The Rt. Rev. James R. Mathes, associate dean of students, writes for Virginia Theological Seminary’s weblog:
Holy Women, Holy Men offers two commemorations for this day: W.E.B. DuBois and George Freeman Bragg, Jr. Dubois is a legend of the 20th Century civil rights movement. Bragg is less well known, but begs our attention on this day.
Born a slave in 1863, he grew up in the Episcopal Church and was graduated from Bishop Payne Seminary in 1886. He was an historian who focused on the African American Church and was a powerful activist in civil rights. With DuBois and others, he was one of the founders of the Niagara Movement, the precursor to the NAACP. Notably, he served for forty-nine years as rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Baltimore, where our Presiding Bishop Michael Bruce Curry also served as rector.
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.
