Diary of a Young Pastor
Diary of a Young Pastor
By Don Wilkey, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Onalaska, TX
On a recent trip to Mississippi State, as I stopped to get some gas at a convenience store, I recalled a recent documentary of a reopened civil rights case, A white man from this area was accused of killing a black leader. I thought back over the years to my beginning ministry in this state, and I decided to write a few notes of my own experiences here.
As a young man, I left Oklahoma State to move to Fort Worth, Texas, to live for the first time in my life in another state. The year was 1972. I was to begin my studies at Southwestern Seminary to prepare for the ministry. In my first night away from home and after unpacking my worldly goods in the men’s dorm, I ventured out on the lawn and met a young man who, like myself, had just come to town to prepare for the ministry.
He was from Ole Miss, (Mississippi University) and we had much in common. We talked about what we expected to do when we finished here, local churches, and our calling into this field of service. After a cordial exchange, I could not resist asking the question about the race issue in Mississippi that I had heard a great deal about.
Upon my request for information about his native state, I could tell I had asked the wrong question. He turned about five shades of red and proceeded to tell me it was none of my outsiders business about the way they treated their black people in his home region. He assured me that everything was just fine there in the 1960s until outside agitators came to his state and ruined the relationship they had with peaceful black people.
Later that night as I said my prayers before I went to sleep for the first night in my new residence, I prayed something like this: “Lord if I ever gradudte from this place I want to go where you send me, but please, please don’t let it be Mississippi.”
Well, guess what happened after I finished school four years later? My new wife’s foster family turned my name in to a church in Jefferson County Mississippi. The town that had just elected the first black mayor in the South (the mayor was the brother of slain civil rights worker Medgar Evers). The new mayor had openly admitted that he was a pimp in Chicago before coming back to his roots to run for office. He chose this area because the county was about 80% black. It had always had a large number of black residents, due to the large number of slaves on the area plantations before the Civil War. Thus Charles Evers won an election when black voters turned out to elect him, as well as taking control of the school, the county, the Little League, etc. The Baptist church was totally white and saw their congregation as the last place they controlled. And they were serious about keeping it that way.
The pulpit committee chairman taped his interview with me, in which I was asked if I would force them to integrate. I was eager for a place to serve and not naïve enough to ruffle any feathers. I assured my wife that they were probably not interested in me anyway after the interview.
After the meeting with the committee it was suggested by a denominational worker in the area that I go to Jackson to meet with a Baptist state official, whose job it was to help churches and potential pastors find each other. I sat down in his office to visit with him and find out about possible places of service in the state. He looked across the desk and asked me “Young man, what kind of church are you looking for?” I had never thought about that much since in that day many seminary graduates were fortunate to find a full-time church. I thought about the question for a few minutes—I couldn’t think of an answer, so I just responded, “I guess, an open church.” Questioned again as to what “open” meant, I replied, “One that anyone could attend.
The man looked at me and replied, “Let me tell you something, don’t come here to Mississippi and tell us how to treat our black people, after the way you treated the Indians in Oklahoma.” I listened, but could not help chuckling to myself.
Guess what! The church actually called me, but I had questions as to whether or not ethically I ought to go. I visited with Dr. James Harris, a wise and gifted Baptist pastor in Ft. Worth, who encouraged me to accept the call. He said, “If you don’t bebome their pastor, they might call the head of the Ku Klux Klan!” He was joking, I think.
My first day on the church field a deacon invited me to go to his place to get some fire wood. I willingly went into a wooded area where there was an older oak tree which would be perfect, since some huge limbs had fallen to the ground. I was informed that it was an old tree rumored to be the site where a “nigger was hanged there.”
I quickly learned that in my church the liberals were the ones who believed black people had a soul. The conservatives did not believe blacks were human because they did not have a soul, as whites did.
A former pastor had gotten in hot water with the congregation for allowing blacks to come to the parsonage to play basketball with him. Many of the members allowed blacks in their homes, but only as servants. I was astonished when I discovered how little the black servants were paid for cleaning, cooking meals, and staying late at night to clean and wash dishes. One could easily make three=or four times as much money on welfare as you could working for whites. I now understood what locals meant when they said the government ruined the county when it handed out welfare checks.
The church was built before the Civil War and at one time held a slave gallery in the back. That is, blacks were allowed to attend church but had to sit in the gallery. The church had “recovered” from such liberal tendencies and unofficially decided that blacks were no longer allowed. The church even considered adding a porch to the front to hinder potential black visitors from entering, and also allow the congregation to vacate.
The first pastoral visit I made was to a soybean farm in the area. As I arrived, the farm hands were returning from the fields. I was shocked to see that the white workers went into the house to sit at the table for the meal prepared by the owner’s wife. The black workers took their plates and sat under a tree. I witnessed what was known as back door diplomacy—the custom that blacks were welcome only at the back door—it was taboo for a negro to come in the front door.
The Methodist church was next door to ours and we enjoyed a healthy relationship, sharing services and Vacation Bible School. I recall during one joint VBS, a young black child stood at a distance and looked with envy on the fun the students were having, knowing he would not be allowed to join them. The Methodist church was not very fond of their pastor, but they continued telling the district Bishop they wanted to keep him. The reason was that they were afraid if they lost their pastor, the area Bishop might send them a black minister.
One Methodist minister told me his son was pastor of a church outside of town. Being a naïve young man, the youthful preacher suggested the church ought to be open to receiving blacks into the congregation. He received several death threats after his comment, and he left the ministry. The father knew who these people were that threatened his son and I wondered how I might respond to someone who called up my child telling them they would kill him.
Another dangerous episode happened in the next county. A fellow-minister told about an episode during a voter registration drive in the sixties. The Klan had burned to the ground a black Baptist church in the region. This particular Southern Baptist church decided to take an offering to help the black church rebuild its church building. Because of this act, the pastor of the assisting church and his family had many sleepless nights in the parsonage, as the Klan would drive by shooting deer rifles around his home.
The area Director of Missions relayed an interesting story to me that I found hard to believe. He told me that the mayor of the large city in our region had both a white and a black family. Much like the Strom Thurmond story of a secret black child, the politician practiced this bigamy openly and most people accepted it.
I discovered many families had house servants who were supposedly genetically linked to those who employed them. It was accepted practice that white men might practice cohabitation with black women, but the opposite was a mortal crime. The unpardonable sin was for a white woman to be with a black man, socially or sexually.
One Sunday our church had a black visitor. He was a medical doctor working at the local clinic and I believe he made an honest mistake about attending. He was the only one who walked by me saying he enjoyed the service. I would like to have had a photo of the deacon who sat next to the door and greeted late visitors by handing them a bulletin. To have seen his expression when he leaned over to hand the church order of service would have been a real photo-op. One of the women got up and walked out of the building. It was rumored that several were disappointed in me that I did not close down the worship service.
The last deacon’s meeting I attended was dominated by rumors that one of the members had invited blacks to attend our next revival. I recall once when a potential deacon was considered, he was quickly dismissed because “he did not think like people in the area did.” Since he worked at the local black university, he was probably not a racist like they were.
A farmer minister told me that one week the White Citizen’s Council, a racist white collar version of the Klan, came to town. They were hosting a rally at the public high school. The pastor got into hot water with some when he did not call off Wednesday night prayer meeting to attend the rally.
I experienced the wrath of one of the women in the church concerning a private school. I did not realize her children went to a White Citizen’s Council school in Natchez. About one-half our students attended this school and the other one-half went to a Christian academy. The WCC school was taken over by a Baptist church in Jackson. This was to protect them since it was rumored that private academies could by court ruling be forced to allow black students. The Jackson church took possession of the school because church and state separation would protect the school from integration. I asked the woman if things would change at the school now that it was owned by a church. She was angered that I did not know it was all ready a devoted Christian institution.
I survived about three years at the church and had a good relationship with most of the folks. (Tells you how often I held a Race Relations Sunday.) I had hoped to change some of their racist views, but probably I did not.
I next served a large church in the south central part of the state. The county seat church had a large budget and most of the prominent white citizens attended this fellowship. A former pastor of my first church relayed an interesting story to me about this church and race. One of the prominent wealthy deacons in the church stormed into the former pastor’s office demanding something be done. He carried a copy of the youth Sunday School literature. The cover had a picture of several students, one of them happened to be black. In response, the pastor sent off a scathing letter to the publishing board about such horrific suggestions and won approval from several in the church.
Also at this church I discovered an old outside rest room. It was the first time I had seen one of these relics of the past. Painted over the letters “Colored Restroom” was a new sign that simply said, “Restroom.” Which was about as much radical revolution as the region could take.
About this time the star black athlete Walter Payton was a celebrity in the nation. Walter set the NFL rushing record and would have been welcomed in the White House. However, he would not have been welcome to attend my church in his home town, where his own aunt worked in the church kitchen.
One of the men in the church had played basketball for the Mississippi State Bulldogs and was an all-star in the Southeast Conference. The school had been invited to play in the National Invitation Tournament, but school officials refused the invitation because it would have meant playing against black athletes. Ironically, MSU now has a black head football coach.
I also remember a Baptist Men’s rally. It was jam-packed with men, standing-room only in a large church gym. Usually this meant a very special program. It was. A speaker from Texas was invited to share his “spiritual gift.” The gift: a white man who could talk like black people. He spent almost an hour telling demeaning jokes about blacks like the old “Calhoun don’t want the ball” stories. He said he was not laughing at them, but with them. Yeah, sure! After the meeting I shared with the pastor I worked under that I was thinking of sending a letter to the speaker questioning what he was doing. The pastor quickly told me he did not approve of my using the church letterhead to write such a letter.
While serving in the state, I heard a man who almost became a Christian martyr. His name was H. V. Davis and he told the story of almost being killed by the Klan. He worked with the state Baptist organization in white/black relations. One night he was leading a stewardship rally at a black church. While returning home, he was run off the road by the Klan. They dragged him from his car, beat him, and urinated on him. He knew they were about to kill him; he pleaded with them to let him live and he would not take any legal action. He lived to serve another day. When I hear American Christians say they are persecuted because Wal-Mart did not wish them a “Merry Christmas,&#=221; I often think of this minister.
There was a man at the large church I served who would come to the church every morning to read John 3:16 and to pray. When I arrived at church each morning, he was just leaving after his devotional time. At that time this man was deeply troubled that a college choir was coming to the church, that had black members. Though John 3:16 says that “God so loved the world . . ,” it never dawned on this man that God loved blacks!
We all have blind spots. In the area where I first served, it was race. Most now would probably like to forget those events ever happened. But they did. God still loves the world, every person in it. What is your blind spot!
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