Today in the state of Virginia we will commemorate the bringing of the first Enslaved African People to North America. On this date at 3 p.m. (EDT) the churches of the three Episcopal dioceses in Virginia will ring their church bells in solemn commemoration of this occasion.

Please read the message below from our Bishop, Jay Magness.

“The 2019 commemoration of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to North America is for me a highly personal occasion,” said Bishop Magness. “As a descendent of slaveholders, and as a white male who came of age in the racially polarized south during the 1950s and 1960s, I am painfully aware of my own complicity in furthering and perpetuating the subjugation of my African American brothers and sisters.  At a time when the racial divide in this country seems to be growing rather than diminishing, we are in dire need of a moment, an event when we can stop and take stock of our responsibilities to bring the races together, perhaps in a new manner that truly is an embrace of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.”