Black History Lesson: Baptist Church Pastor Used
Second Baptist Church was once named Macedonia Second Baptist Church. According to the Churches current history, in July of 1879, twelve dedicated Christian men and women met in worship at a location on Indiana and Goliad Streets in the Fourth Ward with Reverend Charles Augustis. The founders of the East Side Macedonia Baptist included Reverend Reuben Anderson, Mrs. Elvina Anderson, Mrs. Anna Hill, Mrs. Alice Lewis, Mrs. L. M. Logan, Mrs. Dadie Grallam, Mrs. Laura Franklin, Mr. H. T. Harvey, Mr. Benjamin Jones, Mr. Jessie Riddle, Mr. Jesse Winn and Mr. Alexander Hogan. These dedicated individuals sought to create a place of worship with the full knowledge of the historical importance of the Black church as a place of resistance during the Jim Crow era.
Several sites have served as locations for the church building. Live Oak and Dawson Streets was the second site for the church and in 1894 a church structure was constructed on the corner of Chestnut and Center Streets in was what known as the Third Ward. However, Sanborn Maps from that time frame indicate that a “Colored Baptist Church” was already at that location in 1892. The ward system in 1880 would be composed of four wards but would change as time went on eventually developing into eight wards by the early 1900s. We now have 10 single-member districts and one mayor. This too will change at some point as the population grows.
After the Supreme Court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson enshrined segregation, the members of the church continued to build a church that carried out the traditions of Black churches as places of worship and resistance to racism. From 1909-1910, under the leadership of the pastor, Reverend Isaiah Kelly, a stone church was erected at the Chestnut and Center Street site. The location of the church was in the heart of the Black community in St. Paul Square. Historically, 1909 was the birth date of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and for a period of time San Antonio would have one of the largest memberships despite local KKK opposition to the organization meeting in Black churches. Early in the 1900s, Booker T. Washington spoke at Macedonia Baptist Church as part of a tour across Texas.
According to research, the Reverend Isaiah Kelly of Macedonia Second Baptist Church, now Second Baptist Church, said the last prayers before the Black soldiers who were unjustly hanged at Fort Sam Houston on the Salado Creek in 1917. Shamefully, Reverend Kelly would accept financial help from the San Antonio Ku Klux Klan by accepting dollars from them. Pastor Kelley joined the “The Star of Columbia,” a secret arm of the KKK that was used to provide cover for the Klan and buy off Black ministers with money and promises of jobs. On the front page of the San Antonio American Forum newspaper, the paper of local KKK Chapter 31, they announced that they were providing donations to Macedonia Church. This made Reverend Kelley a pawn of the KKK. Unfortunately, he was used to pressure Black churches into preventing the local NAACP meeting space. Reverend Kelly, in following the orders of KKK, by giving him money, went so far as to condemn the NAACP. Kelly would be removed as pastor in 1933 after a chair throwing confrontation with church members who threw him out. A new pastor, related to the Sutton family, who supported the NAACP, was elected.
This history provides insight on how racists today have used Clarence Thomas and Tim Scott.
