The old photo album is crumbling and the old gummed corners holding the black and white snapshots have dried and are dropping. But the faces are still clear and rather haunting. These are the faces of hopeful children, youth and women. They are black and white women together. They are wearing the fashions of the Thirties and Forties. They are doing a bold and brave thing for the times. They are making friendships despite living in almost separate worlds.
Fred Anderson
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It took large vision and decisive action to find ways to interact between those worlds. When vision and action are wedded to missions it usually is found in the hearts and minds of women and especially through Woman’s Missionary Union of Virginia. Sixty-five years after slavery and emancipation, Virginia Baptist women — white and black — found ways to labor together for Kingdom causes.
In 1932, Ora Brown Stokes, a black Baptist leader, visited the headquarters of Virginia WMU. She had been invited by Blanche Sydnor White, the dynamic and visionary executive of Virginia WMU. The visitor made a shocking observation which brought results and echoed through the decades. She told White: “I am a Baptist and proud of my denomination, but I do not know my white sisters of that faith. Other white women have extended the hand of Christian fellowship. Why have you failed to extend yours?”
An interracial meeting at First Baptist Church, Richmond, 1938.
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Two months later, White was introduced to Nannie Helen Burroughs, executive leader of the women’s organization of the National Baptist Convention, a historically black denomination. She also was the founder of a remarkable school for girls and young women in Washington, D.C. It was the beginning of a long friendship; and on various occasions, Burroughs, a native Virginian herself, was on the platform for Virginia WMU meetings.
White and Burroughs forged an alliance. They realized that one of the great needs at the time was the creation of missionary organizations for black women and missionary literature for their study. They also felt that a black woman should be employed as a field missionary among Virginia Baptists.
It was a challenge to find the right person for the work. White and several other women called upon Maggie Lena Walker, the prominent black banker in Richmond and a member of First African Baptist Church there. By that time, Walker was an invalid and confined to her bedroom. The women entered her bedroom and White outlined the plan for interracial cooperation and the need to find a missionary.
Walker took White’s hand and tried to encourage her: “Don’t surrender. This is a good and noble work you have started. God is in it and he will guide you. God has for you somewhere the woman he wants you to find. Keep searching and I will help you.”
In a few days Fletcher Mae Howell of Suffolk, Va., was recommended by the president of Virginia Union University; and when she joined the WMU staff, she made interracial ministry a reality. Although offered office space at two black colleges, she preferred and was given an office in the Virginia WMU headquarters.
Virginia WMU prepared Virginia Baptists for new pathways. In their report of 1934, the women laid forth the vision and the challenge: “We have marched into new territory. There is a state mission field which seems to lie between our Christian forces and world conquest, namely, the field of cooperation between white and colored Baptist women of Virginia. Hard by every Negro Baptist church there is a white Baptist church in whose membership there are missionary women whose task it is to help their colored Baptist sisters to provide missionary programs. … Such cooperation would be most stimulating to both races and helpful to our entire denomination, white and colored.”
An interracial committee was composed of women from three statewide Baptist organizations. Llewella Payne Ryland, who married into one of the leading white Virginia Baptist families, served on the committee. In a letter to Howell, she wrote: “Whatever this work grows into, we will always remember your unflagging efforts for its beginnings. The foundations of good will are there.”
The beginnings were impressive. All across Virginia, from the Eastern Shore to Bristol, black and white Baptist women were coming together, forging friendships, promoting interracial justice, and sharing life experiences. The white women freely shared what had worked for them in missions education and stewardship promotion.
Howell started Sunshine Circles for black boys and girls and Red Circles for older black girls. She planned statewide conferences which were held in Richmond and Lynchburg and churches of both races opened their doors for the meetings. She coordinated the Twin Sister Plan by which each local “white” church WMU was to establish a relationship with the women in nearby “black” churches. In 1939 James H. Jackson, a national black leader, defined the plan as beneficial to both races, noting that it did not convey “a superior or inferior” attitude. He remarked: “They speak and act as sisters in the great family of Christ. In my judgment this is one of the most significant movements to be found in the churches of America.”
The proof of the interracial work can be found in that crumbling photo album which had been assembled by Howell and which now resides at the Virginia Baptist Historical Society. Turning the pages ever so carefully, the faces — black, white — are still smiling for the camera. They are standing in front of little clapboard country churches and outside familiar city churches. There are scenes of Sunshine children, black and white women and Red Circles.
In a time of complete segregation, Virginia Baptist women — black and white — found a way to make friendships, to learn and practice missions and to promote racial harmony. In 1944, Howell reflected on 10 years of interracial work: “Women of both races are working effectively and creatively as ‘laborers together with God.’ It is a revolutionary movement.”
Fred Anderson (fred.anderson@ vbmb.org) is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies.