Becoming Beloved Community
Join us on a journey to build Beloved Community in St. Petersburg.
New Sacred Ground Circle will Begin Saturday, October 19
Sacred Ground is a film-based dialogue series on race, grounded in faith. Small groups are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race and racism, while weaving the threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity. A new Sacred Ground circle starts at the Cathedral on November 23. Meeting dates and times will be determined by the participants.
The 11-part series is built around a powerful online curriculum of documentary films and readings that focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/ Pacific American histories as they intersect with European-American histories. Sacred Ground is part of Becoming Beloved Community, the Episcopal Church’s long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice in our personal lives, our ministries, and our society. The series is open to all, and is especially designed to help white people talk to other white people. Participants are invited to peel away the layers that have contributed to the challenges and divides of our present day — all while grounded in our call to faith, hope, and love.
For more information, contact Betsy Adams (betsygadams@icloud.com).
Fall 2024 Gatherings
Questions? Please contact Betsy Adams (betsygadams@icloud.com), BBC Chair.
Historic Trolley Tour
Saturday, October 5 from 10:00 am-12:00 pm
The African American Heritage Trail tells the story of the first 100 years of Black life, culture and contribution in the city of St. Petersburg. From the settlement of John Donaldson, the first Black man in the city, to the Civil Rights era, the African American community shaped the very fabric of St. Petersburg.
On a guided tour, an expert Heritage Trail tour guide will lead you through each of the trail stops, relaying the stories and the history of the community.
The Cathedral has purchased 10 tickets ($10 each) for the trolley! Purchase yours today.
You can pay by cash or a check made out to The Cathedral Church of St. Peter.
James Museum “Icons & Symbols” Docent-led Tour
Sunday, October 29 at 12:30 pm
Following the 10:15 am service, a light lunch will be available ($5 donation) and then we will meet at the James Museum. You can walk or drive over.
Icons & Symbols of the Borderland: Art from the U.S.-Mexico Crossroads highlights the unique culture and rich tradition of the U.S.-Mexico border region. Featuring paintings, collage, neon, photos and sculpture, this exhibition explores the shared experiences of those living and working along this controversial landscape. Themes such as environment, borders, foodways, and the sacred and profane are highlighted, with recurring symbols contextualizing the collective identity of the borderland region.
Exhibit is free for James Museum members. Others can purchase tickets at the museum.
Litany of Remembrance at the John Evans Memorial
Sunday, November 10 at 12:00 pm
On November 14, 1914, a public lynching was held at the corner of Old 9th Street South and 2nd Avenue South. John Evans, accused of killing his boss and assaulting his boss’ wife, was hanged from a light post.
In 2021, a marker was placed on this spot. We will gather here to remember the life of John Evans and pray for continued healing, justice, and reconciliation. Learn more about this marker here.
Pilgrims Share Their Experiences on the Civil Rights Pilgrimage
On Sunday, June 9 pilgrims shared their experiences of their time in Montgomery and Selma in April 2024. You can view the presentation, slideshow, and the magazine created by Sarah Lewis.
Recommended Reading
These are a few books members of the BBC team have read and highly recommend. Have other favorites or recommendations? Let us know! Email Hillary Peete (hpeete@spcathedral.com). Additional titles are listed below.
In her work as Executive Director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing, Meeks has fought tirelessly to shed light on racism and provide tools and experiences to enable faith communities to work to combat it. In this new book, she shares highlights and insights from her journey and offers a much-needed meditative guide for the weary and frustrated. By looking inward and at each other clearly, she argues, good people of all backgrounds can forge a long term and individual path to making a difference. With personal stories and thoughtful direction, she takes the reader on the trajectory from self-awareness to recognition of the past to a new and individual way forward.
Meditation topics include how to work through fear and rage, how stories can help heal, honoring your ancestors while looking toward the future, what it really means to love one another and the meaning of social justice.
McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare.
The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game.
In this powerful memoir, Charles Dew, one of America’s most respected historians of the South--and particularly its history of slavery--turns the focus on his own life, which began not in the halls of enlightenment but in a society unequivocally committed to segregation.
Dew’s wish with this book is to show how the South of his childhood came into being, poisoning the minds even of honorable people, and to answer the question put to him by Illinois Browning Culver, the African American woman who devoted decades of her life to serving his family: "Charles, why do the grown-ups put so much hate in the children?"
Peabody Award–winning journalist Michele Norris offers a transformative dialogue on race and identity in America, unearthed through her decade-long work at The Race Card Project.
The prompt seemed simple: Race. Your Thoughts. Six Words. Please Send.
The answers, though, have been challenging and complicated. In the twelve years since award-winning journalist Michele Norris first posed that question, over half a million people have submitted their stories to The Race Card Project inbox. The stories are shocking in their depth and candor, spanning the full spectrum of race, ethnicity, identity, and class.
For six decades John Robert Lewis (1940–2020) was a towering figure in the U.S. struggle for civil rights. As an activist and progressive congressman, he was renowned for his unshakable integrity, indomitable courage, and determination to get into “good trouble.”
In this first book-length biography of Lewis, Raymond Arsenault traces Lewis’s upbringing in rural Alabama, his activism as a Freedom Rider and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, his championing of voting rights and anti-poverty initiatives, and his decades of service as the “conscience of Congress.”
In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
“Profound, necessary and an absolute delight to read.” —Toni Morrison
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
Local Resources and Events
The African American Heritage Trails in St. Petersburg
The African American Heritage Trails in St. Petersburg, Florida, are walking tours of downtown neighborhoods. They provide individuals, groups, and classes with an overview of African American influence on the history of the city. Nineteen markers covering more than a dozen city blocks provide details about the history of the African American community in St. Petersburg.
Dr. G. Carter Woodson African American Museum
The museum presents the historic voice of one segment of the St. Petersburg Florida community in the perspective of local, regional, and national history, culture and community. It is another demonstration of the commitment to revitalize the Midtown St. Petersburg area.
The Union of Black Episcopalians
The Union of Black Episcopalians stands in the continuing tradition of more than 200 years of Black leadership in the Episcopal Church. The Union of Black Episcopalians is a confederation of more than 55 chapters and interest groups throughout the continental United States and the Caribbean. The Union also has members in Canada, Africa and Latin America.
The NAACP
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.
Past Events and Recordings
The Making of a Racist with Charles B. Dew
A native of St. Petersburg, Charles B. Dew will speak about his memoir, “The Making of a Racist: A Southerner Reflects on Family, History, and the Slave Trade.” He describes growing up in St. Petersburg during the Jim Crow era, and how he realized that he had been thoroughly indoctrinated into thinking that that was "just the way things were."
African-American Communities with Ray Arsenault
Noted Civil Rights historian Ray Arsenault will join us for a webinar discussion about the history of the African-American communities in St. Petersburg.
Resources from the Episcopal church
We acknowledge this is hard work.
We are asking ourselves and each other to reexamine stories and truths that are deeply held. We also acknowledge that we are called by God and our baptismal vows to do this work. We approach this work with a sense of curiosity and understanding that we don’t have all the answers and are sometimes limited by own own life experiences. Below are links to books, articles, films, and online resources to help us learn and reflect as preparation for wider discussion.
