Dear Sisters and Brothers,

i find that i do not have the complete text of this article, but i do have a transcription of the heart of it, with the plaintive notation, "Need Xerox." Silver and gold i then had none, and so what i have today is incomplete--but i will share it anyway. The hope here is that others will be motivated to search for more!

In 1915 A. B. Lipscomb (DL's nephew) planned to publish "a special number" of the GA "for the colored people." What he finally published was an essay by S. W. Womack, about whom i know all too little. Womack is a pioneer, a forerunner, and a person of intelligence and courage. It was on his foundation that G. P. Bowser and Marshall Keeble built in the twentieth.

In this essay Womack recalls the "first protracted meeting just after the Civil War, in 1865, held by Brethren Brents, Lee, and Trimble. We [African Americans, newly freed slaves] were invited to attend and seats were found for us." In that meeting Womack heard his "first gospel sermon"; he was baptized in 1866 and became a full member of the Church of Christ in Lynchburg TN (home of the Motlow family and Jack Daniels whiskey, where to this day, i believe, that congregation is the only church in town!).

We were allowed to meet and worship with them for a number of years. In partaking of the Lord's Supper we were all waited on just alike. The wine and bread were not brought to us at the same time it is brought to us in some of the churches that i meet with for worship now.

It does seem to me that something ought to be said and done to change the moral and religious attitude of the two races toward each other. Only a few of the whites have much or any confidence in the black man, and so many have none; and the blacks seem to stand that way toward the whites. I am proud to say, however, that it is not that way with the writer. When I begin with the year [p. 1327] 1865 and think of such men as Dr. Brents, Lee, Trimble, T. J. Shaw, Darnell, Dixon, Bolding, Barrett, Fanning, the Sewells, the Lipscombs, and many others, who, in holding their meetings, would ask for room and seats for the colored people, and, after preaching, would come around and shake our hands, I am made to feel very grateful.

From 1865 to 1915, racial attitudes had changed in Middle Tennessee and in the Churches of Christ. Politicians and the KKK actively pursued these changes; some leaders in the Churches of Christ resisted them. That story has not been told, but it begs telling. S. W. Womack's story must be told, and the history of his generation recovered.

May God have mercy.

dhaymes, his mark +