There's no mourning, no lament. It's all about thanksgiving, joy, anticipation.
[...] Watch Night on New Year's Eve began with 18th-century European Protestants, though today it lives on mostly in predominantly African-American congregations.
Since the Emancipation Proclamation, these late-night gatherings hark back to the long wait for freedom, according to Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, professor of theology and women's studies at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. Kirk-Duggan, a Christian Methodist Episcopal minister, wrote about the services in her book More African American Special Days: 15 Complete Worship Services. [...]
| Go read all of Liz F. Kay's Baltimore Sun story "Looking ahead, looking back, looking inward" even if you're just coming back from church. (Not going? Yeah, me neither.)
Want good, chewy reads to start the new year? "First, do no harm (to whites)," Alexander Zaitchik's San Francisco Chronicle review of Harriet A. Washington's "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present," and "Leading the way: Long before Deval Patrick, Edward Brooke broke racial barriers in state and national politics," Kenneth J. Cooper's Boston Globe review of ex-Sen. Edward W. Brooke's "Bridging the Divide: My Life," sure sound like they're worth seeking out.
posted in articles on December 31, 2006 11:59 PM | t (0)
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