A Place Where History is Still Being Made

So long as Boston shall Boston be,
And her bay-tides rise and fall,
Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church
And plead for the rights of all!
– John Greenleaf Whittier, “In the Old South”

Old South Church is a place steeped in history. Old South baptized Benjamin Franklin, and, under the leadership of member and Revolutionary Sam Adams, hosted the meetings that led to the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution that followed. Old South members were active in the early days of the abolitionist movement, including member Samuel Sewall, who penned the first anti-slavery tract on American soil. For these and other reasons, Harvard historian John Fiske opined that no other church is so responsible for the shaping of this nation’s early quest for freedom and democracy than Old South Church. Other famous Old South members include Phillis Wheatley, the first published African American woman, and Elizabeth Vergoose, whose “Mother Goose,” nursery rhymes have touched the minds and hearts of countless children.

Our denomination, the United Church of Christ, is a church of many firsts. It was the first historically-white denomination to ordain an African American, the first in the modern era to ordain a woman, and the first to ordain an openly gay person. Old South members have founded numerous institutions serving economic and social justice, including City Mission Society, the YMCA, Boston Seafarers Society, Training Inc., Boston Aging Concerns – Young and Old United, MATCH-UP Interfaith Volunteers, and Tent City Corporation. Not content to rest on the achievements of our predecessors, today Old South continues to stand as a public voice for mercy and justice.