CHAPTER 14

Billy’s questions were still bothering Sam Sunday morning, but he pushed them aside when he started up the Ford Victoria and backed it out of the garage. Weather permitting, the Tates went to church every week. Usually only heavy rain kept them away and even that never stopped Sam. He had been elected a deacon two years ago and he took the responsibility seriously. Truth be told, he did not understand why the congregation chose him. He certainly did not toe all the biblical marks Brother Walter Byrd harped on every week. Maybe it was his business experience they liked. In any case, seeing that Billy and Mary Jane got to church regularly was part of his promise to Judith Ann, so he remained as faithful as he could.

The First Baptist Church was a white-painted brick building two blocks west of the business district. It had a two-story education wing in back and a tall steeple above a front entrance set off by white columns. Its size and design showed that Southern Baptists were the largest denomination in Unionville. They had even made sure to build their steeple higher than the Presbyterians and put in more stained glass than the Methodists.

Most who attended regular services arrived in time for Sunday school at a quarter to ten, but some came only for preaching at eleven o’clock. These usually got their choice of seats before Bible study ended. Folks coming from Sunday school would enter the worship hall from doors on either side of the pulpit and fill in the remaining spots. Sam always sat on the left near the back with Billy and Mary Jane, and Gran always took a place down front on the right with her friends, Emma Lou and Almalee. They liked being close to the choir and the pianist.

Today, when Sam came from his men’s class, he saw Billy and Mary Jane sitting in a pew behind Hazel Brantley, who had brought Becky Reeves. She was reading her bulletin and did not see him but Hazel did and grinned. As he walked up the aisle, he reached to straighten the horses-heads tie Billy had given him last Father’s Day to go with his navy-blue suit.

Becky, in a blue linen suit and matching pillbox hat looked even more beautiful than she had in the store a few days earlier. Aware that he was staring, he forced his eyes away until just before he came even with her. When he glanced at her again, she looked up, smiled, and mouthed, “Good morning.” He smiled back, nodded, and took his seat.

Once there, he could not keep his eyes off Becky’s hair and shoulders. He noticed every time she shifted in her seat, tried to picture her at a Cardinals game, and wondered what she would think of Brother Byrd.

A wiry man in his late forties, Byrd had curly brown hair, boundless energy, and possibly the most unusual preparation of any Southern Baptist minister below the Mason-Dixon Line. He had grown up in Detroit, clashed with the law in his youth, and become a drifter and an alcoholic by his twenty-first birthday. Sometime before World War II, a Baptist minister in New Orleans found him drunk in a French Quarter alley and helped him turn his life around and get through college and the seminary. Almost every time he faulted his listeners for some sin or other, he cited a firsthand encounter with it and they loved listening to him.

After an interlude of organ and piano music, Byrd rose from a chair behind the carved oak pulpit and started the service with spirited singing of “Sunshine in My Soul” and “Send the Light.” Even though the songs were unfamiliar to Becky, she found them easy to follow in the hymnal and sang in a warm soprano voice everyone noticed.

The traditional welcome and announcements followed. All eyes turned toward Becky when she raised her hand as a visitor and took a guest card from an usher. Next came the passing of collection plates and a choir special. The plain-clothed singers delivered “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” in moving fashion with Opal Jolly, a gifted contralto, singing two verses solo. Her mother Almalee sat with her hands clasped over her heart and beamed like a peacock at her daughter.

Once the choir finished, everyone was ready for hellfire and brimstone and Byrd did not disappoint them. His theme was almost always the same—repent, trust in the Lord, and live right—but he never delivered it the same way twice. He did, however, always quote scriptures, wave his Bible, tell stories, pace up and down, yell, whisper, and fume. Today was no exception and when he finished, he led the choir in singing, “Softly and Tenderly,” about Jesus calling for sinners to come home to God.

When Byrd offered his closing prayer, though, he broke with tradition. Normally he did not believe in mixing politics with religion, but this time he called for “divine guidance for all those responsible for making critical decisions in our capital city” and for “patience and Christian behavior on the part of all the citizens of our state and community.” Some in the congregation already had their minds on dinner and other after-church plans and failed to notice these lines in the prayer. Others found them a bit puzzling but thought little more about them. A few wondered, however, whether they signaled a potentially disturbing attitude about integration. For Sam, they brought Billy’s questions back in mind.

There was nothing vague about anything Brother Elmer Spurlock said that same hour at Mercy Baptist Mission out on Newton Chapel Road. He had no qualms about taking on political subjects, and when his congregation gathered in the simply furnished little white frame building, he had a direct message in mind. He started the service with the congregation singing “Stand Up for Jesus,” “Rise Up, O Men of God,” and “Onward Christian Soldiers,” all of them calls to action.

Onward Christian soldiers,

Marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus

Going on before!

The mission had no organ and no choir, but the piano player could really tickle the ivories, and the worshipers sang with full voice and conviction.

When it came to pulpit theatrics, Spurlock took a backseat to none, and before saying a word, he shucked his brown suit coat and rolled up his sleeves. Even with the windows open and ceiling fans going full tilt, he had worked up a sweat, and his shirt stuck to his bulky body like wet wallpaper. He preached from Genesis 9:18-25, a biblical passage that many whites had misinterpreted for generations. It told how, after the great flood, Noah’s son Ham saw his father naked and drunk on wine. IInstead of showing respect and giving him clothes, Ham called his brothers, Shem and Japeth, to come see the spectacle. Unlike Ham, they covered their father without looking at him. When the old man woke up and learned what had happened, he put a curse on Ham’s son, Canaan, making him a servant forever.

“Negroes,” Spurlock wailed, “are descended from Canaan, and these passages prove that God meant them to be inferior and separate!” Bending phrases from the opening songs, he called on his flock to, “Rise up, end the night of wrong, and make the Satan-helpers who’re hollering for integration flee.”

When he finished, rather than a traditional closing hymn, he chose “We’re Marching to Zion” and sent his listeners away confident that his way would carry them “to the beautiful city of God.”

Another Unionville minister also took note of the events in the state capital. At the Mt. Zion Baptist Church, a concrete-block building two blocks east of US 167, in the shadow of South Arkansas Oak Flooring, Reverend Hosea Moseley stood in front of a choir wearing homemade red robes and behind a pulpit built by church members. He prayed for guidance and started his service with devotional singing. Standing between the pulpit and the congregation, deacons B. J. Long of the Black Tigers and Pete Jones, who worked part-time at the Otasco store, took turns calling out the lines of “Sweet Hour of Prayer” one by one, and the worshipers, accompanied by piano, repeated each in turn.

Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer

That calls me from a world of care

And bids me at my Father’s throne

Make all my wants and wishes known!

Lining out the words was hardly necessary because everyone knew them, but the traditional practice of call and response always gave comfort and created unity.

Next came songs that spoke of better days ahead. Call and response continued, but the choir, which included the Tates’ cook Ollie Mae Greene and Black Tiger Charlie Foster, led the way in stirring renditions of “The Unclouded Day,” “When the Roll Is Called up Yonder,” and “Peace in the Valley.” An electric guitar and drums were soon brought into accompaniment, and the music carried for blocks beyond the church’s open windows. Finally, from “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks,” Leon and Wanda Jackson and the others sang about heading for the Promised Land, where Jesus reigns and worries disappear.

Now the church folks felt uplifted and ready for the sermon. Clutching his King James Bible, the only version any Unionville Baptists, black or white, used, Moseley quoted from Mark 12:30-31, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then he came immediately to his point. “I know there’s some troubling stuff going on up yonder in Little Rock. Some troubling stuff! But brothers and sisters, I also know God is with us. I know it in my heart. But there’s three things we’re gon’ have to do. Listen to me, now! Three things! Say it back to me,‘Three things.’”

“Three things,” the congregation said in unison.

“You tell it, Reverend,” several called out. “You tell it.”

“We’ve got to remember that God calls on us to love our neighbors, all of them, black and white. We mustn’t hate white people no matter what. It’s not God’s way. We’re all His children.”

“Amen!” several worshipers called out.

“Praise Jesus!” others shouted.

“And I believe,” Moseley went on, “God’s gon’ open up their eyes someday. I really do. He’s gon’ open up their eyes!”

“Amen! Praise Jesus!” the calls came. The preacher and his listeners were falling into a rhythm now. Words and feelings flowed like a rushing stream.

“Second, we’ve got to pray. Y’all hear me now! We’ve got to pray for those brave children up yonder in Little Rock, and we’ve got to pray for our own children right here in Unionville. Pray for their safety. Pray for their futures.”

“Preach Reverend! Preach Reverend!”

“The world is changing and someday our children are gon’ have opportunities we’ve never had. Lord, keep our children safe for a greater day!”

“Amen! Praise Jesus!”

“Lord, keep our children safe on their long journey.”

“Amen! Praise Jesus!”

“And last, we’ve got to keep our eyes open and be vigilant. The Bible says, ‘Be vigilant!’ Most white folks here abouts are God-fearing people, and they’re not gon’ do something crazy, like what’s been threatened on Mrs. Bates up there in Little Rock. But there’s some others I’m not so sure about, especially since we don’t know what kind of things that new newspaperman is liable to write. So y’all be on your best behavior. Don’t y’all go out of your way to provoke nobody. And y’all keep a close watch on our children. You hear me? Keep a close watch on them!”

“Preach Reverend!”

Before Moseley finished, he worked in plenty about sin and repentance and the service ended with everyone singing “Amazing Grace.”

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved.

After the benediction at the First Baptist Church, most eyes turned to Becky as folks stood to leave.

“Who’s that?” Almalee asked, leaning over to Gran and Emma Lou. “She don’t look like anybody from around here.”

“She must be that new schoolteacher Billy’s been talking about,” Gran said in a disapproving tone. “She’s from up North somewhere—a Yankee.”

“She sure is a pretty thing, isn’t she,” Emma Lou said, smiling.

Gran and Almalee both grunted in response.

“Morning, Becky, welcome to First Baptist Church,” Sam said, as she exited her row. “Morning, Hazel.”

Becky smiled, dimples flashing. “Hello, Sam. Hi, Billy. Is this pretty girl your sister?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Billy said. He looked spiffy in a white sport coat and navy slacks. “This is Mary Jane. She’s five.” She had on a blue dress with a bow in the back.

“Hello, Mary Jane,” Becky said. “How are you?” She wondered where the children’s mother was but did not ask.

“Mary Jane’s our pride and joy,” Sam said, and before he could say anything else, other folks crowded around. Hazel busied herself making introductions and sharing the limelight. Some people came over to be friendly but some only wanted a closer look. It was not often that Unionville got a new teacher, and a good looking one who limped and appeared on the scene so close to the start of classes fueled all sorts of speculation.