Reopening Day in Wilmington
Wilmington, N.C., is a city put on the map by both a happy and an unhappy past. When John C. Dancy was Collector of Customs here he held the highest Federal office in the state and Negroes were occupying positions of every rank in the city. The so-called riot of 1898 was the end of it all.
In spite of this there are as many colored people here now as there were before the race trouble, and they live in good homes. Fifteen thousand there are and they are fairly prosperous. But there is not a newspaper or public official among them, except the leaders in church, education and fraternities. And yet the people are happy and love their city.
We spent Sunday with Rev. E. L. Madison in his reopening at St. Luke, This is the largest Zion congregation between Washington and Montgomery. The church was founded by Bishop J.W. Hood and 13 members in 1865 upon his first visit there. The present building was erected 46 years ago. It was the first brick church built by colored people for worship in the State. The pastor was Rev. J.H. Hooper. Rev. J.B. Small preached the dedication sermon and Rev. J.W. Hood was the chief hand in the direction of affairs. Among the chief men in the congregation was the building committee composed of Messrs. Anthony Ellis, Louis Sheridan, David Williams, John W. Moore, Henry B. Green, Harris Ellis, J.R. Hill, Jas. Winfield, Geo. Allen and Rev. W.J. Moore. Others who pastored this church were Rev. J.W. Hood, W.J. Moore, J.H. Lomax, J.B. Small, W.J. Moore, H. Bell, P.L. Kyles, H. Blalock, G.L. White, W.L. Lee, J. Francis Lee and L.W. Kyles.
The present pastor is the Rev. E.L. Madison. It has more than 1,300 members and will seat 1,500 people. No auditorium in North Carolina will equal it in capacity except St. Peters at New Bern.
It is one of the best organized churches we have and on last Sunday the building was crowded all day.
At a cost of $2,500 the building has been decorated and renewed. It presents both a scene of grandeur and beauty.
A great pipe organ blowing, the choir singing and the people crowding the pews is the picture that inspires this word. Dr. Madison is the man for the place. Versatile, alert, profound, eloquent, industrious and uniquely spiritual, he is a magnet in the midst of a city. The people hang on his words. Few men have his vocabulary and daring. He makes friends for his cause both in his admirable ability and activity for the race wherever he resides.
For three years he has been bereft of as true and faithful a wife as any minister could wish. He has been a dutiful and constant director of his children’s lives, taking the place of both mother and father and is rearing a genuinely fine family and giving them an education to equal the best of this generation.
Two weeks ago in their rally $1,500 was raised an on reopening Sunday $350 was raised to supplement it. The Sunday School augmented the collection with $200.
Messrs. Ludlow, Bissell, Smith, Moore and Jervay are among the men who go forward with their pastor in this great field.
The Sunday School ranks with the largest of the State. Dr. Madison has pastored in all the large cities of North Carolina save two. In Asheville, Charlotte and Greensboro he took an outstanding position for our common cause of extending Zion and the Kingdom.
He is remembered everywhere as one of the best preachers who ever occupied a pulpit in the city. He is especially helpful to the small churches where he pastors. He is working hard and needs rest, and his people who claim him for at least three years longer, until the close of the quadrennium, are planning to give him a vacation.
The doctor is both a man of means and is equal to any task the church gives him.
From The Star of Zion, Charlotte, N.C., July 28, 1921
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