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July 1
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Pauli Murray, Thomas Dorsey, and Toshi Seeger
David Barnhart
July 01, 2025
Juvenile leaf-footed bug. They are garden pests, but beautiful creatures. 2025. Own photo.
Today is a feast day in the Episcopal church for Harriet Beecher Stowe and Pauli Murray.
This day marks the death, in 1985, of Pauli Murray, a civil rights lawyer, Episcopal priest, and queer-identifying activist who fought against racial and gender discrimination. She was at the forefront of justice work in the twenty-first century, and was a powerful voice for intersectional activism before the term existed.
Today also marks the death, in 1896, of Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which helped galvanize resistance to the U.S. institution of slavery.
Today is the birthday, in 1899, of Thomas Dorsey, blues musician who developed gospel music into a major force in the church. He composed thousands of songs and persisted even when church folk thought his music too secular and secular folks thought his music too churchy. He saw no contradiction between his blues and evangelistic careers.
Today is also the birthday, in 1922, of Toshi Seeger, organizer, activist, and spouse of Pete Seeger. She helped organize the Clearwater Festival and other productions that promoted folk music and justice.
Reflection:
Of the 1963 March on Washington, Pauli Murray wrote:
“I have been increasingly perturbed over the blatant disparity between the major role which Negro women have played and are playing in the crucial grassroots levels of our struggle and the minor role of leadership they have been assigned in the national policy-making decisions. It is indefensible to call a national march on Washington and send out a call which contains the name of not a single woman leader.”
and
“If one could characterize in a single phrase the contribution of Black women to America, I think it would be ‘survival with dignity against incredible odds’…”
Pauli Murray became an ordained Episcopal priest late in life, and said of their ordination:
“All the strands of my life had come together. Descendant of slave and of slave owner, I had already been called poet, lawyer, teacher, and friend. Now I was empowered to minister the sacrament of One in whom there is no north or south, no black or white, no male or female – only the spirit of love and reconciliation drawing us all toward the goal of human wholeness.”
Writing about religion that condones slavery and capitalism, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote:
“Religion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for religion, I must look for something above me, and not something beneath.”
And Thomas Dorsey said,
“I’ve been thrown out of some of the best churches in American.”
Prayer: God, may our religion not simply bless our selfishness, but aspire to your justice. Amen.