For more than five years, First Parish in Bedford has observed Juneteenth with a small ceremony on the front steps of the church. This year, the event will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, June 16.
Although not on the actual Juneteenth, the organizers hope the Sunday date will allow more people to participate.
This year, the observance will begin with brief reflections by the Rev. Jamie Hinson-Rieger and town historian Sharon McDonald. Later, the group will walk to the Old Burying Ground to lay flowers on the graves in the African Reservation, where Bedford’s Black residents are buried.
McDonald will talk about the three formerly enslaved men whose graves are marked with a plaque in the Old Burying Ground. She will also speak more about slavery in general in Bedford.
She said, “In reading Town records, I found the names of 30 enslaved people who lived here, most of whom are probably buried there in the ‘African Reservation’ in unmarked graves. No doubt there are more whose names I do not know.”
Following the ceremony at the Old Burying Ground, everyone is invited back to the First Parish Common room for light refreshments and music by Dean Groves.
How did the First Parish observance begin?
Event organizer Dorothy Africa recounts that on Feb. 20, 2020, then-minister Rev. John Gibbons (now minister emeritus) gave a sermon about Nanne, a slave woman owned by the wife of Bedford’s first minister, Nicholas Bowes, who bequeathed Nanne to his wife when he died.
“But who was Nanne?” Rev. Gibbons asked. Did she stay enslaved for her lifetime? Was she freed or sold? There is no further word of her existence.”
Based on this compelling sermon, the parishioners decided to install a plaque in the church in memory of Nanne.
Dorothy Africa recalls, “Juneteenth came to larger national attention about the same time, so it seemed a good way to honor Nanne, and the others enslaved in Bedford prior to the Civil War. It is also a sobering reminder of the long term effects slavery has had, and continues to have, on American culture.”
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