.
In the early 1970s, my father was pastor of Calvary Baptist Church on Regal Street in Murphy, while the Rev. Lewis Grant was pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Texana.
Grant came to my dad, Raymond Carroll, with a proposal. The congregation of each church would visit the other church once a month, alternating each month. My dad agreed, and a month later I visited my first predominately African-American church.
It was 10 a.m. and time for services to start. I was instructed by my mother to get into the church building.
The only problem was we were the only people in the church. I thought to myself, “Well, this is different.”
About that time, two elderly gentlemen walked into the door of the church and began to hum. Everybody else followed them in, and they began a song.
By the time everybody had entered, that place was rocking. I thought to myself, “Hey, this is all right.”
I was made to attend every church meeting from the time I was born – Sunday morning and night, Wednesday night, revivals, etc. By the time I was in my mid-teens, I had heard about every passage of Scripture preached 100 different ways, so I didn’t pay attention as much as I should have.
However, Grant got my attention, and I still remember his text for that Sunday. He preached on the “beast” in the church; he started at “A” and went to “Z” with an animal for every letter, then used the animal to describe the way different people were doing wrong.
I met Grant again when he came back to Murphy to do the funeral of my good friend Mo Kincaid. I still enjoyed hearing him speak, so I instructed my wife that if he was still alive when my time came, I wanted him to speak at my funeral.
If you have a Black History Month memory you would like to share, please email it to dbrown@cherokeescout.com.