Christina Lord

Fanshawe Pioneer Village

My name is Christina Lord and I am the vice chair of the London Black Heritage Council, which was formerly known as the London Black History Coordinating Committee. And that’s how it was known at the time of the move of the AME Church. I am also a member of the Board of Directors at Fanshawe Pioneer Village.

So this was the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It was the first black church in London, the second Black church was the Beth Emmanuel Church, which is the BME Church – British Methodist Episcopal Church. And there was property beside it. So some people refer to the Beth Emmanuel as the sister church. Other people refer to it as the mother church, but at that point this is what was known then as the Fugitive Slave Chapel was moved to, right next door on the property of the Beth Emmanuel Church. That was when I first heard about it. I was a bit involved in it, but not to the extent that I was later.

The British Methodist Episcopal Diocese… which the Beth Emmanuel Church and the land belongs to, reached out to the folks at Fanshawe Pioneer Village and said “Would you be willing to take this building? It needs a home and we think that it would fit with the other buildings that are already located out at the Village.”

And so we started about 7 o’clock in the morning and it ended up at the village at about 4 in the afternoon… And it was, it was incredible. I went to various places along the route. And you know, people were coming out of their businesses. Coming out of their homes. Just standing, watching everything … And even the traffic, you know, I mean, sometimes we can get a bit impatient if we have to wait in traffic but at the various places I was, there was never any of that. People were just sort of stopped, pulled over, got out of their cars to watch… Cause, of course, the police are stopping traffic. The, the, folks from London Hydro have to like literally life and sometimes take off the electrical wires that are across the street so that it can… so it was just there was so much that went into it and everybody was, you know, just happy doing it. You know, the folks driving the, the truck were reaching out the windows, people were giving them Tim Horton’s. They were laughing and it was just joyous the whole way. And it was a beautiful day. It was November 22nd, which doesn’t always… land as a great day, but weather wise it was beautiful. We weren’t in winter coats. It was, yeah, it was just like it was meant to be happening at that time.