BLOG 2/14/17. ON BLACK HISTORY MONTH: UNSUNG HEROES

BLOG 2/14/17. ON BLACK HISTORY MONTH: UNSUNG HEROES

So, it’s Black History month, and we’ll read articles about the giants of our nation’s black community. I would like to tell you about one of my black heroes who became a friend, and yet operated totally out of sight of the vocal and visible black protest community. Like, I’m a white guy, but I cut my teeth as an adult right in the early days of the civil rights movement. I was ordained as pastor in the Presbyterian Church the summer of Brown-vs-the Board of Education. I was a product of the segregated South, and had never had to come to grips with the issue of racism, since it had seemed the normal state of things.

I soon found myself in Durham, North Carolina during the decade of the 1960s. Durham, in those days, was a blue-collar textile and tobacco town and seething with racism. In that small city, there were also, two major universities, so that the civil rights movement, lunch-counter demonstrations, street marches by (primarily) black students and civil rights activists singing “We shall overcome.” I became more and more engaged with the black community, and a point of communication for black student protesters, and even joined the Black Ministerial Alliance.

Along the way, the rector of my neighboring Episcopal Church and I began to wonder if there was some area of need in that whole turbulent scene in which our two congregations might have some encouraging ministry. To that end we consulted with the city’s planning commission and discovered that one of the most distressed communities in the city was a hidden black neighborhood (what would be called a ‘bottoms’ community) very near to our church houses, hidden from the major thoroughfares, and within a half mile of Duke University and the Veteran’s Administration Hospital. None of us even knew it was there. In sanitation, unemployment, illegitimacy, unpaved streets, and obvious poverty it was one of Durham’s most needy communities. My colleague and I found our way into this hidden area of need, and to our surprise, there was a neat, white frame church there: New Bethel Baptist. We were able to contact the pastor and set up a date to meet him. His name: Pastor L. W. Reid.

Reid was a wonderfully authentic and warm person. He had come to that church and discerned all the needs. He set about to create a day-care center in the church so that their parents could leave them safely there and find employment. The church became about the only scene of encouragement in that dismal setting. But while we were sitting in Reid’s tiny study, I noticed a whole shelf of identical books on Biblical doctrines from Moody Press, and so asked Reid about them. It turned out that Reid had discerned that most of the other pastors he knew were ‘tent-makers’ who held full time jobs as well as pastoring churches—but that few of them had had any training. To that end, he established the Union Bible Training School that met in his church in the evening once a week. There was a new generation of educated black young adults who needed pastors who were equipped to minister to them, and Reid provided that training. Wow!

There were all those prominent civil rights figures, some seeking publicity and fame, … and here was Reid quietly meeting the needs at the grassroots. Our two churches became supportive of Reid and New Bethel, and were able to assist in getting additional funding for his day care, and providing some administrative support for the training school. (I actually taught the pastors both evangelism, and black church history for a season, and bonded with those wonderful brothers.)

Real change and transformational ministry take place at the grassroots. Reid and I exchanged pulpits occasionally, which was humorous because black congregations talk back to their preachers, and white congregations don’t, so Reid and I had to learn the rhythms of each other’s congregation. Reid is probably, now, with the Lord, but I always think of what a remarkable hero he was in his own quiet and fruitful way. This Black History month gives me this occasion to

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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