We're looking at the history of watch night, a New Year's Eve tradition for Black Americans that goes back to the Civil War.

By keeping watch, Black communities transformed a single night of waiting into a living theology of freedom. They taught time to remember. They taught faith to speak history aloud. In a nation that ...

Rather than watching the televised Times Square ball drop as the new year approaches, members of First Pentecostal Church will spend the final seconds of 2025 in their worship center, surrounding by ...

On the night of December 31, 1862, African Americans of all social classes gathered in secret to observe Watch Night, a religious tradition of collective reflection and anticipation of the ...

“Waiting for the Hour.” Carte-de-visite of an emancipation watch night meeting on Dec. 31, 1863, where African American men, women and children gathered around a man with a watch, waiting for the ...