I contributed the Thought for the Day on Radio Ulster on Sunday 8 February – Racial Justice Sunday.
You can mark Racial Justice Sunday in Belfast by attending the 4 Corners Festival event, ‘The Journey Towards Reconciliation,’ with author, activist and historian Jemar Tisby, a Black American whose work addresses White Christian Nationalism and how to fight racism.
You can listen here, or read it below:
Mary Ann McCracken and Racial Justice Sunday
Belfast, 1859. As emigrant ships wait in the docks, an elderly woman moves slowly among the passengers, stopping them before they board. It is 89-year-old Mary Ann McCracken. In her hands are anti-slavery leaflets, urging those seeking new lives in the ‘New World’ to remember that much of its wealth has been built on a grave injustice.
In 2024, a statue of Mary Ann McCracken was unveiled at Belfast City Hall. She is depicted holding out one of those leaflets, bearing the image of an enslaved African alongside the piercing question: ‘Am I not a woman and a sister?’
Today, churches in Britain and Ireland mark Racial Justice Sunday. Established in 1995 following the racially motivated murder of Black teenager Stephen Lawrence in London, Racial Justice Sunday reminds us of the ongoing reality of racism and, at its best, encourages us to take action to address it.
Mary Ann McCracken was a woman of action. It the late 1790s she organised a network of women campaigning against slavery. They challenged proposals by Belfast merchants to invest in a slave-trading company, a common and extremely profitable practice in port cities like Liverpool, Bristol and London.
Like many abolitionists, Mary Ann McCracken was a radical Presbyterian who believed that all people are made in the image of God. At a meeting to consider the proposed company, another Presbyterian, goldsmith Thomas McCabe, stood up and declared: ‘May God eternally damn the soul of the man who subscribes the first penny to such an infamous scheme.’
When the city’s commercial and civic leaders later voted on the proposal, Belfast said No to the slave-trading company.
Yet racial justice is still far from being realised. In Northern Ireland, race-hate incidents are at an all-time high. Last year there were 2,049 racially motivated incidents and 1,329 race-hate crimes, the highest figures since records began in 2004.
There is much to learn from the historical example of Mary Ann McCracken. She reminds us that all people are made in the image of God, our brothers and sisters.
(Photo by ManfredHugh, Creative Commons)