It looks like I almost missed a wonderful thread here today. I have read many accounts of this --  sneaking off for  worship and using a pot to absorb noise, so many that I once wrote a performance piece based on it for our church, to re-enact such a worship scene. (I have to re-research what sources I used then.) The tradition fascinates me partly because I never heard anyone speak of this custom when I was growing up.  I am a Black Hairston descendant on at least one paternal line, and all four of my maternal and paternal lines were rooted in Virginia probably since enslavement began. Many of my kin were pastors, mostly Baptist and Pentecostal, as are current relatives. Maybe the elders never spoke of it because they were embarrassed by the old-fashioned traditions, or it was so secret my parents never heard of it. Most of my grandparents passed before I would have known them. Even my great-grandparents were born after slavery.  

Angela DodsonEditor, writer, consultant.609 394 7632  landline609 529 0957 cell

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