Henry Ward Beecher

For many African Americans in the late 1800s, Henry Ward Beecher was a significant historical figure. He was an abolitionist during the Civil War and was known to many African Americans as “the most famous man in America.” This is because he believed that African American soldiers were heroes, He also claimed that Christ’s spirit was invested in the abolitionist cause. 

Beecher was appointed the first minister of the new Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. During the Civil War, 

his church equipped a volunteer infantry regiment. Also during this time, Beecher pushed Abraham Lincoln to emancipate the slaves through a proclamation. He later went on to speak in England about undermining support for the South. However, Beecher’s efforts to create a new way of representing Jesus in a racial and political way were somewhat underappreciated due to his involvement in a sex scandal with a married woman. This scandal was widely publicized and became one the most notorious trials of the 19^th century.  

Later in his career, Henry Beecher joined a long-standing European debate over whether or not a biography could be written about the life of Jesus. This led him to write The Life of Jesus, the Christ, which was the first American biography of Jesus’ life. In this biography, Beecher claims that it is impossible to exactly describe Jesus physically because no one can truly know how he looked. He said, “to his form, his height, the character of his face, or any single feature of it, there is not the slightest allusion.” Despite these words, Beecher included in the biography several illustrations depicting a European Jesus with brown hair and brown eyes. This paralleled the way Americans of that time claimed to love the power of liberty while oppressing the African American population.