@southernlivingmag

Pastor Agnes Lover remembers the colors and the motions of scarves placed in the pews of Atlanta's Turner Chapel AME Church, the flashes of orange, red, and gold that sashayed through the air as congregants set them in motion. She recalls a vibrancy in the Watch Night services she experienced early in her ministry, the inky darkness of the night as cars turned their headlights on the church's parking lot, the pulsing movement as the walls vibrated with erupted tension and ebullient praise. Women and men proclaimed, sang, and shouted captivating and heart-spun testimonies—reflections of joy, adversity, and loss—as the clock approached midnight on the eve of the New Year. The origins of the celebration date back to December 31, 1862, when free and formerly enslaved African Americans across Boston and other cities throughout the North gathered at churches and homes in solidarity with those held in bondage in the South as they awaited news of freedom. President Abraham Lincoln would sign the Emancipation Proclamation into effect on January 1, 1863, marking the beginning of the end of more than two centuries of American slavery. At the link in our profile, Safiya Charles explores the meaning of Watch Night, a New Year’s Eve tradition in many African American churches that celebrates the end of slavery—with praise, fellowship, and hope for the future. 📷: @robbiecaponetto; featured portraits in order: Pastor Agnes Lover of Montgomery’s Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church; Director Richard Bailey of the Emancipation Association of Montgomery; Wanda Battle of Montgomery’s Union Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; and Pastor Richard Williams of Montgomery’s Metropolitan United Methodist Church

December 31, 2021