wfn.org | Saints at the table: Remembrances of Whatcoat

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Feb. 16, 2004	News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
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NOTE: Photographs and UMNS stories #058 and #059 are available with this
report at umns.umc.org.

A UMNS Report
By Melissa Lauber *

It wasn't that long ago that some people thought deaf people should not be
married. The Bible, in some people's minds, labeled them as disabled. 
"Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear," the
Scripture says. Society read these words, and in their ignorance, cast the
deaf into an isolated spiritual ghetto. 
But, their spirit lived on and refused to be diminished. In places like
Gallaudet University in Washington and in the United Methodist Church, the
deaf developed a culture, complete with their own language, customs, beliefs
and saints. 
The journey was not always an easy one, especially for deaf
African-Americans. Within the Methodist segregated church of the 1950s and
1960s, they were not a part of the all-black Washington Conference, because
there were no black pastors who could communicate with them. 
Instead, one concerned pastor -- the Rev. Daniel Moylan, who taught
shoe-making at a school for the deaf and blind -- and the enthusiasm of a
handful of faithful people created the first congregation for black deaf
people in the Methodist Church. 
In a room at Christ United Methodist Church for the Deaf in Baltimore, the
Rev. Peggy Johnson called "seven saints" to gather at a table and share their
stories. These stories will become a part of a video remembrance project in
2005.
In their 70s and older, the group has several things in common. All of them
came from happy families and none of their parents or siblings knew American
Sign Language. 
They each arrived at Overlea School for the Deaf and Blind in Baltimore when
they were between the ages of 6 and 12, and learned their language skills
there, starting with learning how to finger-spell their names. 
Each of them cried with fear when their families left them at the residential
school and remember it as if it were yesterday. 
Each also found their way to Whatcoat Black Deaf Mission in Baltimore when
they were young adults. 
Charles Waters, the oldest and most talkative of those at the table,
remembered painting the basement of Whatcoat Methodist Episcopal Church,
where the black deaf people worshipped from 1905 to 1917. 
 It took a year to renovate, Waters said through a translator. "A farmer
named Gehb gave us the money. Two deaf men did the painting, I was one of
them. ... One thing we needed was a furnace," he added. "We did a show on a
Saturday night, with skits and performances. ... In the end, the church was
beautiful." 
According to Waters, "black and white people together were forbidden. So the
white deaf people had the proper place upstairs, and the blacks go to the
basement. We worshipped at 10 a.m. They worshipped in the afternoon." 
Sara Hawkins and Devonne Johnson were baptized at Whatcoat. They remembered
the Rev. Moylan as "a man who would come to people's homes to eat, spend the
night and help anyone in any way he could." After his wife's death, Waters
recalled, Moylan moved into the church and slept behind the pulpit. 
But in Moylan died in1943. While the white deaf church was assigned pastors,
who communicated through interpreters, the black deaf congregation was left
on its own, said Hawkins.
Nelly Horsey's husband Jerome was smart, she remembered. He took over the
preaching. Waters led the hymns. No one served communion to the congregation
for the next 14 years. 
However, Louis Foxwell Sr., who was serving as an unofficial lay leader of
the congregation in the 1950s, promised that his son would be appointed to be
their pastor. 
In 1957, Louis Foxwell Jr. brought the white and black congregations into the
same space. "He said, 'from here on out everybody will be together.' That was
forbidden. He didn't care," Water said. "So we sat in a separate room on the
right. The white people stayed on the left." 
Eventually, they came together. 
Over the years, in other buildings and under other pastors, the church truly
merged into Christ United Methodist Church for the Deaf. 
 "For us," Ellsworth and Grace Bouyer said, "God is very, very important. The
church shows you how to believe in God." 
Because sign language does not easily allow for abstract thought, many deaf
people have difficulty answering hypothetical questions, said translator
Carol Stevens. 
However, when asked how their lives would be different without the presence
of Whatcoat Black Deaf Mission, those around the table were adamant. 
"Hearing church is worthless," they said, almost in unison. "People jump up
and down and pray and sing and you can't hear anything. It's worthless." 
And so, said Johnson, these people developed their own community to
experience God. 
Next Jan. 1, Whatcoat Mission for the Colored Deaf will celebrate its 100th
anniversary. Johnson is planning a big party to celebrate. "What these people
have done is remarkable," she said. "They are the saints of God." 
# # #
*Melissa Lauber is associate editor of the UMConnection, the newspaper of the
Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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