Mondays at Beinecke (online) gallery talks continue on Monday, October 12, with a discussion of the scrapbooks of the Rev. Rev. Amos Gerry Beman, a Black minister in New Haven, Connecticut, and a national leader during the mid-nineteenth century. The presentation will be led by Charles Warner, Jr., Chair of the Connecticut Freedom Trail and a member of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church, where the Rev. Beman was pastor from 1837 to 1857.
Zoom webinar registration link: https://bit.ly/2HK9W0l
Beman was a proponent of abolition, suffrage, temperance and educational and moral reform. He was the first Black pastor of the Dixwell church, the oldest formally recognized African American congregational church in the nation. Beman was a pastor during the Amistad Case, where he and church members were crusaders for liberation in the fight against slavery and for abolition. The church is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year.
The collection of Beman’s scrapbooks at the Beinecke Library is completely digitized (visit: https://bit.ly/3mWrKFB). They include news clippings related to the New Haven parish where Amos Beman served as pastor, other ministers, church dedications, announcements of temperance meetings, discussions of education for African-Americans, debates regarding African colonization, published speeches of Frederick Douglass, accounts of Amos Beman’s public appearances and speaking engagements, as well as correspondence, letters to the editor authored by Beman and the Proceedings of the Connecticut State Convention of Colored Men, held in New Haven on September 12-13, 1849 and June 6-7, 1865.