Nearer, My God, to Thee; Our Colored Churches

In order to survive the indignity of Jim Crow life we sustained one another. Through laughter, food, music, and dance, we survived. And every second and fourth Sunday, in the loving embrace of community, our churches nourished us, and we were protected from the worst of it. Our little community managed to live dignified lives in undignified times. Folks saved the tears for church and left their burdens on the altar.

Dixie Baptist Church (Original Building)

Colored churches in the south were always more than an institution, more than a religious experience, and more than a building for worship. They are the repository for our history, our culture, and our dreams. When I was a child, they were the places where housekeepers, loggers, yardmen, field hands, and sawmill workers became ushers, deacons, 

Neely Grove Methodist Church

musicians, and Sunday school teachers. Sundays meant a feeling of togetherness and a show of respect. Men and women shed their overall and smocks. Children were scrubbed clean. Aprons were left hanging on a nail in the kitchen, muddy work boots left sitting on the porch, and rough hands and ashy legs were rubbed smooth with Vaseline petroleum jelly.  

The community I grew up in and the churches I attended was no different.

Ada Larkin Hadnot

As a child I attended and was a baptized member of Dixie Missionary Baptist Church. I also sometimes attended Neely Grove Methodist Church. Although I don't remember exactly, one church met on the first and third Sunday and the other on the second and fourth Sunday. Dixie Missionary Baptist Church was founded
by my third great-grandfather, Richard Seale, and is recognized as the oldest slave founded church in Texas. Unfortunately, the original structure burned down in 1964. I have been told that one of the founders of  Neely Grove Methodist Church was my maternal great-grandmother, Ada Larkin Hadnot. Her picture hung in the church until its demise in the early 1980s. Neely Grove is now a rundown shell of a building. It only holds memories of the people who were worshiped and prayed there, were married there, and funeralized there.

Just down the road from where I grew up, there was also another church in our community. I believe the name was Peachtree Baptist Church. Apparently, it went out of existence when I was less than five years old. I do remember seeing the remnants of the building and hearing older people speak of it. I also vaguely remember my great-grandmother, R. V. Armstrong, having mission meetings at here home. I recently came across the picture below. I was told that this is the congregation of Peachtree Baptist Church. Maybe it was their church anniversary or homecoming. I believe the Man seated in the middle front row is my great-grandfather, Joe F. Armstrong. The man seated on the far right with the cane is said to be Otto Shelby.

 

Dixie Missionary Baptist In Flames (1964)

 

Peachtree Baptist Church Congregation