When the large bell of Friendship Baptist Church tolled, it sent Henrietta Phillips Antonin and her brothers and sisters darting down Hunter Street so they wouldn’t be late for Sunday school.
If they were late, it wouldn’t be a secret for long. Someone, undoubtedly, would tell their parents.
Members of the historic black church, founded by freed slaves, were like extended family. The church was their second home.
“I was born in that church,”said Antonin, 80, the retired senior vice president of Atlanta Life Insurance Co., who remembers wearing her shiny black patent leather shoes every Sunday. “All of us were members. My mother. My grandmother. My great-grandmother. It was my life. Anybody in that church could hit my hand and say, ‘stop it,’ or ‘don’t do that.’ Families stayed in the church. They’re still there.”
On Sunday, the restored bell will ring once more, this time in a new sanctuary. It will signal a new beginning for the church’s 400 active members.
The 155-year-old congregation will hold its first worship service at 80 Walnut St. at 10 a.m. followed with a dedication service at 4 p.m. At 9 a.m. members will walk from the old church at 437 Mitchell St. to the new one.
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Friendship Baptist Church breaks ground on new home
The church, which was the birthplace of Spelman College, is perhaps the oldest African-American church in Atlanta. Its roster of prominent members include the Rev. Samuel Woodrow Williams, the late civil rights leader and former pastor of Friendship; Hank and Billye Aaron; Clarence Bacote, noted historian, college professor and political activist; and former Mayor Maynard Jackson, whose father was a former pastor
In May 2014, the church held its last service at its former home to make way for the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Earlier, Friendship’s board of trustees voted to accept a $19.5 million offer from the Atlanta Falcons to sell its land.
“We’ve been a church without walls for three years now,” said the Rev. Richard W. Wills Sr., who became senior pastor in 2015. An architect and educator, Wills came to Friendship from First Baptist Church in Hampton, Va.
“Certainly the excitement is there,” he said. “The enthusiasm is there, but as their senior pastor I’m sensing more a tone of gratitude … for an opportunity to settle into the community once again and resume the work that they have been called to do.”
Not everyone was happy with the deal.
“We wanted to stay in our neighborhood,” said Antonin, who was outspoken against the sale. “So many people have close ties to the church and community. I couldn’t see myself going out Campbellton Road to church. I had deep feelings about moving. I didn’t think $19.5 million was enough for our church to give up our legacy and heritage and prime real estate.”
Often, when churches are looking for new sites to build or start a congregation, the decision is to move beyond the boundaries of the city. There may be issues with land costs or the availability of parking, or members simply want to be in a growing area.
“That’s the temptation,” Wills said. “The reality is that the needs so often remains in the city and so apparently there was an awareness of those needs and a commitment to continuing to service the needs of the city.”
Robert Franklin, a James R. and Bertha R. Laney Professor in Moral Leadership at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, knows Friendship Baptist Church well.
He passed it often when he served as president of nearby Morehouse College.
Friendship is very committed to an “urban ministry.”
Such ministries are “centers for hope and opportunity. One knows there is no admission fee for entering the church.”
Black churches are drivers of economic revitalization. They invest in local banks, he said. They buy property in the area. They hire people from the area and they pay for local goods and services.
“When churches relocate, they may no longer be a community asset,” Franklin said. “I think it can have a negative impact.”
Wills said Friendship is not trying to write a new column but to continue its rich historic legacy. It once housed a Freedom School. Some of its pastors and members were also very active in the civil rights struggles or in educating African Americans.
“We want to leverage that wonderful history,” he said. He said the Friendship members will continue to remain politically and socially involved in the city.
The downside of a church leaving the city center that it can hurt a community.
“We tend to lose our connectiveness with the individuals who most desperately need the church,” Wills said. “Obviously, there are some congregations that have the resources to acquire property in the city whether it’s a campus or satellite and continue to serve the community in that fashion.”
Samuel Bacote, 81, a retired principal in the Atlanta Public School System, joined Friendship in the early 1940s.
“I never found another place I really wanted to go,” said Bacote, who is still a member of the usher and deacon boards. “As an adult, I found my needs were met at Friendship.” He was particularly interested in community service “in order to fulfill my mission in life. I wanted to be able to assist and help people in need and I could do it there.”
He worked on the AIDS benefit and supported the community clothes closet.
“I’ve known many of the pastors,” he said. “When I first joined the church all the pastors were older than me, then the new pastors came they were the same age. Now they’re much younger.”
Already the church has a busy few months ahead.
In September it will host a voter registration drive, health screenings and a worship service for students at Morehouse College, Spelman College, Morris Brown College and Clark Atlanta University.
It will also host a free tech fair that will address the digital divide by improving digital literacy. The fair will seek to help residents learn how to use technology to apply for jobs and benefits and pay bills. The community outreach initiative is in partnership with the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) and Google Fiber.
Another member, Charles Hawk, 85, also a retired principal with APS, is the former chairman of the deacon board. He said staying in its location next to a stadium would have been “unbearable. This was an excellent opportunity for us to stay in the community and get a brand new facility and worship center.”
He said members live as far north as Dalton and as far south as LaGrange.
“Part of the church’s mission is to be a stabilizing factor in the community,” he said. “And we plan to continue the ministries we established in the community.”
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