Yesterday marked the 250th birthday of the United States. Today, our small group gathered over Zoom for the first session of the 1526 Project, also known as Resistance 500: a spiritual discernment curriculum created by Rev. Dr. Ben Boswell and the team at Collective Liberation Church. I want to share a bit about what we experienced, and invite you to consider joining us. Why “1526”? The curriculum takes its name, and its $15.26 price, from a moment most of us never learned about in school: the first rebellion of enslaved people in what would become the United States, which took place in 1526 in present-day Georgia or South Carolina. It’s a fitting starting point for a 20-week journey of remembering what our founding story often leaves out. You can find the full curriculum at resistance500.com. What Our Gathering Looked Like Our hour together each Sunday follows a rhythm: gathering words, a scripture reading, a historical reflection, a time of silent examen, a lament and remembrance liturgy, an action step, and a closing benediction. Tonight’s historical reflection centered on Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, often called “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”, delivered in Rochester, New York. I read the entire address, about 30 minutes worth, and we’ll keep sitting with it next week. During our examen, we sat in silence and then shared, without fixing or advising each other, in response to questions like these: * Where in my own body do I carry the Fourth of July? Pride, shame, nostalgia, grief, nothing at all? * What was the first version of the American story I was told, and what did it leave out? * When Douglass says “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine,” is it mine? Why or why not? * What would it mean this summer to learn to mourn what I’ve been taught to celebrate, and celebrate what I’ve been taught to ignore? Our action step was a “counter calendar” of historical dates in the struggle for freedom across the Americas. I linked each one to its Wikipedia article, since so many of these events, apart from the Amistad and the Nat Turner Rebellion, were new to me too. Deepening that knowledge feels like some of the most important work ahead of us. A Personal Thread This work reminds me of a class I took at Texas Tech while training to become a teacher: Children’s literature. Two books from that course have stayed with me for decades: Jane Yolen’s Encounter, which retells the arrival of Columbus through Taíno eyes, and Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, about the bombing of Hiroshima. Both quietly dismantled the flag-waving version of history I grew up with. Reading Douglass the day after the 4th felt like part of that same lifelong unlearning and relearning. Holding Both Things at Once I still claim real pride in the aspirational values in our founding documents. But those words didn’t ring true for everyone when they were written, and we’re still living with that gap today, including the legacy of what’s now called Christian nationalism. I’d call it Christian un-nationalism: elevating any nation above the Kingdom of God isn’t a call I recognize as Christian. An Open Invitation Our group meets Sundays at 6:00 PM Eastern for 19 more weeks on Zoom. We’re not recording sessions, but I plan to continue recording short reflections each week to summarize some of my thoughts about my own experiences in this curriculum study and with our small group. Wherever you are, keep building community, keep learning, and keep hope alive. Be a culture healer, not a culture warrior. Together, we can work toward a better tomorrow. Please visit cw.wesfryer.com learn more, as well as sign up if you’d like to join us! We are meeting on Sunday evenings over Zoom at 6pm ET / 5pm CT / 4pm MT / 3pm PT. This video is also available on YouTube. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit healourculture.substack.com
