted to support former enslaved people during Reconstruction. Some of these missions include schools for orphans, such as the Canfield Colored Orphan Asylum 1867, in East and West Tennessee. (Referenced in Diocesan Convention Report in 1867.) By the late nineteenth century several Episcopal ministries with the express purpose of serving the African American population of Nashville existed. St. Paul’s, a mission of Holy Trinity in south Nashville, was a predominantly African American congregation by the late 1870’s. A mission then known as St. Augustine’s was started in 1889 by the Church of the Advent in north Nashville. Hoffman House, an Episcopal training school associated with Fisk University, was founded in 1890 at the initiative of the bishop. Though Christ Church was likewise actively involved in starting missions during this period, it seems that it left mission work specifically among African Americans to other parishes and to the work of the diocese itself.
In the post-WWII period a similar pattern seems to have held. Christ Church was very actively involved in the post-war expansion into the suburbs, most notably through its founding of St. George’s in 1949. Christ Church likewise joined with Church of the Advent, St. Ann’s, and the diocese to start campus ministries at Vanderbilt and Fisk that would come to be known as St. Augustine’s and St. Anselm’s respectively. Christ Church vestry minutes from the period show ongoing attention to the work at St. Augustine’s, including the formation of a committee for that purpose; comparable attention was not given to the work at St. Anselm’s.
In 1967 St. Anselm’s hosted a Liberation School, offered in partnership with SNCC. One of the school’s primary goals was to teach Black History to black children. However, there was significant backlash among the white population of Nashville; both local and national newspapers picked up the story and portrayed the liberation school as teaching hatred of the white race. [cf.this New York Times article] Figure 1. In August 1967, the Bishop of Tennessee forbade St. Anselm’s from hosting the Liberation School, and Christ Church’s Vestry passed the following Resolution in support of the bishop’s action on August 14, 1967:
The following resolution was unanimously authorized and signed by the Vestrymen present, to be sent to the Bishop of Tennessee:
'We, the undersigned members of the Vestry of Christ Church, Nashville, wish to take this opportunity to commend you for your action taken in regard to the 'Liberation School' housed in St. Anselm’s Chapel, Nashville.’
The vestry minutes of Christ Church do not often explicitly address issues of race. Here, though, they unanimously went on the record to oppose the Liberation School and instead chose to support the status quo in 1960s, segregated Nashville.
While our research is just beginning in this space, it raises the following questions:
What does it mean to choose the status quo?
What do we understand our role as a congregation as it relates to justice more broadly?
How do we seek and serve Christ in all persons in situations like the ones above and the ones that face today as we embark on our third century as a community?
To: The Christ Church Cathedral Vestry
From: The Isaac Project Phase One Committee
Re: Charge and Work Assigned by the Vestry (12/21/2020)
Date: February 11, 2022
Vestry Charge
The committee was formed “for the purpose of considering and narrating the history of Christ Church, Nashville, from its founding to the present day, with a keen awareness of how congregations with an antebellum past have benefitted from and grown based on prevailing anti-Black racist sentiment of the society and people they were serving.” (1)
Findings
● Isaac, enslaved by T Washington, was presented for baptism at Christ Church, Nashville, TN by T Washington on September 1, 1842.
● Comments written in the baptismal registers of Christ Church indicate that at least another 17 persons, similarly identified, were presented for baptism at Christ Church, Nashville, TN between 1841-1867.
● All of the five founding Vestry members of Christ Church enslaved other people.(2)
● One Rector of Christ Church, Nashville, the Reverend Dr. Wheat, enslaved other persons according to the census of 1840.(3)
● The practice of requiring pew rental in order to serve on a vestry or vote in vestry elections, erected and sustained racial and class barriers to church leadership.(4)
● Ministry to people of African descent was uneven and variously reported to the Diocese of Tennessee.(5)
● Some gifts received by the Christ Church Vestry memorialized members of Christ Church who had enslaved others or had leadership roles in the Confederate States of America.(6)
● The 100 year history of Christ Church published in 1929 is fraught and peppered with the rhetoric, vocabulary and sentiment of the “Lost Cause.”(7)
● Action was taken by the Christ Church Vestry to encourage the Board of Trustees at the Sewanee School of Theology in maintaining an all-white admissions policy, suppressing efforts being made to advance equality for and the admission of Black people to the student body at the School of Theology.(8)
● Action was taken (and subsequently rescinded) by the Christ Church Vestry to restrict the Rector’s prerogative to designate use of the Christ Church campus. The action specifically excluded the work of the Nashville Community Relations Council that at the time was working for the civil rights of African-Americans in Nashville.(9)
● Action was taken by the Christ Church Vestry encouraging the Bishop of TN in his opposition to the creation of the Liberation School at St. Anselm’s Episcopal Chapel in August 1967.(10 )
● Ministry to North Nashville was neglected. There was neglect of the African-American population of Nashville in the formation of missions and new churches and a favoring of the chaplaincy to Vanderbilt over the chaplaincy at TSU/Fisk/Meharry, in terms of commitment and support.(11)
Recommendations
● Commission the writing of an addendum to the 1929 History of Christ Church, Nashville, that acknowledges the shortcomings of its writing.
● Commission the writing of a history of Christ Church, including the second hundred years which may require the hiring of a full-time historian-in-residence.
● Consult with sister and partner congregations across Nashville regarding a public reading and discussion of the findings of the Isaac Project committee.
● Prepare a public service of repentance in which the sins of complicity with racist and unjust structures of society are confessed.
● Prepare a comprehensive review of ministries to and with the people, churches, and non-profits of North Nashville.
● Prepare for a comprehensive review, by commission, of the ministries of the Cathedral, on the eve of the Cathedral’s bicentennial, that every aspect of Cathedral life might be directed toward ministering to a multi-cultural congregation.
● Consider what current and proposed actions of the Cathedral community will be the penance provided for the confession made and forgiveness assigned.
Resolved, that the Christ Church Cathedral Vestry, meeting on Saturday, February 12, at St. Mary’s Retreat Center, Sewanee, TN, receives the report of the Isaac Project, Phase One Committee; and be it further
Resolved, that the Vestry commits to the study and address of the report’s recommendations, asking the Vestry Officers to create, charge and fund Isaac Project committees accordingly by the end of May 2022.
(1) Minutes of the Christ Church Cathedral Vestry, December 21, 2020.
(2) Tennessee State Library and Archives Research
(3) 1840 census
(4 )Minutes of the Christ Church Vestry, June 27, 1831
(5) Minutes of the 12th Annual Convention of the Clergy and Laity of Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee, May 1840
(6) Christ Church Cathedral Archives, (Dec. 1894 Kate Polk Gale altar stand and Aunt Viney brass urns; and Stained Glass windows Numbers 16 and 28 in memory of George Augustine Washington and Jane Smith Washington)
(7) The First 1oo Years; see also Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920 by Charles Reagan Wilson; and The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History. Edited by Gary W. Gallagher, and Alan T. Nolan.
(8) Minutes of the Christ Church Vestry, November 12, 1951
(9) Minutes of the Christ Church Vestry, April 1960 (rescinded July 15, 1960)
(10) Minutes of the Christ Church Vestry, August 1967
(11) Minutes of the Christ Church Vestry, March 9, 1959; September 11, 1961; May 13, 1963; March 9, 1964.
