Juneteenth Graveyard Prayer by Dawn Jefferson

Dawn Jefferson is a member of Spring Glen; she and her wife Marquita joined during Dawn's time as a M.Div. candidate at Yale Divinity School. Dawn is seeking ordination in the UCC and is a Member In Discernment in the New Haven Conference. While at YDS, Dawn is a member of the Andover Newton Theological Seminary program and student coordinating committee, Yale Black Seminarians, and DivOut. Presently, Dawn will begin her 3rd and final year of seminary and plans to return to Virginia after graduation. In her pastoral ministry, she is investigating the practical theology of dementia and supporting older adults along their spiritual journeys.

 

Dawn is spending the summer as a pastoral intern for Little River UCC in Annandale, VA to complete her supervised ministry requirement for ordination. She was asked to represent the clergy of the church and pray before the collective action of the UCC on Friday, Juneteenth in support of Black Lives Matter and against violence and brutality. The prayer took place, despite the rain, in the graveyard near the church's property which sits on land once owned by one of the largest slave holding families in Fairfax County prior to and at the time of the Civil War. The Gooding family is buried there presumably next to the unmarked graves of the enslaved Black people who served them. After praying, the group walked to the busy road and held signs in protest of the violent brutality to Black lives. They stood in front of their recently purchased banner which states, "Black Lives Matter to God and to Us."