News

St. John dedicates cross honoring slave cemetery

The Rt. Rev. Porter Taylor led a service dedicating a cross that commemorates slave cemetery at St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church.

By Bill Moss, Published: January 18, 2016

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.’ 1 Corinthians 13:12

FLAT ROCK — Shortly before he ascended the pulpit of St. John in the Wilderness Church on Sunday afternoon, the Rt. Rev. Porter Taylor had learned a relevant piece of church history.

Christopher Memminger, the secretary of the treasury for the Confederacy, is buried in the church graveyard. Memminger’s name is etched in his gravestone. The plots for slaves and freedmen have markers with no names.
Taylor said he was sure that Memminger and those slaves are together now in the New Jerusalem and there “Christopher Memminger is saying, ‘Forgive me. Forgive me.’”
The descendants of slaves and the descendants of slave owners had gathered at the historic Episcopal sanctuary to commemorate that part of the 180-year-old church’s history and to dedicate a hand-carved granite cross that now honors the one hundred or so nameless souls buried on a pine straw covered slope on the church’s north lawn.
The church and its people “inhabit the past,” said Taylor, who is the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina. “And because we inhabit the past, in the present day we have the responsibility to respond to the past, not just so the present will be different but so the future will be different.”
Bill Mance, right, said, 'This is a good move.'As Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, we see clearly now what we dimly knew or did not know a century and a half ago.
“There are two Christian qualities we have to embrace,” Taylor said. “One is courage. The other is hope. We see things people either did not know or chose not to know but we have to take an honest clear look at it from what we know living in our age and then have the courage to change what we can. … We must have the courage to do what God calls on us to do.”
Parishioners in the mid 1800s denied slaves the dignity of having a name on their graves. They’re lost to history. Their descendants today cannot visit the cemetery and honor them. “We have to be honest about the sinfulness of the past,” the bishop said. The slaves may not have a name above ground but “your name is in the Book of Life. We know that you are destined to be a citizen of the New Jerusalem. That’s our hope and that’s our faith. … We not only grieve the sins of the past. We do what we can to rectify them. We do what we can to honor people that were buried without names.”
At the service of the cross dedication, congregants and guests sang “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” the traditional American spiritual.
Bill Mance, a member of St. Matthias Episcopal Church in Asheville, was one of the guests singing.
“I read about this and wanted to come and be a part of it,” he said.
No, he said, he was not a descendant of slaves buried at the Flat Rock church. “I lead the Commission to Dismantle Racism,” Mance said. “This is a good move. It was kind of unmarked before. Everybody knew it was here. Now they’re doing something to recognize it.”