Arthur’s Liturgy

[N.B. The following words were originally offered at the graveyard near Lake City where I believe Arthur Henry was laid to rest. This liturgy was then offered at the Dedication Ceremony of the EJI marker at the Wells'Built Museum December 6, 2023] 

We do not know where Arthur Henry was buried. My search for his resting place took me to the Huntsville Church and Cemetery, just north of Lake City, where his Father and sister had been buried. It was as close to a final resting place as I could find. But once I arrived, I felt that I needed to say something to Arthur.

 

We Had Never Repented

I am an Episcopal priest. And so on Wednesday, October 26, 2022 using a tree stump as an altar amidst the hallowed ground of the church yard and cemetery where white and Black bodies, perhaps including Arthur Henry’s, repose together. I lit a candle and offered the following words:

 Bless [+] the Lord who forgives all our sins. His mercy endures forever.

 

I come this day to speak words of remorse and repentance on behalf of the people of Orlando. What happened to you, Arthur, on Thanksgiving Day, 1925, in our City Beautiful was evil. You were wounded, abducted, tortured and killed. Your body was left to deteriorate for two weeks before it was recovered. 

It was an atrocity.

A number of people in our community actively participated in these deeds. But virtually all of the community participated in the confabulation that allowed this hate crime to go uninvestigated, to explain away the wrongdoing, to shelter its participants from justice and to consign this case to collective darkness. We sought to simply erase you from our memory. And the repression of these deadly deeds from our consciousness has continued  - until today.

 

It has been 98 years since these terrible things occurred. In all those years we have never repented for our wrongful actions. While I have no way of knowing exactly where your mortal remains were laid, Arthur, I believe they are here somewhere among those of your family. And so I come this day to speak these words of repentance on behalf of my townspeople, our ancestors and those who succeed us.

We would be more than bold to ask forgiveness and we do not merit the same. But I am here this day to say we are sorry and that we are working fervently to bring this darkness into the light. And I pray that long overdue healing may ensue as a result.

Arthur, in the past six years, you have become a living presence in my life. While I cannot see your face and have no photos to tell me what you looked like, in moments of silence when I am alone, I hear your voice. You have asked me to tell your story and I am intent on doing so. Indeed, I am the only one who can.

 

Inspired by a Poet

 

And so I offer you the words that have informed my search for you from the beginning of my quest. They come from the poet Dylan Thomas:

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Arthur, you did not go gently into the night and it was anything but good. You were taken by force. I do not know if your fear even allowed you to rage against the atrocities inflicted upon you. But you would have been right to do so.

Now it is our turn to rage on your behalf, to tell your story, to commemorate your lynching and to expose the confabulation created to hold ourselves faultless when we as a people had your blood all over our hands. The time has long since passed to bring all these cruel events out of our collective Shadow and into the light. The world needs to know what happened that dark Thanksgiving night so long ago.

 

May We Redeem Our Souls

And so I stand here this day to confess our sins, to express our sorrow for the harm we inflicted upon you and your loved ones, to pledge our efforts to right this wrong, to prevent such events in the future, to bring your memory out of the Shadow where we have consigned you and to restore your name to those of the living. In doing so may we redeem our own souls.

 All these words I offer in the name of the Creator who is the [+] source of all that exists, the ground of being for all that live and the destiny of the souls of all the departed. AMEN. 

 

 

[Images taken at or around Huntsville Methodist Church Cemetery, 212 Huntsville Drive, Lake City, Florida]

 

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 Harry Scott Coverston

 Orlando, Florida

 frharry@cfl.rr.com

 hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

 If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

   © Harry Coverston, 2023

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