NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER’S ROYAL WEDDING...

(OR YOUR FATHER’S EITHER)

In case you hid under a rock Saturday, May 19, England’s Prince Harry married American actress Meghan Markle, a divorced, 36-year old Northwestern University

graduate who made her name on the USA Network legal drama Suits, playing a paralegal and part-time law firm associate. Those facts alone made for an unusual royal pairing, but that wasn’t the half of it.  The royal couple’s wedding ceremony brought black culture to English royalty and therefore to the world.

The ceremony melded English high church with modern concerns about racial inclusion and honesty about past injustice.  Without sacrificing the dignity of a traditional royal wedding, Meghan and Harry showed the audience we live in a different world.  That process forced British royalty out of its comfort zone.  One of us sent his children a text just after the service observing that this wedding ceremony stretched British stiff upper lips to their snapping point.

As a child of the royal family and a graduate of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Prince Harry no doubt brought a keen awareness of Great Britain’s role in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and its colonization of dozens of countries populated by people of

color. “The sun never sets on the British empire,” went the expression. Even today, Great Britain struggles with identifying what being British means and it maintains immigration practices that favor whites over people of color.  It admits to British Citizenship immigrants from the Caribbean, India, Pakistan and Africa more restrictively than Europeans.

The Homily

First, there was the ceremony’s sermon, officially called an “address,” by Bishop

Michael Curry, the head of the Episcopal Church, the American affiliate of the Anglican Church.  Bishop Curry, the first African American in the post he holds, spoke for 13 plus minutes, too long some critics on social media thought. A conclusion all of us agree with to an extent.  That aside, he relied on the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. and alluded to experiences of slaves in the American Antebellum South.  Most of all, in his delivery and style, he

brought the energy and passion of a black American preacher to the usually staid venue of a British pulpit.  He painted a picture of hope and promise for a better world, if and only if his hearers dedicated themselves to “the redemptive power of love.”  He grounded his message firmly in the New Testament, as informed by Hebrew scripture.

The Choir

No one should find hearing a popular song at the wedding of two thirtysomethings surprising.  Standards from the 60s and 70s, like The Wedding Song (Peter Paul & Mary) and We’ve Only Just Begun (the Carpenters), get played or performed at weddings all the time.  Ben E. King’s 1962 composition Stand By Me qualifies as the kind of popular number anyone going to a wedding of two relatively young people might expect to hear. 

But, this wasn’t just any wedding and the performer wasn’t a friend of the bride who moonlights as a lounge singer.  The Kingdom Choir, a London based gospel group of 20 mostly black singers, did the honors at the royal wedding.  They sang Stand By Me in the soulful, if dignified, tone it deserved.

The Cellist

Prince Harry supposedly gets credit for the appearance of Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the award winning 19-year old British cellist who enthralled the audience with two pieces while the royal couple and their parents signed the wedding register, a requirement of English law that must occur during the ceremony.  Reportedly Harry saw him perform last year and asked Meghan to call him requesting he play at their wedding. 

Millions of people saw and heard things they never would have had they not tuned in to what some regard as a spectacle of unseemly excess.  By insisting her wedding reflect her entire heritage, Meghan taught the world valuable lessons in inclusivity, history, and cultural sensitivity.  Her new husband joined in that endeavor making their wedding a richer experience for his family, his country, and the world.   They’ve done us a favor and deserve a salute for it. 

Unanswered Questions

Did this wedding simply reflect the attitudes of two enlightened millennials or did it serve as a harbinger of the future, where people in countries far and near are judged on matters other than skin color? We certainly can’t equate the marriage of one couple with the election of America’s first African American President, but we see at least one commonality. Many of us hoped and believed Barack Obama’s election meant the dawn of a post-racial America. But with the election of Donald Trump, we just don’t know how to measure progress. Which is stronger, the forces seeking change, or the forces opposing change? Only time will tell. With the Brits, as well, only time will tell.