'Churches even maintained hospitals for blacks during the many years when we could not be treated at Atlantic City Hospital.'
ATLANTIC CITY — Mother’s Day used to be a really big deal when I was growing up.
I guess it still is, but maybe in a 21st century sort of way.
I was glad to see little children still decorating hand-made cards in school this year. I remember tearing the lace off my baby sister’s panties to use as trim on my mom’s cards.
Carnations were for sale all over the city, because everyone wore a red, pink or white one on that special Sunday: red or pink if your mom was still living and white if your mom had died.
Every church had a woman’s day program or fashion show, special speaker or luncheon.
Nowadays, churches may or may not make a big deal out of Mother’s Day. I was surprised to find out that many churches in the area didn’t have anything special going on, even though it’s still the biggest selling day for flower shops and online flower delivery services, a 21st century commodity.
Around my neighborhood, I saw people who didn’t normally attend religious services all dressed up last Sunday. They were heading to their childhood churches at their moms’ requests or demand, depending on the situation.
I had a choice, as a girl, to attend Shiloh with my maternal grandmother or Second Baptist with my paternal one. Normally, I’d be singing in the Hearts of Angels Choir at Shiloh, but Nana loved to show me off at Second Baptist. She pressed my hair bone-straight the night before and promptly tied it with a silky scarf. On Sunday morning, she rose before anyone else and prepared a pancakes and bacon breakfast, got dinner started, baked a cake, cleaned the kitchen after serving everyone, then prepared herself for church.
If the weather was nice, we’d walk over to Second Baptist on Center Street, me holding her elbow like a dutiful granddaughter. As we approached her seat at the front of the church, she’d smile at her lady friends, obviously proud as I sat down and folded my white-gloved hands in my lap. Several choirs sang gospel hymns and the charismatic Rev. Cole preached until sweat poured from his temples.
Afterwards, Pop Pop was always waiting outside to drive us back to the house for a special dinner and dessert.
Baptist churches, like Second Baptist, which was built in 1896 and rebuilt in 1909 after a terrible fire, and Shiloh, quickly became overcrowded because of the large numbers of blacks who had migrated from Virginia and Maryland. Union Baptist Temple was built in 1907 and numerous Methodist congregations sprang up for those thirsting the Methodist rituals they had left in the South.
Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, which later became Price Memorial, was one of the larger ones and though blacks gravitated to the more emotionally-expressive Baptist and A.M.E. churches, there were also Episcopal, Presbyterian and Congregational denominations around Atlantic City.
101 Women Plus began in 1982, during the political campaign of Mr. James L. Usry. Mrs. Dorothy Dorrington called a meeting in support of Usry; later, male members were added as the “plus-es.” Mr. Usry would become Atlantic City’s first African-American mayor.
With the current focus on non-gaming, family-friendly and cultural attractions in Atlantic City's future, here are some of the reasons why Ralph Hunter and the AAHMSNJ should have a home in Atlantic City:
"For blocks and blocks, I would hear no other language spoken but Spanish. Then, there would be blocks and blocks where occupants spoke a different language at every house: French, Wolof, a Haitian patois, Ghujurati, Arabic, Bengali. One house would have a Virgin Mary statue in the front yard and next to it, there’d be a house with verses from the Qur’an on its front door."
It’s been very weird. When I decided to self-publish my book in Dec. 2009, I did it because an agent in New York told me — and this is pre-Obama — that nobody’s interested in black history now. I said, ‘What?’ And she said, ‘Nobody is interested. That’s just the truth.’ Then, I think it was in April, HBO calls me.
With the new TV series based on early Atlantic City, Boardwalk Empire, coming this fall to HBO, I was glad when I received Turiya Raheem’s book Growing Up In the Other Atlantic City: Wash’s and the Northside. Finally there is a book that researches and documents the sights and sounds of A.C. from the African-American/Kentucky Avenue perspective. In other books and TV specials, places like Chicken Bone Beach, Club Harlem and the Wonder Gardens are footnotes to stories about places like the 500 Club and/or the Steele Pier. In Raheem’s book these places are more than just background. The long-gone...
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1. Geoff Rosenberger said... on May 14, 2011 at 09:22AM
“Somehouse we went from "In God we trust" to "In Government bought and paid for by Corporations we trust" - It's time to change back - our city, state, and nation was better when God led the dance”