Site 12

In 1963, Holy Covenant’s Reverend Jim Reed was among a Chicago contingent that went to Mississippi after three female students, two black and one white, were refused entry to worship and arrested at a Methodist Church. Reed, Rev. Gerald Forshey, both Methodist clergy and the other ministers from the Interracial Council of Methodists traveled to Jackson, Mississippi and met with the pastor. 

Rev. Seth Granberry openly lamented that his family lost 100 slaves because of the Emancipation Proclamation and did not want his church integrated. 

Reed and the other clergy stayed during the Freedom Rides and brought this issue back to Chicago to fight segregation within the Methodist Church. As they met at Forshey’s home, a charred cross that had been burned in Mississippi was in the living room they sat in. In 2009, the cross was donated to First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple, 77 W. Washington in Chicago.

In 1969, Panther lawyer Skip Andrew worshipped at the Church of the Holy Covenant. When Illinois Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton was assassinated in a preplanned FBI- and Chicago Police-coordinated attack, Andrew called Rev. Jim Reed and asked him to accompany him to the apartment. The police hastily left the scene just after sunrise on December 4, 1969. As Skip Andrew gathered and bagged evidence, Reed signed the envelopes as a witness. 

Reed also stored critical evidence from the murder scene at his home and at the church: the door panel that showed the directions of the first bullets, a bloody mattress, and bloody clothing. The logic was that it seemed police could raid Panther offices and apartments at will, but would not act as fast on a white Methodist church or clergy.