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Macedonia Baptist Church

By Ashley Remington, Larry Howard, Sharpe Sablon, Stephen Antalis, and Sterling Hill

Oral histories with Pastor Eddie Smith, Mrs. Flourine Brown, Mrs. Janise Clay, and Mrs. Mary Whitfield


It is impossible to complete an in depth history of black churches like Macedonia Baptist Church in Macon during the Civil Rights Movement without talking to the congregation. This is because the keepers of history during that era generally didn’t document the experience of black churches. The bulk of African American news was confined to small sections of newspaper left entirely unrecorded because it didn’t affect the white majority. Although incidents at many white churches throughout this time are well documented because they represented a challenge to the existing power structure, nearly all efforts by black churches to establish equal rights in Macon have gone undocumented.

Yet black churches have historically been a vital part of the black community. During the civil rights era this was readily apparent as black churches around the country played a vital role in the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans were forced to endure numerous hardships in order to gain their civil rights and the community relied on the black church to be its pillar of support and place of refuge throughout the era. Every black church’s congregation felt the strains of the movement. Even the church was not exempt from the bombings, death threats, and murders as the violence progressed. In spite of threats and violence, groups of black ministers marched in non-violent protest against the laws of Jim Crow, and other groups who preached about not allowing people to hold them down.

The church’s role in the black community goes back to the days of slavery when the church was the black community’s only outlet for freedom. It was a place where blacks could gather freely, speak in code, and revive their nearly broken sprits. It even became the place where ministers like Nat Turner gathered the masses and openly rebelled. In the book Black Church in the Sixties, the author writes that the black church is the most owned and controlled object of the entire race and that the opportunity to be “somebody” found in the church inspired people to continue fighting for civil rights. The church has not only been a physical safe haven for African Americans, it has also been a place of psychological strength for them. Throughout their lifetime, the churches have stayed close to their congregations by changing their locations in order to facilitate the community’s needs.
Problems have persisted between the black and white churches for centuries. Christianity was not the native religion of the majority of the black slaves who entered the United States. As such, they were taught by whites their version of Christianity. This however when hand in hand with the message of slavery as blacks were taught “slaves obey your masters” while the Exodus, where slaves killed their masters to escape to freedom, were left out of their teaching. Pastor Eddie Smith explains, most of the “theology, most of your trained clergy, even in the black community, had this Eurocentric bent and we had to acquiesce as a culture.” This caused many blacks to say, “That aint for us; that aint for us,” because they recognized that their culture was being oppressed and manipulated, (Pastor Smith). However, because slaves were not allowed to gather in mass, the church became their only way to congregate. This slowly created the community feel that persisted through slavery, reconstruction, and the civil rights era.

Throughout the civil rights era, African Americans looked to their ministers for guidance about how to react to segregation. The ministers took various approaches at solving these issues. Some became very involved in the movement through marches and rallies and others simply spoke out against segregation in their sermons. Though there was work being done by ministers during this time, often times, the congregations of their churches began to become impatient and longed for more involvement from their preachers. This caused a strain on the relationship that the ministers had with the community around them. Towards the end of the Civil Rights Movement, people had grown tired of the non-violent approach that most preachers had been advocating. For the most part, black churches did what they could to keep the peace and work towards civil rights at the same time. Because the first priority of the church is to protect its people, the church had mixed reactions to the movement. Although some decided that it was best to stay out of the turmoil in an attempt to protect their congregations from harm, others chose to openly speak out against segregation to protect their congregation’s right to equality.

Macedonia Baptist Church’s mission is no different from other black churches in the South. It is a beacon in the community and has been a safe haven for blacks in its area since it’s founding on July 13, 1893. Minister Ellis S. Evans was minister during the Civil Rights Movement, and he was an influential part of the Civil Rights Movement in Macon. According to the current pastor at Macedonia, Rev. Eddie D. Smith, the late pastor was jailed during the bus boycott in Macon. During the Civil Rights Movement the church was located on Anthony Road, and this location was used to promote civil rights marches and rallies. The congregation of the church loved Pastor Evans for his involvement in the movement. They appreciated the fact that he put civil rights before his own well being.  

According to Mrs. Fluorine Brown, “You didn’t have very many preachers [march], you had very few now who was crazy enough to get out there.” However, there were enough pastors involved to rally the community to action. Those who were brave enough arranged sit-ins, marches, and even bail money for captured civil rights demonstrators. The churches themselves did not make open statements concerning the issues that prevailed throughout the era. Instead, they let their pastors do the talking for them. They allowed all members, including their pastors, to speak their mind and fight for their freedom. They even allowed the pastors to preach their message of civil rights during church sermons and led marches from churches to the courthouses. However, the burden of punishment always fell upon the members allowing the institution of the church to continue to exist and recruit the community.

Mrs. Fluorine Brown was an ardent civil rights worker. She marched with Dr. King, was jailed for sit-ins, and became president of the Macon chapter of the NAACP. She was able to become the first black waitress in Macon, the first female bailiff at the courthouse, and the first black sales clerk at JC Penney’s. She attributes all of this success to the fact that she knew how to talk properly and get along with all people. However, her success sparked resentment among the black community. They saw her as a black girl who was getting close to whites in order to unfairly obtain jobs. Members of her own church accused her of doing things like sleeping with white men and betraying her own race just because she seemed to be able to get any job she wanted while very few others could. Some thought of her as an Uncle Tom and even used to say, “don’t tell her nothing, she’ll tell them crackers everything you say,” (Mrs. Brown). She has even said that she has gone to white churches since they have been integrated and had no problems while she still runs into racial problems upon occasion at her own church.

The struggle for equality in the Black community during the Civil Rights movement was mainly political, not religious. During the Civil Rights Movement, there was a “moral obligation to pursue socio-political concretization of the theological principles of equality, justice, and inclusiveness” (Barnes). This obligation was not welcome from all congregation members and ministers, because “more black ministers were against the activity of the SCLC instead of supported it” (Calhoun-Brown). Ministers that were not politically involved often justified this decision by the threats of church burnings, losing members, and direct violence. Some were not involved in marches, where “water hoses were thrown on, dogs was after them,” or they could have been “beat and had to be hospitalized” (Mrs. Clay). Despite the fact that not all black ministers were directly involved in the movement, the church was still the main source of strength and inspiration for the black community. Ministers would often “have special prayer meetings they would have special fellowships for to gain support or just to gain some guidance from God and how to direct them and what matters they needed to take care of” (Mrs. Clay). Therefore, some ministers took more of the spiritual approach through prayer rather than a direct approach through nonviolent action in facing the challenges of the movement.

The city of Macon is emblematic of the South during the Civil Rights Movement. Confederate monuments can still be seen in downtown Macon. Tattnall Square Park, which is current known for the site of pickup soccer games, was once the site of public lynching. Macon’s history is an entity that has never forgotten, but often justified by the citizens that hold strong to southern tradition. Macedonia Baptist Church, established in 1893, was a representation of black churches during the Civil Rights Movement. The current pastor and longtime resident of Macon, Georgia, Pastor Eddie Smith, has “always been an outspoken person on demanding the rights” (Mrs. Whitfield). Pastor Smith did not march during the Civil Rights Movement because he knew that he could not conform to the nonviolence principles such as assuming the fetal position and becoming defenseless. However, he did experience segregation firsthand. He remembers being a young child and asking his mother if he could use the restroom, only to be told that he could not because it was for whites only. He attended a segregated elementary and high school where blacks received old books and supplies. There were several universities in Georgia that he was not allowed to attend. Because of this, he was able to see that “one of the good things about desegregation is that you get an opportunity to see somebody who is not from where you are” (Pastor Smith). During his time as a teacher, he stated that “they sent some of the best teachers to the white schools and some of the slum teachers to the black community” (Pastor Smith). The black schools would get the “old books, backs were off that had been in the white schools” (Pastor Smith). This type of treatment was more than enough to make nonviolent theology difficult to uphold. Pastor Smith admitted, “There was a time I hated white people. The Lord worked on my heart. And much of it came from my grandmother who lived with a white man on a plantation” (Pastor Smith). The black community struggled with its animosity toward whites by striving to obey Christian ethics and seeking a relationship with God. But sadly, he says, there were “a lot of things that you don’t see, a lot of assault, made a lot of us bitter” (Pastor Smith). Racial injustice was common in Macon.

White pastors generally did not speak out against racial injustice. According to Pastor Smith, “some of the pastors were Ku Klux. There were several in this town reported when I was a boy, were members of the Ku Klux. Some of the most respected in this town, white pastors” (Pastor Smith). Because highly influential pastor were KKK members, the city’s racial tensions were negatively affected by the pastors’ influence over Macon’s city government. Though claiming to be religious, Klan members that were pastors wanted to maintain the southern tradition of white supremacy. While referring to the curse of Ham, Pastor Smith said, “They pulled that text out of its context so that there were pastors just not rightly advised, correctly advised, in context it’s a pretext, but they was made to believe that black peoples were cursed and it was perpetuated by the white church” (Pastor Smith).

Black pastors did not want violence to strike them personally or their church members. Violence during the Civil Rights Movement was promoted when Macon’s mayor, Ronnie Thompson, issued a shoot to kill edict in order to maintain racial segregation. Pastor Smith remembers that it was this segregation that stopped black children from intermingling with white children and using the same resources. He said, “We couldn’t even go on the field to play softball. Couldn’t go in the swimming pool. They would let us put our hands on the fence and look at it. So we played in the street. We longed to want to play softball with those boys” (Pastor Smith).

Reverend Smith explained how much growing up during civil rights movement impacted his life. Even though he was just a child, the trials that he as a Negro had to endure because the color of his skin led him to find strength spiritually. He went on to say that much of the pain that he had to deal with as child made him an angry young man. The fact that he was an angry young man made him unable to march and protest. He recalled that during the movement, Dr. Martin Luther King taught that if you were attacked then you should not retaliate, you should fall to the ground and ball up in the fetal position. He told us that from a previous experience with his sister protesting and picketing in downtown Macon and a white man spitting in her face that he could never be in that kind of situation and not fight back. He also talked about how as a child he grew up and played with his friends in the same exact neighborhood that Macedonia is now but in the sixties it belong to an all white congregation. As black kids, he and his friends could not even walk on that same side of the road that Mabel White was on. Even though he his self wasn’t an active member of the civil rights movement, he spoke about some of the people in the church and neighborhood that did make major contributions in to the movement. Pastor Smith spoke very highly about Mr. William B. Randall. Mr. Randall not only made a significant contributions to movements, he was the leading activist in the community and all the people in the respected him. To pastor Smith Randall was a leader by example. As a child Smith recalls the monumental moments of when Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to Randall at New Zion and on another occasion at First Baptist Church. By watching people such as Randall impact the community Smith eventually began to control his anger and find his strength thought his faith in god.

One of the problems that persist in the in the modern day black church is how hard it is for the younger church members to appreciate the sacrifices that the older members and the older people in the community went through to the get us where we are as a society. In Pastor Smith’s opinion, it’s very hard for young people to understand a struggle that they themselves have never been through. According to Smith the younger society takes all the blood, sweat and tears for granted because they have no idea of what it was like to get attacked and to have people that hate you just because of the color of your skin. During the interview with Pastor Smith, he asked us as a group how we felt about the sacrifices that were made and if we appreciated them. As we went around the room answering the question that he asked us, it was apparent by the look in his face that he was right. “I answered the question by explaining how I appreciated all the sacrifices because I know that my grandparent had been through a lot, but I have to admit that he probably was right when he said younger people don’t appreciate the sacrifices made by the older generation for us simply because we didn’t have to go through it,” (Larry Howard). Pastor Smith’s went on into detail explaining why younger member didn’t understand by giving example of everyday privileges that younger society takes for granted. He talked about how blacks have a higher high school dropout rate now because people in the “new day” take even education for granted. During the civil rights movement, blacks were fighting just to drink out of the same water fountain as the whites and to get an equal education as whites. According to Smith those opportunities are opportunities that the younger generations never had to do without.

However, Mrs. Brown suggests that the younger generations should forget their skin color. Although knowing the history and sacrifices of previous generations is helpful, she realized that both blacks and whites are guilty of racism and violence. She has felt the discrimination from both sides and has come to realize that the only way to get past it is to simply forget it and move on. “I know some people married to white men and I know some white women, some black men married to white men. I sure do. So what’s the difference though? If you like somebody, love somebody you don’t care what color they are” (Mrs. Brown). She believes that if we can finally achieve this level of tolerance, then race will no longer be a problem. Although it would change the social norms of today, it may be the only way to achieve racial harmony.

Pastor Smith says we have a lot of changes yet to make. His view is that there is still a lot of racial tension in society, but it just hidden. Although many people would say that there are still issues that we need to overcome as society, many people will also say that there are a lot of things that have changed. Pastor Smith’s perspective represents how the black church views the legacy of the civil rights movement. They created a cohesive community, resulting in the church becoming a safe haven for blacks both physically and psychologically. Members of the churches who were involved in civil rights work needed the church. And it is clear that although the structure of the church was very important, it was the individual people in the churches that became the heart and soul of the movement.

Works Cited