Our movement is named after Orange Scott, born on February 13, 1800. Scott entered the ministry as a Methodist pastor in 1822. Around the year 1833, he became an earnest antislavery worker, and his zeal for this cause got him into trouble with the church hierarchy. Orange Scott became convinced that “holy hearts should result in holy lives and that holy men should seek to bring an end to social evils such as slavery and intemperance.”
The Wesleyan Methodist Connection was officially formed in 1843 at an organizing conference in Utica, New York, by a group of ministers and laymen splitting from the Methodist Episcopal Church. The split was primarily over their objections to slavery. Orange Scott presided as the meeting formed a federation of churches at first calling themselves the Wesleyan Methodist Connection. Other leaders at the organizing conference were LaRoy Sunderland, who had been tried and defrocked for his antislavery writings, Lucious C. Matlack and Luther Lee, a minister who later operated an Underground Railroad station in Syracuse, New York.
We are connected to Orange Scott, through our history, our church and our faith. We have come to recognize the same sense of “duty to call the attention of [our] countrymen to the wrongs and outrages suffered by the wretched slaves of our land [and beyond].”
To bring awareness to the issue of human trafficking, to be the feet of Christ in supporting the rescue of those held in slavery and to rally the voice of “the church” to be the light for both the victims and the perpetrators of human trafficking to find the one True way to freedom
Take a trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, USA to visit the world's first museum-quality permanent exhibit on the subjects of modern day enslavement and human trafficking at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
Lisa Kristine illuminates the stories of those she photographed and documents widespread instances of enslavement throughout the world today.
