Reverend John Jasper, “De Sun do Move”
N.D.
32” x 12”
Chromolithograph
Unkown Artist
This is intended to illustrate the kind of racist work typical to the period of Ruth Starr Rose, and stands as a good example of what she felt she had to overcome. In spite of the fact that the Reverend John Jasper (1812-1901), was one of the 19th century's most important American Black ministers, people still felt it appropriate to portray him in this disrespectful manner. His fiery oratory and passionate delivery drew mixed race crowds Baptist congregants. Jasper had honed his oratory style in the 1840's delivering graveside sermons for slaves and free Blacks, and making the occasional appearance at the First African Baptist Church of Richmond. It is a testament to Jasper's charismatic powers that while still a slave in the tobacco fields and factories in the twenty-five years preceding the Civil War, he was allowed to deliver sermons to sizeable crowds of slaves, despite a Virginia law specifically prohibiting such behavior. After the War and Emancipation, Jasper was formally ordained and organized the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church. It was here that he delivered his famous sermon "De Sun Do Move." Though entirely counter to what science had known for centuries, Jasper's geocentric sermon still drew crowds of people of all persuasions.