![]() This unfolding of the body’s freedom, in time with a holy song, sends the congregation to its feet, clapping and singing along. When she arrives at the front, in the center of the pews, she begins to move with the music and take the flag along with her, its gold streaking through the sunlight clawing its way in through the stained glass. If you were to fall too deep into the song or the movements of the choir, you might find yourself unlucky enough to miss the young black woman strolling slowly down the center of the aisle with a gold flag swinging at her back. The pews fill with late arrivals who fall directly into the tune’s embrace before even putting their items down. Bowmaster helps the older members of the choir onstage before they break into song. “Sometimes it’s easier to just smile and say ‘O.K.’” When I ask him if he’s running a race, he shrugs and tells me he isn’t before a small grin emerges from the corner of his face. Also, the lot is for sale.Ī woman in a coat and winter hat bounds happily up the church steps, yelling a greeting and “good luck on the race!” to Deacon Gathers over her shoulder. But it’s a bit of a walk from the lot to the church steps, and for the aging members of the congregation, making that walk can be difficult, especially when there's weather. Members can park there on Sundays and Wednesdays. The church doesn’t have its own lot, but it has an agreement with the train station for now. A large portion of this, Deacon Gathers says, comes down to a single issue: parking. The congregation is mighty and the church is doing fine, but there are concerns about attendance. “Just to worship and prepare ourselves to look the devil in the eye.” “We had 300 to 400 people packed in here at 6 in the morning on a Saturday,” he says. Deacon Gathers held a sunrise worship service on the morning of the protest two years ago. The alley’s brick walls are decorated with chalk spelling out broad and optimistic messages about hope and love. Not far from where we stand, talking and wiping off our sweat on the church steps, there is the newly named Heather Heyer Way. Outside his work at the church, Deacon Gathers is a Black Lives Matter activist. Still, people are quick to open their arms wide for hugs, letting their hands linger afterward to say God bless you. Originally it was put up with mud walls, Deacon Gathers says.Ĭomfort with the unfamiliar isn’t a luxury in black churches anymore, not after 2015, not after 2017, not even if the unfamiliar faces are also black ones. Worshipers have gathered in this building on West Main Street since 1831. This is an old black church its congregation first organized in 1864. But it must also be said that the members of the congregation oscillate between unencumbered warmth and a type of skepticism or concern. Deacon Donald Gathers wants to talk outside, even with the sun here climbing to its most ferocious peak.
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