News

While many visitors to Trinity Church in Topsfield may notice the set of striking bronze sculptures on the grounds of the church depicting Christ and three apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane,  fewer people have known or understood much about the history of the sculptures or their sculptor until Meg Black, a member of Trinity Church and an art history professor, spent years researching them.

Since the launch of the reconfigured Racial Justice Commission at Diocesan Convention last November, it has been forming subcommittees and organizing for work in five priority areas.  “Because the work is large, we’ve been finding people who want to join us in the work, people who represent the whole of the diocese, people who have a particular interest in things like reparations, formation, how we integrate antiracism principles into everything we do as a church,” the Rev. Natalie Thomas, a commission co-chair, said in a recent interview with several commission leaders.

Racism distorts all parts of a system. It is a systemic and structural scourge gnawing at the very core of society. In seeking to dismantle racism, it is imperative to first acknowledge that the manifestations of racism don't just happen because of a few social, political or business miscreants. They occur because the environment of racism nurtured and still promoted by a culture rooted in apartheid did not end at the ballot box.