ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1997 TAG: 9702240014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: new river journal
SOURCE: ROBERT FRIES
As the 20th century ends, we Virginians continue to struggle with the issue of race. State songs, Monument Avenue statues, Confederate flags have all been the subject of contentious flare-ups, sparked by embers from the banked fires of resentment.
What would Charles Schaeffer think of us, if the New River Valley's civil rights pioneer could be brought back to life a century after his death?
Schaeffer, the ex-Yankee soldier who came here after the Civil War and founded enduring religious and educational institutions for blacks, was a dreamer who envisioned a better day.
In our contemporary world, some days are better than others. A good one will be April 20.
That afternoon in Christiansburg the plans are to unveil a new sculpture of Schaeffer. Appropriately, the ceremony will occur at the church he founded and led for many years, Schaeffer Memorial Baptist Church.
About a month ago I wrote a story in the New River Current about Larry Bechtel, the Blacksburg artist who made a likeness of Schaeffer, and his desire to donate the completed work to the church.
The church said it would like to have it, but neither Bechtel nor its members had enough money to get the bust bronzed and mounted. They asked for the public's help as an endorsement of this gesture of honor and reconciliation.
And you came through.
The Bust of Charles Schaeffer Fund, care of Schaeffer Memorial Baptist Church, began receiving donations immediately after the story was published. In fact, they're still coming in.
Additionally, the project got a huge corporate boost from Terri Welch. She manages Roselawn Memory Gardens, the Christiansburg cemetery located on North Franklin Street.
After reading the newspaper story, Welch offered to help pay for casting the bust in bronze and mounting it on a stone base.
"It's part of the heritage of Christiansburg. I just wanted to do something to give back a little bit," she said.
As a cemetery manager, Welch has professional contact with foundries. She's getting estimates to ship Bechtel's sculpture out of town and have it bronzed.
The money donated to the Schaeffer fund will be put to good use. Bechtel said there's talk of placing the mounted sculpture outside the church in a sort of memory garden, with landscaping and flowers.
Additionally, the dedication ceremony will be an event for the public, with speakers and a program at the two venerable buildings perched atop the high ridge that Schaeffer named Zion Hill.
One of these is the church. Next door is the old Hill School, which was the first location of the Christiansburg Institute. Later that public academy for blacks moved about a mile away to the North Franklin Street site it occupied until the school closed in 1963.
But the Hill School remains. It's listed as a Virginia Historic Landmark, and is still used as a community center where civic groups meet.
Everyone who donated to the Schaeffer fund will get a thank-you letter and an invitation to the event. There's also talk of engraving their names on a plaque to be placed in the memorial garden.
Those who attend the ceremony on High Street will have the chance to see the Hill School and Schaeffer Memorial Baptist Church, which has a beautiful sanctuary with rich wooden pews and high arching windows.
There will be more to say about this ceremony as the day approaches. A committee including Nannie B. Hairston of the church is just getting started to plan the event. For now, the idea of it seems like an ideal tribute to a man and the community he strove to establish.
Schaeffer's legacy is the many black churches he founded in the New River Valley and the Christiansburg Institute, the public black academy that operated for nearly a century.
Three years after Schaeffer died, Virginia rewrote its state constitution to include poll taxes and literacy clauses for voters. These codicils virtually wiped out black citizens from voter registration rolls and kept them out of polling booths for generations.
That would have depressed Schaeffer profoundly, the thought that all his visionary work had gone for naught.
If he could see the black and white Virginians who will gather in his honor on Zion Hill, he'd probably conclude that we've come a long way.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File. The bust of Charles Schaeffer by Blacksburg artistby CNBLarry Bechtel.