Ten O'Clock News

A year ago this past summer I had the privilege of coming down with 85 little boys and girls from Roxbury. And it was so interesting to see all these little boys and girls look back and go inside the building and rub the bricks on the walls when they were told that the blacks had made these bricks themselves in order to build this temple of worship. There's a gallery around three sites and in 1855 they added the ice up here prior to that they had only a blank wall and the pulpit was down here on the floor. When I was first introduced to this site with my son Jimmy on a cold Sunday morning in the early 60s we found a Jewish synagogue and the only thing that told us that it was a place of honor to us, great meaning to us, was a synestone, a place to honor Kato Gardner where the Reverend Thomas Paul along with members of the African Society had erected a

monument to our heritage. It is the oldest standing black church building in this country which in itself is an astounding and important fact. It is more, it is the site of the organizing of the New England Evolutionist Society. It is the site of the first black school, it was a site where many of the black regiments to fight in the Civil War were organized. It was most importantly the center of political, social, religious and educational leadership for this community, the black community of Boston, for half of the 18th century. You can see now that someone has been gutted that there isn't a lot left as far as the interior finishes. You have a lot of the plaster still on the woodwork for the galleries and the pews and the floorboards for the galleries have all been removed. They were removed in 1973 after they had the major fire. If you listen very, very hard, you will hear Frederick Douglass's advocacy of his people and you will also hear the pleas of Garrison as he fought to eliminate slavery in this country.

I feel that there are a lot of good vibes in this ground and in this place. This building does represent the dreams of a black community of 180 years ago. The dream to come down from the segregated balconies of the Boston churches and create for themselves this space.