The remains of an abandoned AME Church is a testament that black people had once come that way to live before in reasonable quantities.
We saw one such with an 1888 cornerstone in Nicodemus, Kansas, in 1989, on route to California on family vacation. I read of another one tonight, in Cabin Creek, Indiana, that serviced that area's contingent of landowning blacks in Randolph County during slavery days and thereafter .
I pastored one such church, Grant Memorial AME Church that once serviced black employees of a nearby packing house in St. Joseph, Missouri. It reached its heyday in the 1920s, before the plant moved to Omaha, Nebraska, destroying that church's economic base. As a consequence, Grant later merged into Ebenezer AME in St. Joseph, which is still going.
Also still going is Brooks Chapel AME Church founded in 1871, in Butler, Bates County, Missouri. This still -active church, I pastored from 1995-2004. It is the only black church between Jackson County and Jasper County, (Joplin) in western Missouri some 200 miles.
This AME church founded in 1816, is our "canary in the coal mine" for our people. What about you? Are there any AME Churches nearby?
The remains of an abandoned AME Church is a testament that black people had once come that way to live before in reasonable quantities.
We saw one such with an 1888 cornerstone in Nicodemus, Kansas, in 1989, on route to California on family vacation. I read of another one tonight, in Cabin Creek, Indiana, that serviced that area's contingent of landowning blacks in Randolph County during slavery days and thereafter .
I pastored one such church, Grant Memorial AME Church that once serviced black employees of a nearby packing house in St. Joseph, Missouri. It reached its heyday in the 1920s, before the plant moved to Omaha, Nebraska, destroying that church's economic base. As a consequence, Grant later merged into Ebenezer AME in St. Joseph, which is still going.
Also still going is Brooks Chapel AME Church founded in 1871, in Butler, Bates County, Missouri. This still -active church, I pastored from 1995-2004. It is the only black church between Jackson County and Jasper County, (Joplin) in western Missouri some 200 miles.
This AME church founded in 1816, is our "canary in the coal mine" for our people. What about you? Are there any AME Churches nearby?
