In celebration of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. state holiday, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society this week announced that it will host a presentation “FREEDOM IS NOT ENOUGH: The Life and Times of Reverend Mahlon Van Horne.” The virtual presentation is free of charge and will be held on Monday, Jan. 17 at 5 p.m.
Van Horne was pastor of the Union Colored Congregational Church in Newport and would become the first elected person of color to a Rhode Island School Committee in 1872 and state General Assembly in 1885. Like Rev. Martin Luther King a century later, Van Horne was an influential religious, civil rights, and political leader of his day.
All attendees of the lecture hosted online, will receive a print copy of his sermon, entitled “The Negro in Rhode Island: His Past, Present, and Future.” This sermon, delivered to his congregation and later distributed around the state, provides a rare and important insight into Rhode Island’s history of religious freedom, civil liberties, and equal justice from an African heritage perspective. Many of Van Horne’s insights are still relevant in today’s civil rights discussion.
The Society will also distribute copies of the speech to any Rhode Island K-12 school and library that would like a copy.
Register for the Zoom lecture at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-life-and-times-of-reverend-mahlon-van-horne-tickets-238610810357
Educators requesting the printed sermon who do not attend the presentation should email soni.stokes@riblackheritage.org with the subject line “Sermon.”
About the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society
The Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, formed in 1975, is one of America’s oldest African heritage and historical organizations. Constituted for the purposes of collecting, preserving, and interpreting materials relating to the history of the African Heritage people of Rhode Island and beyond.
