John Kerry: “the African Meeting House in Boston is one of the great landmarks of American freedom, as important to understanding our…”

“the African Meeting House in Boston is one of the great landmarks of American freedom, as important to understanding our history as Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill. Not only is it the Nation's oldest black church building but throughout much of the 19th century it also served as the unofficial headquarters of the movement to abolish slavery in America. And on December 6--its 205th anniversary--the African Meeting House will reopen its historic doors after a $9 million restoration project to preserve the place where giants like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass once thundered against the evil of human bondage. It was in the Meeting House basement where William Lloyd Garrison formed the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832. Garrison predicted that the principles set forth by the Society would ``shake the nation by their mighty power.'' Indeed, they did, because they were, in fact, the same principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the other founding documents of our country. The Meeting House is a reminder of the struggle which was inevitable because slavery was written into our Constitution before brave Americans--both white and black--shed blood and spoke powerful words to ensure that it was at last written out of that founding document.…”