“Take my hand, precious Lord. Lead me home.”

This is the seventh in a series of excerpts from my memoir, The Edge of All the Light You Have. It follows “How can we be reconciled….“

In January of 1970, a white man sat having a cup of coffee in the Baptist Building in Raleigh. He was perusing The News & Observer for articles about the shooting and our family. As he sat there, a few of his colleagues, all white, walked in. They were deep in heated conversation about “that radical” who had caused the recent trouble in Wake Forest. “A rabble-rouser,” they said.

The man sipping his coffee let them go on for a while. Then he asked them a question.

“Do any of you know this man?”

Everything went silent.

“Because I know him,” Corbin Cooper continued. “I spent six weeks up in Washington, D.C., with him. We lived in the same parsonage with a group of pastors, and we studied urban ministry.”

Corbin Cooper was, in my father’s words, “the person in charge of race relations” for North Carolina Baptists. He knew my dad, because they had both been part of the same Urban Ministries Study in D.C. during the turbulent summer of 1968. 

“My experience of him is quite different from what you’re saying,” Cooper continued. “And I’m telling you, he is not a rabble-rouser.”

Corbin Cooper had clout. In his capacity as director of the Department of Interracial Ministries for the North Carolina Baptist State Convention, he mailed letters to Black and white Baptist churches across the state, telling them in his own words the story of what had happened to us. The letters concluded with a personal request that the churches invite my father to preach. He sent my dad a copy. 

“That’s how the Black churches got a-hold of it,” Dad told me.

The letters went out to about 250 Black churches and an equal number of white churches. 

Out of the 250 white churches, only one in Hickory, North Carolina, extended an invitation to preach. 

But the response from Black churches was overwhelming. Cooper’s letters opened a floodgate of invitations, from city churches in Raleigh and Durham and Fayetteville, to churches in small towns like Norlina, Scotland Neck, and Oxford. Our family traveled to two, and sometimes three, Black churches every Sunday in the first half of 1970. 

It was the beginning of my education in true community.

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The first Black church we visited left a strong impression on me. I can still see the sanctuary, the dark mahogany panels behind the pulpit and matching pews curving in a semicircle around the platform. The wood was polished to a shine, and a wine-red carpet led us down to the front. The space was warm, felt familiar. It did not look any different from many of the white churches I had been attending all my life. 

The pastor and deacons took my father back to the pastor’s office. My mother stayed with my brothers and me in the sanctuary. 

Many Black churches honor the guest preacher’s family by seating them in the front row. I don’t know if we were invited to sit in front that Sunday, but I do know my mother. And I’m sure she wanted to avoid being the center of attention. 

I laugh now. Our four pale faces, in the middle of a congregation of Black people, in North Carolina, in 1970 — how could we avoid being the center of attention. My mother’s desire to fly beneath the radar ran counter to everything that had brought us to that church in the first place. 

She guided my brothers and me into a pew in the middle of the church. I’m sure the choice of seating was deliberate. Not off to one side, not segregated from members of the church, and definitely not in front. We were there to worship as part of the congregation.

A trio of Black women walked into the sanctuary before the service began and sat down. Not on the platform, no — only ordained ministers sat in those high-backed chairs. And in that day and age, ordained ministers were all men. 

The women sat on folding chairs on the main floor in front of the platform. They faced the congregation and began to sing. Gradually the congregation joined them.  

The hymns were familiar to me, but the style of singing was nothing I’d ever heard before. Everyone was singing the same melody, more or less. But while the leader stuck to the main tune, other voices wove harmonies above and below. Although most of the people were seated, the sound of their voices was full and rich, rooted deep in the body. The tempo was way slower than in the white churches I knew, which left empty spaces between the phrases. But those spaces were filled with improvised singing and spoken commentary.

Well? Hallelujah! Oh, my Lord. 

As the singing continued, the energy in the room began to rise. Here and there someone jumped to her feet, someone raised his open palm into the air. Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand, they sang. I am tired, I am weak, I am worn…. The congregation called out to the singers, Yes, Lord. Praise God! 

No one was performer, no one was audience. The whole church was engaged in praise and song, preparing the spirits of those present to enter into a full-bodied worship experience.

I witnessed it through the eyes and ears of a 16-year-old white Southern Baptist girl. Everything I saw and heard was a revelation to me. In the congregations I knew, the hymns were sung in a rigid tempo. Sometimes they hurtled headlong toward the final cadence.

But in this church, hymns stretched out, took up space. More than that, they created space. The tempo was relaxed; it didn’t push forward. But the beats were strong, heavy, as if they were driving a thick tent peg deep into the ground, staking a claim on Spirit and blessedness and salvation from everything that threatened our peace and sanity in a violent world. 

Take my hand, precious Lord. Lead me home. The sound stirred me, deep in my body. It sank beneath the surface sorrow, beneath the hurt and trauma and terror, grounding me in the love of God and leading us home.

And the morning worship service had not yet even begun. 

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Sometime around the 11 o’clock hour, the pastor and deacons of the church walked in, in processional, ushering my father onto the platform. They sat down in those high-backed chairs in unison. The dark paneling behind their heads harmonized with the rich darkness of their skin, while my father’s fair Scots Irish coloring stood out in sharp contrast.  

Dad stood up to preach. He told the people about his upbringing in a segregated society. About the influence Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had on him. About his own study of the Bible and how it supported the uncomfortable truths he was hearing from the civil rights movement. He talked about the desegregation of the schools in Wake Forest, the planning of the party. He told the story of the deacons’ opposition, the shooting, the dismissal.

People in the congregation talked back to him, encouraging him. Yes, yes. All right. They chuckled at some insight. Well…. Look out now!

I cannot overemphasize how different the experience was from the white churches that had raised me. In the white churches I knew, you were expected to sit still, make no sound or movement. Your eyes were supposed to be fixed on whoever was doing the singing or preaching. Your role was to listen.  

Remaining still and quiet were virtues hard-won by energetic children. My coping strategy was to spend the entire service filling in the o’s in the printed bulletin with a pen from my mother. Or I used one of the stubby pencils sharpened by the deacons, sitting in the rack with visitors’ cards on the back of the pew in front of us. If I ran out of o’s I might fill in the a’s. When I finished, I traced the designs made by the darkened letters, drawing random figures, sprawling and complex. 

This minimal movement was sometimes enough to cause the stiff crinoline under my skirt to crinkle against the bare wooden pew. Besides, it was difficult to sit still anyway, because the crinoline scratched at my legs. If I squirmed too much, Mom would reach over and touch my knee. If I didn’t promptly respond, she added a light pinch.

John and I submitted to these reminders in silence. But one day Mom made the mistake of pinching Bryant, who was easily the squirmiest of the three of us. “OW,” he objected in a loud voice. His protest echoed through the silent sanctuary, and the white adults stiffened against the urge to turn around and look.

Such a sound wouldn’t have registered at all in this setting. Bryant’s “OW” would have been absorbed by the passionate singing of God’s praise. 

An old woman sitting in front of me suddenly shot straight up, ramrod straight, and flung out her arms. Praise JESUS! Hallelujah! Praise God! She squeezed her eyes shut, tilted her face to the ceiling. Went rigid. Several ladies dressed all in white moved toward her and encircled her, making sure that she didn’t hurt herself while she was caught up in the Spirit.

As the fury of her passion subsided, she relaxed down into the pew. But as she sat, she waved her hands in the air, praising, praising.

I was startled. Exhilarated. I’d never seen anything like it in my grandmother’s church or in any of the churches my father had pastored! And although I had been well trained to a restraint that bordered on pathology, the passionate and expressive little girl was still alive inside me. And she loved what she heard.

Was I frightened? Maybe, a little. But what I carried away with me was immense joy. Freedom. And deep love for people who, despite centuries of oppression, now surrounded us, like they encircled that woman, protecting us and lifting us up to God.

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After the service, my family stood at the door to the sanctuary. The members of the congregation lined up to greet us.

Dad had told me and my mother before we arrived that, when an older Black man came up to greet us, we would have to be the first to reach out our hands. Because, he explained, Black men — especially older Black men — had been taught to lower their eyes and cross the street if a white woman was approaching. A friendly look or the innocent offer of a hand could get them lynched.

The pastor approached my father. His voice was quiet. “We know that you are a very busy man, but the ladies have prepared some food,” he said, “and we would be pleased if you could join us for a meal.” 

It was a delicate moment. In 1970, people of different races and colors sat at the same table only at the risk of white violence. To accept the invitation to eat together was a stronger witness to our beliefs than anything my father could say in the pulpit. 

But the pastor gave my father an out. 

“Of course,” he hurried to add, “we know you are a busy man, so we understand if you have to decline.”

There was a complication. My mother had left a roast beef slow cooking in the oven for our Sunday dinner. If we didn’t go home, it might dry out, burn, become inedible. My father glanced at my mother. They came to agreement without a word being spoken.   

Dad turned to the pastor. “Well, I don’t know if the ladies of your church were aware that they’d be feeding the whole family,” he chuckled. “But if they’ve prepared enough food” — his face broke into a wide smile — “we’re hungry.”  

The roast beef went to pieces in the oven. Word got around to the other Black churches, and for the next five months, Mom never had to cook Sunday dinner again.