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A NEWSLETTER OF THE OFFICE OF BLACK MINISTRIES 
THE SAINT CYPRIAN ISSUE

UBE Conference:
Black Involvement in the Episcopal Church
by the Rev. Howard K. Williams
  
It is difficult to be sure just what attracted nearly 300 members of the Union of Black Episcopalians to the group's annual conference, held June 25-29, at Wellesley College. It might have been one or a combination of the following factors: the fact that the conference would coincide with the 200th anniversary celebration of the Diocese of Massachusetts; a deeply felt need for the continuation of a Black caucus in the Episcopal Church, particularly in the light of General Convention; and the theme of the conference: "Black Involvement in the Episcopal Church: What is It?"

For these and other reasons, clergy and lay people from Albany to Austin, and from Savannah to San Francisco, came together for study, worship and fellowship–faithful to a tradition established by the Conference of Colored Church Workers, who held their first meeting in 1883.

Because of their historic exclusion from the mainstream of the Church's life, Black Episcopalians have tended to be parochial. Often barred from participation in diocesan conventions, and denied access to decision-making bodies at every level of the Church's life, Black Episcopalians had little or no involvement in church politics outside the walls of the parish.

While there are no longer any "official" barriers today, we are reminded that Blacks are still woefully underrepresented in decision-making bodies of the Church. Only two blacks sit on the 40-member Executive Council, neither of whom was elected from the floor of General Convention. Of the 1,200 deputies at the upcoming General Convention in Los Angeles, only 20 are expected to be Black.

The conference dean, the Rev. Dr. Henderson Brome, rector of St. Cyprian's, Boston, addressed the conference them in his sermon during the opening Eucharist. He compared the Black Episcopalian to the man at the side of the pool at Bethesda, a victim of his own mental paralysis who expects someone else to lead him into the mainstream. Dr. Brome asserted that we cannot always blame racism, church practices, indifference or even benign neglect for the exclusion of Blacks from decision-making positions, and he challenged his fellow conferees to claim their rightful places in the committees, commissions and conventions where church policy and polity are determined.

The conference theme was put into historical perspective through a thought-provoking keynote address delivered by the Rt. Rev. Walter Dennis, Bishop Suffragan of New York. Two other preachers, the Rev. Barbara Harris, Executive Director of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company and the Rev. Canon Frederick Williams, rector of Intercession, New York City, suggested an alternative title for the conference: "Black Involvement in the Episcopal Church: What Should it Be?" Workshops were offered on such topics as diocesan structure, clergy recruitment and deployment, and preparation for the 1985 General Convention. Daily worship services celebrated the common life of the participants as well as the Black religious experience.

All the proceedings at Wellesley spelled hope, and the conferees returned to their respective bailiwicks renewed, refreshed and challenged fully cognizant of the fact that although we have 
"come this far by faith," we still have a long way to go.
The Rev Howard K. Williams is chaplain at Voorhees College. Vorhees, in Denmark, South Carolina, is one of the three predominantly Black Episcopal colleges. 

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