Understanding the Thread of Oppression
Application and Deposit Deadline: March 1st
Complete registration below, or click here
A pilgrimage is an intentional journey where we encounter
God. During a pilgrimage we seek significance by visiting sacred locations that
help us deepen our faith and develop an understanding of our spiritual and
moral life. The Racial Reconciliation Pilgrimage intends to embrace the
Presiding Bishop’s call to engage in the “spiritual practice of seeking,
loving, liberating, and life-giving relationship with God and one-another, and
striving to heal and transform injustice and brokenness in ourselves, our
communities, institutions, and society.” We will approach our journey with
intention, preparation, and prayer.
Join us for our first Diocese of Oklahoma youth pilgrimage
experience, from July 11th – July 18th. The Racial Reconciliation
Pilgrimage: Understanding the Thread of Oppression is a pilgrimage intended to
help young people encounter God and develop a deeper understanding of their
spiritual and moral life. It will equip them to be advocates for justice, truth,
peace, and reconciliation – the values inherent in our Baptismal Covenant.
Led
by the Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries, Kate Carney Huston, and the Director of Christian Formation, Sabrina Evans,
participants will spend the week together sharing meals, worshipping, and
journeying together to several sites across Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and
Arkansas that form an arc of the story from slavery to desegregation. The
intention is to understand the thread that connects our history and current
understanding of justice and the path of reconciliation.
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Participants in the 2019 pilgrimage must have finished 6th – 12th grades, agree to the community covenant, and commit to the
preparatory work that will be completed before the pilgrimage begins.
Cost:
$300/participant
Includes transportation, lodging,
planned meals and snacks, and admission costs
*It does not include spending
money or additional snacks
March 1st: Application and $100 Deposit Due
June 1st: Final Payment Due
Scholarships:
We will offer scholarships and hope churches will consider
sponsorship of youth participants with the idea of making this trip possible
for all people who wish to participate. Please contact Kate Huston (KHuston@epiok.org)
for more information regarding scholarships.
Cancellation
Policy:
Any cancellation
will forfeit the $100 deposit
Cancellation after June 1st: You will be refunded 50% of the cost
Cancellation after July 1st: You will not be eligible for a refund
Important Pre-Trip Activities:
Dismantling Racism Training for Youth and Leaders
Friday, March 29th – Sunday, March 31st
St. John's Episcopal Church; 5401 N Brookline Ave; Oklahoma City, OK 73112
We will get to know one another, pray together, play together, and learn
together. The focus for the weekend retreat will be to complete the Dismantling
Racism Training created by the Diocese of Atlanta and the Absalom Jones Center
for Racial Healing in conjunction with the work of the Beloved Community.
Training will include creating a covenant, learning the history of racism,
speaking the diversity of God’s human creation, privilege and oppression, and
how we move to repentance, healing, and reconciliation. This retreat weekend is
required for all participants in the pilgrimage.
Pre-Pilgrimage in Tulsa
Saturday, June 1st
Trinity Episcopal Church; 501 S Cincinnati Ave; Tulsa, OK 74103
and Greenwood Cultural Center; 322 N Greenwood Ave; Tulsa, OK 74120
We will
meet at Trinity, Tulsa at 10 a.m. to watch the movie Traces of the Trade and discuss the reading assigned at our Retreat
weekend. We will walk through our pilgrimage steps for the first time as we
visit the Greenwood Cultural Center and learn about the 1921 Tulsa Race
Massacre. We will conclude with prayer by 4:00 p.m.
Detailed
Description of Pilgrimage:
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Day 1 (Thursday, July 11th):
We will
leave from Oklahoma City early in the morning for the 10-hour drive to New
Orleans, stopping for lunch and breaks along the way. We will arrive in New
Orleans and stay at Molly’s House, a
ministry of Trinity Episcopal Church, a historical congregation in the heart of
New Orleans. We will settle in for the evening and end the night with worship.
Day 2 (Friday, July 12th):
We begin
each day in prayer before breakfast and then will head out to serve at Loaves
and Fishes, a ministry of Trinity Church. Following lunch, we will do a walking tour of the historical sites
related to the slave trade in New Orleans in the 1800s. Over 135,000 people
were sold thru the port city of New Orleans due to its location on the
Mississippi River. Told from the perspective of 11 children aboard the slave
ship Ajax, the app New Orleans Slave Trade will lead us
around New Orleans as we visit the sites and learn the stories and histories of
those people enslaved and sold in the city during the 1800s. We will conclude the day with dinner in
Jackson Square in the French Quarter and end the evening with worship.
Day 3 (Saturday, July 13th):
We
will travel to Whitney Plantation, the only plantation in Louisiana open to the
public with a focus on the slaves who lived and worked there. We will tour the
plantation and have lunch before heading out for the drive to Montgomery,
Alabama. In Montgomery we will stay at St. John’s Episcopal Church.
Day 4 (Sunday, July 14th):
We will
spend our morning in worship with the congregation of St. John’s and then head
out to walk Jonathan Daniels’ pilgrimage sites. Jonathan Daniels was an
Episcopal seminarian who was shot to death in August of 1965. Next, we will
travel to Selma and the Edmund Pettis Bridge before returning to Montgomery and
a visit at the Dexter Street Baptist Church, Civil Rights Memorial, and other
sites along the Montgomery Civil Rights Trail.
Day 5 (Monday, July 15th):
Today we
will spend in Montgomery, options include: the powerful and newly opened National
Memorial for Justice and Peace (a memorial to honor those who lost their lives
to lynching), the Rosa Parks Museum, and the Tuskegee Airman Memorial and
Institute. Youth will have a choice of which locations they would like to visit
today. We will meet back up and head to St. Luke’s in Birmingham, Alabama.
Day 6 (Tuesday, July 16th):
In
Birmingham, we will visit the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where four young
girls were killed by a bomb in 1963, from there we will cross the street to
Kelly Ingram Park where Bull Connor turned police dogs and fire hoses on
peaceful protestors. We will travel along the historic 4th Avenue
North, where the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame is located and conclude the day at
the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
Day 7 (Wednesday, July 17th):
In the
morning, we will leave early for Memphis where we will go to the National
Civil Rights Museum at the Lorrain Motel, an affiliate of the Smithsonian
Museum, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4th,
1968. We will then travel to Little Rock, Arkansas for the evening. We will be
staying at St. Mark’s. This evening we will have our closing Eucharist and
final debriefing.
Day 8 (Thursday, July 18th):
We will
visit Central High School, a National Historic Site, where the education desegregation
crisis of 1957 was at its peak. Finally, we will journey the five hours home from
Little Rock to Oklahoma City.
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