US Cathedral May Become Museum to the Slave Trade

ABC NEWS
By Michelle R. Smith

In this Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014 photo, grave markers cast shadows in graveyard at next 
to the Cathedral of St. John of St. John Episcopal Church, in Providence, R.I.  (AP Photo/Steven Senne) 

RHODE ISLAND--- A plan to open what would be the nation's only museum centered on the trans-Atlantic slave trade would focus on the Episcopal Church's role in its history and the sometimes-buried legacy of slavery in northern states like Rhode Island. The museum at the shuttered Cathedral of St. John, a church where slaves once worshipped, would explore how the church benefited from the trade and helped bring it to an end, said Bishop Nicholas Knisely of the Diocese of Rhode Island. "Our story's mixed," he said. A Brown report issued in 2006 found that about 60 percent of all slave-trading voyages launched from North America came from Rhode Island. [link]