In Dr. Jaimie Crumley’s Fall 2022 Speaker Series talk, she argued that the women of African descent who participated in Episcopal Churches during the British Colonial Period (roughly 1607-1783) primarily joined the church because of mixed feelings of desire and coercion. However, in this talk, Dr. Crumley demonstrated that the dynamic between women of African descent and Episcopal Churches in the urban North shifted after the American Revolution.
Starting in the 1780s, many northern states either abolished slavery (in the case of Massachusetts) or promised enslaved people their gradual emancipation. While coercion continued to define the lives of free people of color, the end of slavery offered more opportunities for them to explore their faith. In the early decades of freedom and quasi-freedom in the North, some women and men of African descent made Episcopal Churches in the urban North (including the Old North Church) their spiritual homes. In this talk, Dr. Crumley discussed how some women of color in the urban North participated in the Episcopal Church during the nineteenth century.
