Church members still fighting to keep Historic Church
18th February 2019 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
African Americans this year are reviewing their history in the U.S. and the progress made since the first captured Africans were dumped on American shores 400 years ago. The first 20 or so Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, brought by Dutch traders who had seized them from a captured Spanish slave ship.
“The French introduced African chattel slaves to the (Louisiana) territory in 1710, after capturing a number as plunder during the War of the Spanish Succession. Trying to develop the new territory, the French transported more than 2,000 Africans to New Orleans between 1717–1721, on at least eight ships,” according to Wikipedia.
“During Black History Month, how ironic…a huge piece of Black History sold out of the hands of Black people, by Black People,” says Karen Lodrig, lifelong Central member and Keep Our Legacy Alive (KOLA) participant.
Attorney Wilson Boveland, President and Vice President Norman Robinson, a former television anchor, are among the African Americans on the CMS Executive Governing Council. The Council is comprised of 11 members, six of whom are Black.
Keep Our Legacy Alive (KOLA), a coalition of former members of the historic Central Congregational United Church in Christ (Central), has fought unsuccessfully in court for the past three years, to keep the African-American founded Central Congregational and its properties from being sold by Central St. Matthew United Church in Chris (CSM).
“We have never had a trial to prove who owns the title. Our congregation never voted to transfer, sell, or merge with Central St. Matthew. There was no trial, no hearing where we were called on to prove our claims.,” says KOLA Attorney Ernest Jones, a civil rights attorney and former Central member.
The late Judge Claire Jupiter had ruled that KOLA was too late to file a claim and the Fourth Circuit agreed. KOLA is now appealing to the Louisiana State Supreme Court to settle the ownership question.
“We have applied to the LA Supreme Court for relief but we think our chances are small. I’m sorry another piece of African-American history is gone and the law seems to sanction that. Our people have suffered from overt hostility to massive indifference, as to our own contributions to this city and this country,” Jones concluded.
Central St. Matthew is a hybrid entity, the result of a merger between Central Congregation United Church in Christ (Central) founded by African Americans in 1872. And currently located at 2401 Bienville Street in New Orleans and St. Matthew United Church in Christ (St. Matthew) located at 1333 South Carrollton Avenue, which was initially the German Evangelical Church of Carrollton founded in 1849 by German immigrants.
After Katrina, in 2006 St. Matthew offered Central members a separate chapel to worship in on their campus. Central’s properties had sustained heavy wind damage. The two churches made a covenant to worship together and in a second covenant in 2009, the churches decided to come together as a new entity; under one joint budget. The groups reached a final decision to merge as one 501C3 in the fall of 2014, according to Attorney Boveland.
In a recent email requesting an interview, Boveland refused to comment on the pending sale or provide information on the purchasers, the intended use for the properties; especially the fate of the Hume Child Care Development Center, the first daycare facility in New Orleans that catered to African-American children. Boveland said he thought an earlier article was biased and declined to comment for that reason.
In the spirit of full disclosure, The Louisiana Weekly’s founder, C.C. Dejoie, Sr. was a member of Central Congregational United Church in Christ and succeeding generations also attended.
However, the focal issue for KOLA members is that the majority of Central congregants did not agree to sell the historic church’s properties. The sale of Central Congregational UCC, the Hume Development Center, and the Landis-Davis House is slated to occur at the end of February 2019.
In a 2018 interview Boveland said CSM was running a $90,000 deficit because of a lack of members and a growing list of expenses. “When we run out of money, that’s the end of St. Matthew and Central Congregational. In Decem-ber 2014, the congregation got together and decided to sell the property. We had three options, he continued, “Sell both churches, sell Carrollton, or sell Bienville.” A committee worked on recommendations for nine months before deciding to sell Central’s properties.
KOLA members also blame Pastor Philip Brockett for spearheading the takeover of Central and the sale of its properties. Brockett, who is white, is a native Ohioan. He arrived in New Orleans in 2014 from Central Congregational Church in Meridien, Connecticut. He had converted from evangelicalism to the United Church in Christ in 2013. Olga, his wife, is a Russian native. She is an organist, pianist, and choral conductor. They said Brockett formed the committee that ultimately decided to sell Central.
“The majority of Central members were opposed to selling,” says Cheryl Cramer. Her parents also attended. Central. After the merger, the blacks who had served on Central’s Board, thought it was in the best interest of Central to get the resources to save the properties. The Board of the merged church wanted to sell the property to balance the books.”
KOLA members had hoped that the National United Church in Christ organization would send money to the merged church to renovate Central. The national UCC did indeed send $100,000 to fix up Central.
The National UCC allocated $100,00 to CMS in 2014 to specifically fix the Bienville properties but, according to Boveland, “Central “couldn’t be brought back as a church. The funds were used to make repairs. We got the church’s roof repaired, replaced stained glass windows, fixed floors and boarded it up. Some funds went to repair the Hume Development Center. $100,000 was nowhere near what it would take to fix the properties,” he said. An architectural firm brought in by CSM said it would cost $1.5 million to restore the properties.”
However, KOLA members said they never were told how the grant was used.
In 2018, husband-and-wife architects Ian Dreyer and Terri Hogan Dreyer wanted to buy Central and the Hume Child Development Center at 319 N. Tonti St. Dreyer told a Times-Picayune reporter that her plans would preserve the historic integrity of the church, designed by Ferdinand Lucien Rousseve, the first licensed black architect in the state of Louisiana.
Plans by KOLA to purchase, renovate, and develop the properties into a community center, daycare, and senior housing failed when CMS rejected the group’s bid. According to KOLA, CMS wanted the group’s developer to buy the properties for $880,000 in cash and also put up the development funds.
“They (KOLA) never came up with a plan that was financially solvent. They came in offering thousands less than we were looking for,” Boveland said. “We had decided among ourselves to go with KOLA but we needed to get the information in 45 days. KOLA didn’t submit any info for closing. They were never able to prove funds were available to make their plans a reality. We would have gone with KOLA, even though it was much less than the other bidder agreed to pay.”
Lodrig this month went with KOLA members to remove items from the properties; after a letter from Boveland stating that the purchasers wanted Central’s moveable property taken off the site.
“It’s a big disappointment (the pending sale), Lodrig said, her voice heavy with sadness. Our congregation was all black. It would have been different if no one opposed the sale. But you (blacks who joined the merger) thought it was ok to sell our legacy. You sold our legacy so they could fix up St. Matthew Church and use the profits to benefit yourselves… that’s stealing.”
Lodrig says it is ironic that Boveland, a Thibodaux native, who was not on the Central Board, organized a Black History month concert at CCUCC, for several years before the merger. She expressed disappointment that Brockett, and black members from Central didn’t try to find another way to preserve the church. “They were not justice minded,” she surmised.
KOLA is having a marker made that they will dedicate in honor of Central.
Central Congregational Church was a virtual underground railroad for social and political activism before, during, and after Reconstruction. Some of its founding congregants were Civil War leaders, including Captain James H. Ingraham, Colonel James Lewis, brothers Captain Robert H. Isabelle and Thomas Isabelle, and Cesar and Felix Antoine among others. Lewis, Cesar and Felix Antoine and the Isabelle brothers were among the first African Americans to serve in the Louisiana Legislature. They fought for the right to vote and for integration of public schools.
A waystation for post-Reconstruction civil rights leaders, in 1915, the Central Congrega-tional hosted a citywide banquet for Booker T. Washington. In the 1960s, it housed Freedom Riders, and its members formed the vanguard of political and educational advancement in the Black community.
Several members of Central Congregational Church have been “honored for their dedicated service to the community and to Negro education,” According to the church’s Board minutes. “The Orleans Parish School Board named schools for Mrs. Florence J. Chester, Miss Mary D. Coghill, the Reverend Dunn and Dr. Lord Beaconsfield Landry, Lawrence D. Crocker, Alfred Lawless, James Lewis and Fannie C. Williams. Dillard University named a women’s dormitory for Miss Fannie C. Williams and the new Health and Physical Science Hall for its former president, Dr. Albert W. Dent and Samuel DuBois Cook.”
Many prominent New Orleans natives attended the historic church, including Rev. Andrew Young, who worked with Rev. Dr., Martin Luther King Jr, before becoming Mayor of Atlanta and a U.N. Ambassador. Young was ordained at Central Congregational United Church in Christ. Award-winning trumpeter Terrance Blanchard was also a Central member, among other luminaries who belonged to the historic church.
This article originally published in the February 18, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
