Newport Gardner's Anthem

Newport Gardner's Anthem explores the remarkable life of Occramer Marycoo, an enslaved African who went on to become one of early America's most important Black leaders. In the mid-eighteenth century, Marycoo was taken from West Africa to Newport, Rhode Island, where he was forced into racial bondage and given a name that symbolized the power that his new city and new enslaver held over him: Newport Gardner. In this powerful book, Edward E. Andrews pieces together newspaper articles, church records, letters, and Gardner's own writings to tell the story of his life. After acquiring his freedom via a winning lottery ticket in 1791, Gardner became a kind of Founding Father for Newport's free Black community. He became a popular educator to young Black Newporters, and emerged as a key religious figure, serving as a long-standing pillar of Newport's First Congregational Church and later founding an independent Black church in the 1820s. His final act was leading a group of about three dozen