An observer noted that it was “a strange sight” seeing Rev. Henry Highland Garnet stand where no African American man had stood before. All seats were occupied and galleries overflowed as the formerly enslaved man turned abolitionist became the first African American minister to preach before the US House of Representatives.
Garnet was invited to speak to memorialize the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. His sermon declared, “If slavery has been destroyed merely from necessity, let every class be enfranchised at the dictation of justice.”
Justice urges freedom and equity. Psalm 99 tells us, “Great is the Lord” (v. 2), “he is holy” (v. 3), “loves justice” and has “established equity” (v. 4). Justice comes from the Hebrew word mishpat, describing God’s heavenly design on earth. Doing mishpat means we act to restore and heal others. Psalm 101 promises that when we enact justice, “[God’s] eyes will be on the faithful . . . that they may dwell with [him]” (v. 6).
Garnet loved what God loved, enacting justice in the now because a just God pursued him for eternity. Pastoring churches, presiding over historically Black Avery College, serving as a missionary to Jamaica, and multiplying antislavery speeches, “[He] saw the work of Christians to foster justice now in expectation of eschatological justice then.”
