Piece of Black History Rests with Arkansas Church
HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. (AP) — Centennial Baptist Church sits silently on a downtown street, its doors locked and window panes so clouded light has trouble getting in. The roof is sagging and some shingles are missing. The foundation has started to crack.
A National Historic Landmark, the church was built by a black architect and was pastored by the Rev. Elias Camp Morris, president from 1895 to 1922 of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., the largest historically African-American Baptist denomination in the country.
Today, the original pews and the church pipe organ serve no heavenly purpose, and neither will get any use until the 103-year-old building itself can be restored and possibly turned into a cultural center.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Pigeons have replaced Protestants in the sanctuary.
"It is on its last leg," says Henrietta Williams of Little Rock, president of the E.C. Morris Foundation and a former church member. "If we don't go on and move, it's going to continue to deteriorate. So we're at a crucial point."
About $450,000 in private and state funds have been spent just to keep the building stable, and a restoration architect is working with the Morris Foundation. The federal government granted the project $300,000 in late 2006 toward renovating the exterior. But the grant was conditioned upon the foundation getting matching funds. So far that has not happened.
To jog the process, the foundation is working with preservationist Ruth Hawkins of Arkansas State University, who successfully led efforts to save an Ernest Hemingway haunt in Piggott, a Depression-era meeting place for black and white farmers in Tyronza and a historic plantation home in Lakeport.
Hawkins, director of the Delta Heritage Initiatives, proposes a three-way collaboration with the foundation, and Arkansas State and Southern Financial Partners, a community development group.
She and foundation members envision a fully restored Centennial Baptist as a black heritage museum and cultural center, featuring African-American history and gospel music and becoming a stop on a Music Heritage Trail along the region's existing national scenic byways.
Phyllis Hammonds, who grew up in Centennial Baptist and established the foundation in 2004, says it is critical that African-Americans be involved in developing programs at the proposed cultural center and that educational materials be "unsanitized."
"I want to preserve the integrity of our history," Hammonds stresses.
A former slave, Morris became pastor of Centennial Baptist in 1879 to a congregation of about 25 members. Six years later, he was named president of the National Baptist Convention, preaching self-determination and the right of blacks to establish their own churches and maintain their own church leadership independently of the white religious community.
To build Centennial Baptist, Morris engaged black architect and church member Henry James Price, who was most likely self-taught. The Gothic-Revival style building, capable of seating 1,000, was dedicated in 1905 and the congregation grew to capacity.
Morris started Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, helped mediate volatile race relations during segregation and established a publishing house that continues to operate in Nashville, Tenn., where the National Baptist Convention is now headquartered.
"I see him as the precursor to Martin Luther King," Hammonds says. "Not only was he an organizer, he was a humanitarian, an entrepreneur. He was an author. He took care of the poor. He spoke for the disenfranchised. He was the person who was recognized and well-respected in both communities, African-American and the white communities."
With church membership dwindling in recent decades, the congregation held its last service at Centennial in 1994 and turned the property over to the foundation in 2006. Supporters stabilized the building with $250,000 they raised in private funds and another $200,000 from then-Gov. Mike Huckabee.
The foundation secured the federal grant with the help of Southern Financial Partners and has applied for a $350,000 grant in donations from the Walton Family Foundation and others, managed by Southern Bancorp and Southern Financial.
Williams says she hopes a partnership with Arkansas State will convince the Walton charity that matching funds will be used for a project that has lifelong promise.
"The Waltons are concerned. ... They don't want to infuse money into this project and then we're not able to maintain it. And that's a legitimate concern," Williams says. "I understand the business aspects of it."
After restoring the exterior, the group will need about $600,000 to restore the interior and $500,000 for the pews and pipe organ. Up to $250,000 a year will be needed to operate the building as a cultural center and museum, Williams says.
The figures are daunting, but stronger are the childhood memories Williams has of her church life in east Arkansas.
"The older ladies would teach us how to usher and wear our gloves," she recalls.
Williams' father was the church janitor, and she remembers dusting the pews before services. There were Easter egg hunts, cookouts, and she was married at Centennial Baptist. Hammonds was one of her bridesmaids.
"Here we are a national landmark building and if we lose it you can't get it back," she says. "I would hate that if we didn't complete this thing. You would pass by and say, 'That used to be a national landmark.' It would be a tragic loss."
