Keepsakes and Forts: The Black Church as a Pillar of Preservation and Protection

“Unfortunately not all white Christians Pastors were as accommodating to their black brethren. For the next 100 years, religious gatherings of enslaved Africans involved both formal worship organized and overseen by slave masters, as well as secret, clandestine meetings held under the cover of darkness. Those enslaved risked being beaten or even killed if caught attending these secret worship assemblies. Great care was taken to avoid detection. Meetings were held in secluded places (woods, ravines, areas with lots of brush to provide cover). These places were known as ‘hush harbors’.”

“The Origins of the Bluestone Church
The site of Bluestone meeting house was on a beautiful eminence on Big Bluestone Creek, about three miles from Abbyville, on Staunton River and just two from the North Carolina state line. It seems the gospel was first carried into the neighborhood of Bluestone by William Murphy and Philip Mulkey about 1755-56.

According to writer of Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (1988) by Mechal Sobel, they organized the very first all-black church in Virginia on the ill-managed plantation of Col. William Byrd III in Lunenburg County, Virginia. Also according to her records, it was considered to be the first all black church in America. 
By blending their “new lights” Separatist Baptist faith with that of the Afro-Americans had brought with them from Africa, a unique religious experience in America was beginning, and would continue to develop into the 19th/20th century.”

William Murphy & Bluestone Church
The First All Black Church in America. 

“In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, when Sethe, the novel’s main character, determines that “it was time to lay it all down,” she heads to the woods to find the Clearing.  It is there, she recalls, that Baby Suggs, the unchurched preacher, exhorted her community to love themselves, their bodies, and one another.  The Clearing, described as “a wide-open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the end of a path known only to deer and whoever cleared the land,” is a literary depiction of a brush harbor, or hush harbor, and is foundational to the historical development of Black religion in America.”  

“In these makeshift, tree-covered temples, black religious practitioners enacted rituals of spiritual transformation and reaffirmed the belief that they were equal stakeholders in the cosmic order of creation.”

Where Are Our Brush Harbors Today??

“The question is, are we prepared to resist centering ourselves, our traditions, and our institutions and are we equipped to join them in “The Clearing”? As a Christian, I recognize now is the time! We were called for such a time as this to be transformers and agents of change and healing in communities that are crying out for transformation and restoration. We are called as healers and bridge builders to unite in dismantling systems of oppression, calling out promoters of oppressive -isms and mitigating unconscious biases in congregations and communities.”
“The hush harbors of social media groups, chat rooms, coffee houses, spiritual retreats, podcasts, book clubs, community organizations, and interest groups are “The Clearings” we can see. These are the places that are known by many, where we can steal away to envision what we hope for. “The Clearing” is where we can find peace, acceptance, belonging, and gain clarity about the journey ahead. These are the sacred spaces equipping those of us who have been pushed to the margins to develop a decolonized, spiritually rooted community of revolutionaries. Only in “The Clearing” do we see, hear, feel, and recognize a community thriving in the spirit of Ubuntu – I am because we are.”

It was in the clearing: hush harbors and soul freedom, past and present