Author: Donna Ardizzoni

The Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation’s ninth annual Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday event is going forward tomorrow afternoon as-planned!

The fast-moving storm is due to pass overnight and, although tomorrow will be quite cold, we have decided to persevere like good New Englanders.  The event takes place in the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church at the corner of Middle and Church Streets (GPS 50 Middle Street), running from 2:00-4:00pm.  Parking is available on the green in front of the Church, on the street, and in nearby parking lots in the historic district. There is a side entrance with an elevator at 10 Church Street.   More info at: www.gloucestermeetinghouse.org

PROGRAM: “Reckoning”

 Charles Nazarian, Welcome.

 Martin Luther King, Jr. recorded segments of “Letters from Birmingham Jail.”

 Melissa Dimond of Wellspring House presents that organization’s work on the Freeman Family, the prominent Black family who called the Wellspring House home for over 100 years.

Rev. Janet Parsons will describe the first five years of the Cape Ann Slavery and Abolition Trust and introduce Joe Ruykeyser, project manager. He will present new research into the efforts of enslaved people to secure their freedom through the courts in the wake of the 1783 Supreme Judicial Court decision that enslavement was in conflict with the Massachusetts Constitution.

Intermission

Michea McCaffrey and Dick Prouty lead an interactive discussion of How the Word is Passed, by Clint Smith.

You are invited to help ring the Paul Revere bell in the Meetinghouse tower to honor Dr. King as we depart the Meetinghouse. Go up the stairs from the entrance foyer to the second-floor landing.