Last night Mark presented another talk on his book during the Juneteenth celebration at Wesley Harper United Methodist on Court Street. We had a very nice crowd join us and I never tire of listening to and watching Mark talk about his research. What is really nice is that everyone has really been wonderfully accepting and very interested in the book. Sometimes people ask if we have encountered any negative reactions since this IS about slavery. The answer is, we have not. It doesn't seem to matter the skin color of the reader, they just want to know about their/our history. And Seguin's history. It has been a truly wonderful to experience this whole adventure with Mark.
We also had musical performers for the evening: The Lampkin Family Gospel Group. Talk about beautiful. We first heard them during a musical program at Second Baptist Church a few years ago and we loved them! I was sooooo excited when I saw that they were on the program along with Mark as well as a young artist from Seguin, Howard Crunk (Howard displayed several beautiful pieces of his paintings and wood sculptures). If you have not heard of the Lampkins and you enjoy gospel music, then you should definitely check them out. They have two CDs out (available at Hastings) and they also brought home an award from the 2009 San Antonio Gospel Music Awards! The Seguin paper did a story back in May on the family, which you can read here. If you'd like to hear some of their music, search for their MySpace page and check out "God is Good." I love that one. :)
I meant to ask this earlier, in relation to this post: who is Wesley Harper? I know who John Wesley is, I know who John Wesley Hardin is, but I've never heard of Wesley Harper in relation to the UMC.
ReplyDeleteWesley-Harper is combined from former congregations of Wesley Chapel and Harper Chapel. Wesley Chapel was named in honor of John Wesley, and Harper Chapel was named in honor of Mrs. Maggie Harper. Harper Chapel was originally Mill Creek Protestant Methodist Church. Wesley Chapel and Harper Chapel united in November of 1970. WHUMC occupied what was formerly known as WEsley Chapel, while Harper Chapel was initially converted to a Communitey Action Center. Today, Harper CHapel is home of another church family. Wesley-Harper UMC is located on Court Street in Seguin. For complete history of the three churches, email wsharperumc@aol.com.
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