In Black America; The Calling: Black Pastors in Central Texas

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. I went to church and it was a revival. I think I was 9 and I didn't join that night and they told me to find somebody that I wanted to pray for me. I was in a new community and I was embarrassed. I didn't know nobody and the church for me from then on until I was about 16 was not a part of my life. So it was it was a little rough from there until I was about 16. The Reverend N. W. Bacon Jr. Retired Pastor, Greater Mount Zion Missionary Baptist

Church, Austin, Texas. The African American Church has long been recognized as the most independent, stable, and dominant institutions in Black America. Some groups of African American churches such as the African Methodist and Pistilist churches belong to predominantly Black denominations. Many African American churches are part of predominantly white denominations. After slavery, African American established their own churches in order to escape white control and to worship in their own culturally distinct manner. Within the church they build strong community organizations that help position of leadership, denied in mainstream America. The next half hour we take a look at the man who shaped the African American religious community as we know it today in Central Texas. I'm Johnny O'Hanston Jr. and welcome to another edition of in Black America. On this week's program, the calling, the history of Black churches in Central Texas as towed by pastorial heroes in Black America. The next half hour we take a look at the man who shaped the African Methodist and Pistilist

and Pistilist and Pistilist. Yes, they did. Man! Oh! Man! He calls you! Man in a way! That my ministry was not one in which I woke up one morning with a bright, ruling sun, blazing in my eyes and stood there for a moment and I was called.

My ministry evolved from the time that I was a youth where I participated in many youthful, spiritual events all along the way. So it was a gradual thing that I evolved into the ministry but certainly my father was very influential in pointing that direction and having me put in that environment. The Reverend Freddie B. Dixon Senior, former pastor of Wesley United Methodist Church, Austin, Texas. From the 1820s through the Civil War years, African Americans who came to Texas generally did so as slaves. Here in America, they develop a faith born from the union of African tradition and Christian evangelism, but as they brought with them the concept, rituals and customs of Africa in the diaspora. In the 1860s, the Methodist Church had the largest number of African American congregants. The Baptist Church had at least one thousand eighty-seven members.

After the emancipation, proclamation in 1865, most African American Texans became Baptist. And starting these new churches, they usually found white and black northern missionaries ready to assist them. In central Texas, there has been a long and rich history of African American ministers who have continued the tradition of these churches. On today's program, we look at the men who became ministers and why. The Reverend W. B. Raup Senior is pastor of Weberville Ebenezer Baptist Church in Weberville, Texas. It's been pastor there for 32 and a half years. Founded in 1868 for the area's recently freed slaves. The Church is organized as a mission of the St. John Regular Missionary Baptist Association. The Reverend Wesley Barrels served as its first pastor. Reverend Raup is a stately-looking man who doesn't look a day over forty. His path to the ministry is somewhat different than others. It came to him in a bar. I had a struggle in the ministry, so help me go right in there.

In 1858, it's when the deceased Reverend J. J. Dixon and I was working together at a gravel company. And J. J. Dixon, pastor, lay J. Dixon, saw me crying a little bit. He leaves his job then more and he left his job and came to me and says, How you doing, brother Rattleson? I'm doing fine. He says to me, I know what's going on. If you would just come on out to Pleasant Grove, I would do something to do. I never told him what was on my mind. I was in 1950 in July. What was on your mind?

Well, preaching. I was called a preacher in 1958, but you know what? I kind of wanted to and I didn't want to, because there was so much trouble with people who was giving pressure on people. So I went from 1958 to October 1969. And I had to work there at Saturday morning. It was on Saturday morning. I had to make a delivery to Curve your Texas and then two delivers in San Antonio and then come back to Austin. So I called my cousin, Lake Ramsey, and I told him the story. I tell you what you do. Sonny, he called me Sonny. You ought to go down to your home church in Manor, first Baptist church in Manor,

where I grew up in and tell them that you call the priest. So that was fine, but I decided not to go where you told me to go. But you know what? I was living on a lot of Avenue, 5,000, 5,000, a lot of Avenue. And I left home that Saturday morning up to the liquor store on 12th Annabelle, but I'm going to have a pint of Seacombeo and drove Domainer to the blue front bar. Got in there, my friends had two tables pulled together, can tug a tab and why I took every day. Come on in and get your drink. Just make it in about 8 o'clock.

About 10 o'clock, and I have been drunk. About 10 o'clock, I got off from the table. I was sitting on this end and we had these double tables, and they were always around the table. They said, what are you going? I see y'all. I left there. And that's Sunday morning. I got up with the first Baptist Church, and then Sunday School, the late WS Rose, was just about six months probably, on the first Baptist Church in Mayna. And in Sunday School, 40 clothes of that, I stood up with tears running down my face, told them I was called preachers. And I passed when a mother-in-law loves sisters. And so I stayed there at first Baptist, on the Rev. Rose, in a December. The same year, December 1969, our daughter was going to church with sister goodness' children.

We lived right across the street with one another. And so I went around and I made the Corinth Baptist Church and revving the Yellow Wilson. Receive me. That's Sunday morning. Come on in on me about myself, and I'll help you. I went in there crying and everything, and believe me. I didn't even know what John 316 was in the Bible. I had been in church all my life, but I stayed there on the Rev. Wilson from 1969, and I started to go out to the seminary, in San Antonio. Went from 71 to 75. Me and T.L. Sneed graduated the same year. We just got our bachelor degree. And so, and so, and I learned from that, that God is real. He is real. The Rev. W.B. Route Senior,

pastor, Weberville Ebony's at Baptist Church, Weberville Texas. It's so true, because, hopefully millions will song me, Jesus, on my journey, as I walked that way. He will got my voluntary footsteps, as I traveled day-by-day. for I know he knows the way, cause I cannot, cannot make the journey on board by myself. After the Civil War, the vast majority of African-American churches in Texas were either Methodist or Baptist. In many ways, these churches aided this former slave social progress.

The Reverend N. W. Bacon Jr. was passed to the Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church in Austin, Texas for 33 years. Founded on December 8, 1930, the church has a long strong legacy in the African-American community in Austin, Texas. Reverend Bacon accepted the leadership of this historic church on August 15, 1966. Reverend Bacon's call to the ministry came after a life and death situation. Well, I didn't know anything about the church. I'm one of those fellows who has come turned out in later years to be a Christian. I got embarrassed in the new community. I went to church and it was a revival. I think I was nine and I didn't join that night and they told me to find somebody that I wanted to pray for me. I was in a new community and I was embarrassed.

I didn't know nobody and the church for me from then on until I was about 16 was not a part of my life. So it was a little rough from there until I was about 16. And the end of all in the beginning till right where I am now, I was in that little place, London, Texas, out in the country. It was a man had me point gasoline. His name was Ernest Young. I never will forget it because it was a lesson. He had me point gas in his carburetor while he tried to start his car. I don't know what happened but the car backfired, the car called a fire, so did I. I had those ducking on what you hook and I was a fire burning and I heard a voice that day.

Said don't run, don't run, don't run and it said that's some water. And that was the beginning to where I am now. I heard that voice that day and I have not turned my back on him no more. The Reverend N. W. Bacon, Jr., retired pastor, great amount Zion Baptist Church, Austin, Texas. The Reverend N. W. Bacon, Jr., retired pastor, great amount Zion Baptist Church, Austin, Texas.

The Reverend N. W. Bacon, Jr., retired pastor, great amount Zion Baptist Church, Austin, Texas. The Reverend N. W. Bacon, Jr., retired pastor, great amount Zion Baptist Church, Austin, Texas. The 1986 pastor, A. W. Anthony Mays, has been pastor of Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Austin, Texas. From his humble beginnings in 1899, the church has been providing praise in which of services to the African American community.

The church Elyfris, when constructed back then, was under the name Maine East Austin Baptist Church. The Reverend Gilbert Fuller was his first pastor. Under Pastor Mays' leadership, the church has moved twice. In 1969, he accepted his calling into the ministry. As a young boy, he saw himself as a pastor. I was very young. I would say, not much older than 11 or 12, the idea started coming into my head that I was called to preach. I began having visions. Vision would be for me as a youngster to be in church, and suddenly I was no longer sitting in the pew if that were the time that it came. Or I was no longer sitting in the choir stand if that's the time that it came.

The preacher was actually preaching. I became that person and I'm outside of myself looking at myself preaching. Because we had no family preachers when I was that age. The most we had were my grandfather was a deacon. My uncle was a deacon, so we had deacons. But nobody was a preacher, so I had no exposure really to the close relationship to a preacher away from church or a preacher coming by for Sunday meal. I didn't think it was a very fun life, so I ran from it, meaning that I denied it. I tried to bargain with God that I'd do anything except be a preacher. But eventually, in my second year at the university, it had gotten to the point where I could not focus, and I literally described it as, I was spinning my wheels, I was getting stuck in the mud, and I couldn't see myself getting out except I said yes. So it wasn't that I thought that would be an interesting thing for me to do. It was that I was more or less captured, and God wouldn't let me go until I surrendered.

And that surrender came at the age of 19. So I would say, at least six years, I resisted, because I was telling the Lord, I'll accept the call and be a preacher after I've lived a little bit. I had some fun in life, and then I'll accept the life that the preacher is supposed to have. I was feeling my way, feeling my way, I didn't have a pattern, I didn't know what really a preacher's weekday was like. I knew that there were expectations, a preacher didn't do this, a preacher didn't go there, and actually to tell the truth, it really wasn't too very hard for me, because I didn't have a strong interest. I wasn't a party-going young man, even before confessing to the ministry. I did socialize, and I did do things that teenagers would do.

School functions, college functions, and the like. But I wasn't one that had a Saturday night agenda. And so there were some things that were placed on me early on, because I really didn't know what it was legitimate for me to do. I think I've grown in my understanding, and I have a more liberal expectation of what it means to identify with Christ and yet live the human life. So that back then it was there going, but that's not really where you want to go. But it wasn't too great a challenge. It wasn't like I had something that was really going to miss.

I think before I became a preacher, I'd only been in what was called a club, maybe one time, and as a university person to come into what was like a club. As naive as I was, I was drifting in, sitting at a table, and I learned, I guess, in a very blunt fashion, what it meant to sit at a table, that there was a table charge, that you can't just sit there for free. So you got to buy something. That takes me back. That takes me back to remember those days. But church was my life, and so it wasn't a great transition from me. It wasn't like I was out drinking or doing what you would expect people doing those things that I had to come in from. Now you are spokesperson, now you are a communicator of God and His truth.

That was my focus. Pastor A.W. Anthony Mays, Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, Austin Texas. We give it all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, you want us to remember, for a bridge of good days. It's okay, when you carry, not one thing, but you've got to take everything. You've got to take everything, you've got to take everything, you've got to take everything.

You've got to take everything, you've got to take everything. It's okay, when you carry, not one thing, but you've got to take everything. The Reverend W. E. Robertson has passed to a Macedonia Baptist Church in Temple Texas. He grew up in the neighborhood where the church is located.

Robertson was somewhat reluctant when he received a calling, but a heart attack changed all of that. The thing that you use to do, they don't seem so important anymore, and that violence and hatred has gradually been eroded away, it's gradually been done away with it. It doesn't rise to the forefront as rapidly as it used to in the past. I'm saying I got some bad memories, I mean I got some bitter memories about how people, church people, people that claim they know the Lord, treat it my grandfather and my father. And this is what makes it so hard to swallow. It was after years of commitment, years of sacrifice, them going without themselves and being there, knowing the thing that we didn't have, that other kids have, and dad didn't have them because he gave his life to the church. And then see some people come right along behind that and not appreciate that and take

advantage of it. It's hard to reconcile those things together and what you ought to do and what you want to do. I feel, because God is going to kill me if I didn't preach in the primarily. I ran from it for a long time, I ran from the church primarily because I felt the call to preach at a much earlier age and decided if I didn't go to church I wouldn't have to preach, but dad didn't work. I hadn't joined church, I'm telling you I was 33 years old when I was first baptized and I had a heart attack at the age of 33. And I discerned that it was God really getting my undivided attention and it was time to make a decision.

Either you obey me or you might lose your life. And I decided to choose God instead of continuing to do it my way. I guess growing up in a preacher's house, seeing the struggles and the challenges and the burdens and the things that I've got American pastor has to continue with, sort of like left a distasteful, a bad taste in my mouth for the pastoral ministry. But my dad and his dad and my uncles never tried to discourage us from preaching. They just endured it and put up with the things that they had to deal with and moved on and had successful pastorats and we're blessed for it and so many other ways that we're not obviously apparent. And so I just determined that it's really what God wanted me to do and I really wasn't

continuing what I was doing. I was a research technologist during biomedical research for 25 years at one of the medical institutions in town and it wasn't fulfilling. I got, I grew to the point where I hated it and I knew it was time for me to really get serious about the call that God had placed on my life and since then I haven't regret it. Had some struggles, still got some struggles and some challenges but it's a good work. The Reverend W. E. Robinson passed a Macedonia Baptist Church Temple, Texas. I would like to thank Minister Myron Jones, Senior Adult Minister of Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church for his assistance in the production of this program. If you have questions, comments or suggestions ask the future in Black America programs write us. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station

or of the University of Texas at Austin. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Until we have the opportunity again for technical producer Dave Vittalvares, I'm Johnny Johansson Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America CDs, KUT Radio, one university station, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in Black America CDs, KUT Radio, one university station, Austin, Texas, 78712. This has been a production of KUT Radio.