THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 17, 1996 TAG: 9606170041
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLISE LYLES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AIKEN, S.C. LENGTH: 168 lines
Leaning hard on a cane, the Rev. J.J. Simmons eased his bent 101-year-old frame onto the bright red cushion of brand new pews. He sighed a holy sigh.
``Thank the Lord. Summer Grove one more time.''
On Sunday morning, Summer Grove Baptist Church made a joyful noise unto the Lord for the first time in its rebuilt sanctuary.
A year ago, the church, on a rolling rural road of cornfields and double-wide trailers, burned to the ground. It is among 34 black churches torched in the South in the past 18 months.
``It hurt me just like somebody had died,'' said Simmons, his voice a strong whisper. For 17 years until his son took over as pastor, Simmons continued to build on the church. He added new gas heaters, new windows, bathrooms, and central air conditioning. He painted the doors.
``That's where I give my life to, Summer Grove Baptist Church.''
What burns when a black church burns? History. Legacy. Community. The archives of the African-American soul.
Though hundreds of hearts are blistered here, many are steadfast in their refusal to accuse or rush to conclusions about racist perpetrators and conspiracy theories. The organized outrage expressed last week in Washington is nowhere to be found in this close, caring community of 90 worshippers.
Five churches have been burned in Aiken, and another has been vandalized. Yet church leaders have not united to pressure an investigation or promote public awareness.
The Rev. Wilbur Simmons, J.J.'s son, never even called the local sheriff to inquire about an arrest.
Besides, he pointed out, in December, a young black man was arrested for the December burning of Mount Hill Missionary Baptist, another black church.
``I'm not angry or bitter toward anyone,'' said the bespectacled, contemplative minister. ``We just wanted to hold the church together so the people wouldn't drift.''
``I knew it was something beyond my control and my ability,'' said the Rev. W.L. Mines, whose Rock Hill Baptist Church burned in February 1994. ``Who can I get angry with?''
Their discipline awes and angers. ``It's a tendency African Americans have to be gentle, loving and understanding with people even though they have experienced this hatred their whole lives,'' said Art Dexter, a 73-year-old white research physicist who is active in promoting race relations.
But too much forbearance may be some of what's wrong.
``You know those people don't vote,'' said Beverly Clyburn, one of the two blacks in the six-member Aiken City Council. ``They're good, hard-working people. But they're part of the problem. I don't think they realize the seriousness of what is happening.''
They are sturdy folk of uncommon grace: cotton farmers, truck drivers, undertakers and laborers. They seek only to rebuild their church to resurrect the spiritual and social center of their beloved communities where they thrive quietly in the midst of a peculiar violence.
Rev. W.L. Mines baptized these children.''
So begins the list in the yellow pages of a ledger that goes on for hundreds of names. Some date back before the modern civil rights movement.
It is all that remains of Rock Hill Baptist Church. The 90-year-old church, off Aiken's main drag, fell to ashes on a February morning in 1994.
On a recent afternoon, Mines and his sister-in-law Evelyn Medlock returned to what remains of Rock Hill. In sticky afternoon heat, they stared in the silence at the old cement baptismal pool, brimming with charred wood, rusted folding chairs and weeds.
``A nickel, that's what they give my great-grandmother for the five acres she give the church,'' said Medlock. ``We loved it because is was our history.'' In the days of segregation, Medlock recalled, the county paid to run a school there.
Mines pointed his cane toward a row of unkempt graves topped with artificial flowers. ``I buried my wife here in 1955. That grave over there is my first baby, Annie Louvenia Mines.''
He planned to come back one day this week to clean the graveyard. ``We got to keep them up, even though we ain't here no more.''
He lowered his baldish, graying head and recounted all the construction projects recorded in detail in the church ledger: first toilets installed in 1964, a school bus purchased for $468 in 1973 to carry remote members to the church.
Also listed neatly were names of members long gone and their tithes, gifts they gave to build the church: Myra Williams 25 cents, Willie May Goine 25 cents.
Medlock's eyes shimmered like the sun through a stained-glass window as she remembered after-church picnics and meals that brought usual friends.
``White folks would stop by here when we had ham and chicken. They loved the food. One time a man come by in his work clothes and said he was going to come back dressed up so he could eat.
``And one time, Rev. Bob Mackey, a white preacher, came right down here and donated $25 and preached a sermon,'' Medlock said.
When the civil rights movement came along, Rock Hill went with it. Minister Mines encourages his 100 or so worshipers to vote. In the afternoons, he carted folks down to Aiken City Hall to register.
``We needed to change and make things better,'' he said. ``Now folk can live any where they want to live, have any job if they're qualified.''
But Mines never used his pulpit to protest racism. ``That wasn't the appropriate place to for it, I didn't feel.
Rock Hill raised its children to take their place in history. In 1976, Mines' daughter, Jamie Louvenia, became the first black woman to enter the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, according to the local newspaper. She was soon joined by sister, Gwendolyn.
Children who had grown up around the church grabbed opportunities elsewhere. They sold the land when their parents died. ``They sold it to whites,'' said Mines. The wooden white chapel stood isolated on a rural road in the shade of an oak tree, an easy target for anybody who wanted to destroy it.
Though the church had some insurance and offers to help, the small, mostly elderly congregation decided against rebuilding.
His friends and fellow worshipers scattered to other churches, on Sunday morning, the Rev. Mines is a preacher without a pulpit.
But 30 miles southeast on Old Barnwell Road, Summer Grove Baptist Church sang praise and appreciation for its new sanctuary.
Fresh varnish on new pews scented the air. There was no organ music it - had burned in the fire.
But there were hushed sighs of happiness - they had never had stained-glass windows before. Oh, and that big old kitchen for after-church meals. And the red bricks were so much more handsome than the old wooden siding that made some folks call the 125-year-old structure a ``slave church.''
And there was song.
In a dignified but jubilant service, ministers and church members took turns leading prayer.
The very morning after his church charred to ash, the Rev. Wilbur Simmons had vowed, ``We will rebuild.''
It took much toil. For Simmons, who pastors two other churches and works nights as a trucker. And for his brother John Simmons. He handles financial matters.
There was insurance and donations.
The Rev. Bill Harrison at Mt. Beaulah Baptist, a white church two miles down the road, had gone down to see the church the morning of the fire. ``It looked like they threw a bomb in it,'' Harrison, a silver haired man, said. ``In this nation we've lost reverence to things that are sacred.''
Mount Beaulah quickly donated $1,000 from the general treasury.
Still, banks had to be shopped for a good 15-year mortgage. The grand total to rebuild: $175,000, said Simmons.
They got a good deal on thick, scarlet red carpet. ``The man donated half of it for free,'' said John Simmons, a tall, brown oak of a man. He farms 500 acres of cotton and works for the state forestry division.
Through the next winter, they worshipped in a small fellowship hall that the fire left unscorched.
Toward the end, the rebuilding effort was a crucible.
Two months ago, Deacon David Johnson collapsed in the fellowship hall during a prayer meeting. A heart attack.
``He was the go-between between the church and the contractor,'' said John Simmons. ``It put him under a lot of stress. His main get-go was he wanted my father to be able to walk in with us. He kept saying let's make all the time we can.''
On Sunday morning, Annie Jean Morris rose before the red-shrouded pews and polished pulpit to pray for Deacon Johnson, her father.
``Thank you, Lord.''
``Oh, yes, we thank you,'' came a voice from the rear. In their hands, paper fans from funeral homes waved rhythm in the air.
``We thank you for the wisdom,'' Morris prayed in a dignified lilt. ``We thank you for knowledge. We thank you for the fellowship this morning.''
``My Lord, my Lord,'' other voices, old, young, rose to the rafters.
There was no mention of the evil visited on them. No mention of injustice. No mention of fear. Only jubilation, jubilation for this day of reconstruction. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by CANDICE C. CUSIC, The Virginian-Pilot
Effie Mae Simmons, 83, has lived in Aiken, S.C., all her life.
Simmons, mother of the Summer Grove Baptist Church pastor, and other
worshipers have banded together to rebuild the church that burned
down a year ago.
Photo by CANDICE C. CUSIC, The Virginian-Pilot
The Rev. J.J. Simmons, 101, prays while his son, Wilbur, far right,
leads the Sunday service at Summer Grove Baptist Church. The elder
Simmons was pastor for 17 years before his son took over.
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KEYWORDS: CHURCH FIRE by CNB