Watch Night Re-Enactment at Nazareth College, Nov. 4

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Watch Night Re-enactment

ROCHESTER, NY (10/29/2014)(readMedia)-- Nazareth College is going back in time to recreate Watch Night of December 31, 1862 – the night before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order that would declare the end of slavery in the 11 states that had seceded form the Union. Nazareth's Institute for Pluralism and the Center for Spirituality are collaborating to create a historical re-enactment of the event. The re-enactment will unfold on Tuesday, November 4 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Linehan Chapel located in the Golisano Academic Center; this event is free and open to the public. Nazareth College is located at 4245 East Avenue, Rochester, N.Y., 14618. Please contact, Debbie Cohen, executive secretary for the Institute for Pluralism at (585) 389-2881.

History of Watch Night:

The scenes will unfold at a "hush harbor" near a Southern plantation, and in Rochester's African Methodist Episcopal Church, and will be re-enacted by AKWAABA: the Heritage Associates living history performers featuring Nazareth's own visiting community scholar Dr. David Anderson.

Watch Night, an end-of-year religious service was brought to colonial America by Europeans. By mid-nineteenth century, "Watch Night," had been transformed into a sacred ritual for millions of African-descended people. At secret worship services on southern plantations, as well as in the nominally free black churches in the North, people of color reaffirmed their humanity and were determined to become free.