Mount Calvary Baptist Church dedicated as state historic marker

MOUNT VERNON — The melodic notes of a spiritual recorded 20 years prior filled the crisp October air outside the Mount Calvary Baptist Church Saturday.

“Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus! Steal away, steal away home, I hain’t got long to stay here…” sang the late George Booker and Betty Proffit, life-long members of the church congregation.

This song, with likely origins in the 1800s, was one of many sung by enslaved people in the United States that had a hidden meaning, said Kenyon College sociology and legal studies professor Ric Sheffield.

“While appearing to be less threatening in the plantation South to white slaveholders who viewed it as a sign of their successful efforts to keep enslaved people docile and compliant by keeping their focus on going to heaven,” Sheffield said, “many scholars agree that the other meaning had a great deal to do with how that song symbolized escaping and heading to freedom.”

And the meaning remained relevant as they sought refuge from racial discrimination and injustice as they headed north to places such as Mount Vernon, Sheffield said.

Black populations across the country took Christianity, with its initial use as a tool of control, and flipped it on its head, establishing their own congregations. That was the case of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, which served for approximately 100 years as a place of worship and community for Ohio’s rural Black population.

Dozens of people gathered outside Mount Calvary Baptist Church Saturday afternoon to commemorate the dedication of a state historic marker for the church, 106 years after the church building had been erected in 1915.

The church’s founders Elias Byrd Jr., Frank Stevens, James Reddix and Charles Blake are believed to have moved to Mount Vernon in search of work, said Joyce Hogan, Mount Calvary Heritage Preservation center secretary and a relative of the Bryd family by marriage. The four founded the Baptist mission in 1904 and met in homes before deciding to build the church, according to the preservation center.

“This church was his life,” said A Ron Lewis of his father Andrew Lewis who had been a deacon.

Others echoed this sentiment Saturday, describing the church as a place of communion and culture.

Mount Calvary Church drew people from beyond the immediate community as well. It hosted the annual State Convention meeting for the Ohio State Federation of Colored Women’s Club in 1917, an organization that assisted Black women in attaining equal rights and other opportunities.

“I remember a box at the front of this church with canned goods and hand me downs free for the taking to those who may need them, and a little financial assistance, if you will, for those who were behind on the rent,” said Sheffield, who had been a member of the church himself.

The push for the state marker was spearheaded by Sheffield and three students from his “Diversity in the Heartland” class: Harper Beeland, Dante Kanter and Vahni Kurra.

“Beginning in the fall of 2019, we spent months reading about the history of Black baptist churches in the United States, combing through archives and generally immersing ourselves in Mount Vernon’s storied past,” Kurra said. “What became immediately clear was that Mount Calvary was a place defined by its people.”

While many of Mount Calvary’s congregation have since passed, the students hope their work can be one part in ensuring the stories of the church live on. The decision to apply for the marker was preceded by the students and Sheffield gathering oral histories from people with ties to the church, work which will soon be published as a website.

“Hearing of all the life that once filled the church made it all the more painful to think of this building standing empty on South Mulberry Street,” Beeland said.

Beeland added, quoting a congregation member from their interviews, Anika Harris: “What about the children? Our children and grandchildren and the kids down the block? You have to tell the story.”

The students completed a state marker application for Ohio History Connection in the summer of 2020.

The city supported the work by passing a unanimous resolution in August 2020 authorizing the placement of the marker, and on Saturday, city engineer Brian Ball read a mayoral proclamation from mayor Matt Starr announcing October 16 as Mount Calvary Baptist Church day.

Collaborations for the establishment of the marker also extended to the Knox Alliance for Racial Equality, a non-profit group that promotes a welcoming community and strives for civic justice and racial equality. KARE donated $400 for the marker, said Renee Romano, co-chair of KARE.

“Although services may be over, hopefully our presence here today infuses some spirit back into this empty building and reminds you of those days when it was still filled with music,” Beeland said.

Mount Calvary Baptist Church is the 16th historic marker in Knox County and the 8th in Mount Vernon, said Jeff Ward from Ohio History Connection.

However, the historic marker is far from the end of the work being done to recognize the church’s history.

The Mount Vernon Heritage Preservation Center, established in 2012, has begun seeking out contractors to renovate the building for future use, said Eddie Massey, center member and pastor of the Apostolic Faith Church in Mount Vernon.

Massey said the goal is for the church building to serve as a community center.

“(The building) will be for all, any religious organization, any non-profit organization or anyone that wants to have any events, will be welcome into this church,” Massey said.

Mount Calvary Baptist is the only religious property within the Mount Vernon downtown historic district, but one of three Black churches that have been operational in the city, including the aforementioned Apostolic Faith Church and Wayman Chapel AME Church.

While these Black institutions have long been a part of the fabric of the city, they are not often visible in the commonly known local history, Sheffield said.

“If you have a Black history month and you’re talking about — there’s nothing wrong with talking about a Frederick Douglass, or a Harriet Tubman, or a Rosa Parks, those are really important figures,” Sheffield said.

“But for young kids, if they don’t know that it’s important to understand their own community, the people that were here and the things they did, then it would be like any other sort of forced educational experience.”

Part of that local Black history is now physically marked at 13 S. Mulberry Street.