PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Episcopalians in Rhode Island are planning to open what would be the nation's only museum centered on the trans-Atlantic slave trade, with a focus on the church's role in its history and the sometimes-buried legacy of slavery in Northern states.
The museum is planned for the Cathedral of St. John, a now-closed church where slaves once worshipped. Rhode Island was the starting point for 1,000 slave-trading voyages, 60 percent of the total launched from North America.
Bishop Nicholas Knisely (NEYZ'-lee) says there hasn't been enough attention on the role of the church and the North in slavery.
The diocese is working with descendants of a prolific slave-trading family and Brown University, which has grappled with its own connection to slavery.
US cathedral may become museum to the slave trade
Grave markers cast shadows in graveyard at next to the Cathedral of St. John of St. John Episcopal Church, in Providence, R.I. The Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island has approved a plan to open in the shuttered church what would be the nation's first museum devoted to examining the history and church's role in the sometimes-buried legacy of slavery in northern states like Rhode Island, the starting point of more than half the transatlantic slave-trading voyages from North America. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)