Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff and a Happy New Year to you. This is Short Stuff with the Happy New Year edition. It's right.
I believe this is coming out on New Year's Day, so I guess I mean that's still Happy New Year.
Yeah. Happy twenty five to you, Chuck, yeah, and to you and to Jerry. Yeah. So it's appropriate that we are talking about watch Night tonight because it is a long standing tradition in the African American community, specifically the African American Methodist community that every New Year's Eve they typically hold a service starting maybe around seven pm, maybe ten pm, and that it traditionally ends just after midnight
after the New Year. And the reason that it's so deeply rooted in the African American community in the United States is because there was the what's considered the first watch Night in this tradition, came on December thirty first, eighteen sixty two. The next day Abraham Lincoln's executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation would come into effect.
That's right at the stroke of midnight, bringing in that new year. Was a very special time obviously in America, and it was called Freedom Eve for that reason as well. But also watch night because you're you know, you're watching that clock ticking towards freedom. When they gathered them that first watch night, there were a lot of churches who got together obviously still legally enslaved people, and they waited. It's a pretty amazing tradition. You know. Beyond that, it
celebrates community, It celebrates faith obviously, and perseverance. There's a description from the African American Museum that says, many congregants across the nation bow and prayer me it's before the midnight hour, as they sing out, watchman, watchman, please tell me the hour of the night. In return, the minister will reply, it is three minutes to midnight. It is one minute before the new year. It is now midnight. Freedom has come.
Yeah, pretty neat tradition. That's amazing. I say we take it early a break and come back and talk a little more about this tradition.
All right, let's do it.
So, Chuck. This is very much associated with again the African American, specifically Methodist community. One of the other traditions is that on New Year's Day, they'll have an amazing meal, usually of Southern cuisine like Hopin' John. Of course, potato salad, which is more German than Southern cornbread. That's a big one, and it just sounds as delicious as can be. And a lot of people say, like, Okay, yes, watch Night. The first one ever was December thirty first, eighteen sixty two.
But what a lot of people don't understand is that watch Night was already a tradition in the Methodist denomination. So the enslaved Africans who got together for this first watch Night were actually doing two things. They were observing that traditional Methodist watch Night service, but this one was extra special because of the Emancipation Proclamation coming into effect the next day.
Yeah, and it kind of took on a double meaning at that point. Interestingly, it goes back to the Moravians, who I know we've talked about more than once on this show over the years.
That doesn't sound right.
The Moravians and I would be the Czech Republic now. Way back in seventeen thirty three, John Wesley was the founder of the Methodists, got it from the Moravians, brought the watch Night vigil along to his denomination in about seventeen forty. But these they would hold once a month on full moons, they would have a service. I believe the first one was in in the United States at least was in seventeen seventy in Philadelphia at Old Saint George's Church, and they continue to this day as Covenant
of Renewal Services. So, you know, it's a bit different obviously than the meaning it would have later on with the Emancipation Proclamation, but the double meaning is still held true and dear.
Yeah, in the original Watch Night and still today. One of the big threads to it, or the point to it, is to get Methodists to reflect on just how well they're living their life. I think the Snopes put it in a way that if you basically die tomorrow, yeah, where are you going to go? Essentially? And then, I guess is a pretty good thing to reflect on every four weeks because a lot of stuff can happen in four weeks.
You know, I was doing good last month, this month not so.
Much, right, But yeah, that eighteen sixty two Watch Night just changed everything so much that people don't even associate it with that original version, that Covenant Renewal Service any longer. They just associated with it the freedom from slavery, and of course the emancipation proclamation didn't just like immediately free slaves. It did on paper. Legally, as far as the US federal government was concerned, all enslaved people were free as
of January first, eighteen sixty three. But the United States, the Union was at war with the Confederacy, and the Confederacy wasn't exactly observing new federal laws, especially ones that freed the enslaved people in the South.
Yeah, they weren't like, okay, well, comply it sounds good.
No, it just did not go like that. But just the gravity of what had just happened. This executive order proclaimed by Lincoln, which apparently first came in September twenty second, eighteen sixty two, he basically said, hey, everybody, get ready for it, because on January first of next year, all
enslaved people are going to be free. He said that all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then thenceforward and forever free. And there's probably no sweeter words for enslaved people to hear coming out of Abraham Lincoln's mouth at the time.
Yeah, and then Lincoln kind of grinned and said, man, just wait that you see the statue they're going to build up me. Yeah, it's going to be bossed like, people are going to love me. This is going to be so great. Yeah, and for great reason. These days, the services can vary kind of depending on the congregation. Sometimes, like you said, they'll start a little earlier in the evening and maybe end at like ten o'clock, so you can still go out and you know, celebrate New Years
however you want. Sometimes that is New Year's for you, and you take it all the way to midnight. Depending on the church, they might really emphasize the Emancipation Proclamation aspect of it. Sometimes they might do that at all. It kind of just depends on where you're going, because it does. It is a night that very much has two distinct meanings.
Yeah, for those congregants whose services end at ten, they're very well known to hop in a cab and put on their big oversized Nivia hat and to get me to Times Square stat.
That's one tradition. I've never had any interest in doing me either.
That sounds so terrible. I mean, of course, the legend associated with it, which apparently is quite true. It's like if you have to pe ts for you because you have to stay in the same spot that you arrived in and if you leave, you cannot come back in. So if you want to stay there until midnight, buddy, you better be able to hold your pee for like six hours.
You know, people are being in things.
Right Yeah. You know if you look over somebody zoned out and they have like a look of relief across their face, they're peeing themselves right then?
Yeah, why is that God drinking yellow gatorade?
Crony? Yeah, short stuff is app Happy New Year, everybody.
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