Presiding Bishop Michael Curry asks that congregations devote dedicated offerings on Feb. 13, the Feast of Absalom Jones, to support the Episcopal Church’s two remaining Historically Black Colleges and Universities: St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, N.C., and Voorhees College in Denmark, S.C.
St. Augustine’s and Voorhees provide liberal arts education to thousands of students, the vast majority from low-income households. These schools also provide campus ministries that form young adults as followers of Jesus and his way of love.
“As we approach February, the remembrance of the Blessed Absalom Jones, the first African-American priest in the Episcopal Church, we have a unique opportunity to celebrate his memory and to honor the witness of two schools that continue to form new leaders,” Bishop Curry said.
The two institutions of higher education were founded in the later 19th century as an Episcopal Church missionary venture. “These schools bring educational, economic, and social opportunity to often resource-poor communities, and they offer many blessings into the life of the Episcopal Church,” Curry said.
Adapted from the Office of Public Affairs
Absalom Jones Commemoration in St. Louis
The 2019 Absalom Jones Commemoration will meet under the theme “A Liberating Presence: 200 Years of Black Episcopal Witness in Missouri” Feb. 9. The celebration is scheduled for 10 a.m. at Christ Church Cathedral, 1210 Locust, St. Louis 63103
Priscilla A. Dowden-White, associate professor of history at the University of Missouri, will preach the sermon. She is the author of Groping toward Democracy: African American Social Welfare Reform in St. Louis, 1910-1949 (Missouri, 2011), and has begun research for a biography on the life of the late civil rights attorney Margaret Bush Wilson.
Born in St. Louis, Dowden-White is a missionary in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Adapted from the Diocese of Missouri
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
