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Community Corner

Black History Month: Greenport's AME Zion Church Remains Strong

Longtime Greenporter absorbs and reflects upon the history and influence of the Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church.

The on Third Street in Greenport has long offered spirituality, inspiration, and leadership to its community. This month, the passion of the music was apparent: Osborn Douglas, O.J. Joyner, and Russell Smith on the piano accompanying Buster Smith singing In The Sweet By and By; Annabelle LeBad’s (also known as Greenport’s black Kate Smith) rendition of His Eye is On the Sparrow was breath taking; as was Julia English when she was taken away by her solo causing Reverend Ford to delay his sermon until she ended. The vibrant worship service was exalting and reinforced community spirit. 

According to Dr.Grania Bolton Marcus’ Discovering The African-American Experience in Suffolk County, 1620-1860: “By the early nineteenth century, small communities of ex-slave families sprang up in Amityville, Eastville, Three Mile Harbor, Bellport, Setauket, Huntington and Greenport.  As early as 1815, when freed African-Americans in Amityville joined together to found a church of their own, the African Methodist Episcopal Church became an important institution in many ex-slave communities.” 

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church had its beginnings in New York City in 1796 as a result of discrimination against blacks in other houses of worship.  It was originally called the Freedom Church and was dedicated to liberation of the human spirit as well as spiritual, social and economic freedom.

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This past August, I interviewed Rose Sells Rhetta, about growing up in Greenport and the history of the Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church. Rose, whose family was amongst one of the early black residents in Greenport, graduated fromin 1936.  She was the first black student to go on the class trip to Washington DC; forewarned of what awaited her, she bravely faced the injustice of having to move to the back of the train as it crossed the Mason/Dixon Line and, upon reaching the nations capitol, being sent off in a taxi to spend the night in a YWMCA - not in the hotel with her classmates. Rose was also the first GHS black woman graduate to attend college.

Rose recalls that there were 10 or 12 families of color and some men who came to Greenport to open oysters in the early years of the twentieth century. 

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“In early 1921, Mrs. Ida Shepherd became a committee of one to set into motion the organization of a church for people of color in Greenport," she said.

Her efforts were successful, and soon an association was formed with trustees.  Originally the pastor of the Mission Church on Center Street offered the church for trustees meeting but after the first meeting his wife objected and threatened to leave him if he continued to allow colored people to meet in the Mission so the trustees met in each others homes.

They decided the denomination would be AME Zion and in 1922 “the first deed was established with a mortgage for land on Third Street to build a church.” The church was named Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church in honor honor of Bishop George W. Clinton.  

Leon Sells, Rose’s father was an excavator and the first black business man in the community, dug the basement for the church. John Turner, John Norman and William Bundy supervised the adult men of the congregation build the foundation and two out houses. Monies to build the church were raised by various means including candy and bake sales and Saturday evening suppers.

The church was built by Brewster Smith and opened its doors in 1922. The cornerstone was subsequently laid in 1925. Attendance was excellent, the church soon was respected throughout the community and became the center of activities of the adults and children from the Archers, Atwell, Bundy, Jackson, Norman, Peterson, Sells, Shepherd, Skyles. Towe, Turner, and LaBad families.

In the years after World War II, according to Josephine Watkins-Johnson, a parsonage was built on land next to the church that was slated to be a junkyard. One Sunday Reverend Donald Stacey of the of Greenport visited to lead the service at Clinton and, upon observing the large, enthusiastic congregation that was served by visiting ministers, he  recognized the need for a parsonage to house a full time preacher to minister to the community.

The lot next door to the church was bought for $1,500, donated by Clifford Craft and Reverend Stacey enlisted Southold Town’s Brotherhood in Action work with the community and the congregation to raise the funds to build the parsonage.  Upon completion Reverend David Prince Thomas moved in.

Late in the evening on New Year’s Eve the Clinton congregation begins to gather at the church to join in the traditional Watch Night service to thank God for the past year and to pray for the future. Some say this tradition began on Dec. 31,1862 when Americans of African-American descent joined together in churches and other gathering places eager to hear if the Emancipation Proclamation had become law.

However, the tradition has a longer history because enslaved Africans on plantations across the south congregated and prayed on New Year’s Eve that they wouldn’t be separated on New Year’s Day when slaveholders tallied their books and often sold off their slaves to settle debts. Bessie Swann, a daughter of Annabelle LaBad, once told me: “Black folks don’t celebrate on New Year’s Eve, they get together and pray.”

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