Yuku free message boards

Published on Sunday, October 26, 2008

They held his funeral at his one-of-a-kind house on Ramsey Street, with the sermon delivered from the open-air porch.

They assembled there instead of at church because of the worldwide flu epidemic that gripped Fayetteville, striking an estimated half of its 8,000 residents. The federal government forbade large gatherings to try to contain the deadly disease.

"Rest on, old warrior," Bishop George W. Clinton said in his eulogy. "Long and arduous were thy labors, but now thou canst rest."

They buried him at Cross Creek Cemetery No. 2 off Grove Street, in a corner set aside for established black families. Other graves around him bear such names as Melchor, Chesnutt, Waddell, Williston, Smith.

The Star of Zion newspaper, the official organ of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, devoted much of its front page and two inside pages to the news of his death.

The Fayetteville Observer devoted all of three paragraphs on Page 4, under the small headline "DEATH OF BISHOP HOOD."

The Observer reported: "At the time of his death the Bishop had the honor of being the oldest Bishop white or colored in America. Born in Pennsylvania, he has lived here for nearly 50 years and has won the respect of the citizens of Fayetteville. He was a man of much executive ability, an eloquent speaker and a staunch and able defender of his race. It is said that some of the leading Republicans North had a habit of consulting Bishop Hood in regards to politics in the South and that his advice was generally followed."

The Observer would go on to fill its pages with news of the flu epidemic, the end of World War I and the Army's new artillery encampment outside town, established as Camp Bragg. So that was the newspaper's final word, 90 years ago, on the death of Bishop James Walker Hood.

I was first drawn to this story because I started wondering what had ever happened to his landmark house. It stood on a large corner lot on Ramsey Street, across Moore Street from St. Joseph's Episcopal Church.

John A. Oates mentioned it in a chapter of his 1950 "Story of Fayetteville" history devoted to "The Negro in Fayetteville." Bishop Hood, he wrote, "lived on the west side of Ramsey Street in an unusual house with many gables and bay windows."

The house reflected qualities of the man himself: distinctive, impressive and imposing. I've heard speculation that Bishop Hood may have taken the design from his travels in England, but I don't know that for sure.

Older residents recall that, after his death, the Hood family took in boarders to help pay the bills. But the grand house, the bishop's pride and joy, fell into disrepair as his heirs fell behind in taxes.

According to information compiled by the Observer's research staff, Bishop Hood bought the land in 1897 and was living in the house when the 1900 Census was taken. The Fayetteville City Directory listed the home's address, 445 Ramsey St., up through 1939. But that year the property was auctioned to National Oil Co. for $2,000.

What happened to the Hood mansion?

"The city bought it," Walter Drake told me, "and they couldn't wait to tear it down."

The Hood property changed hands, from business to business, and for many years sat vacant. Meanwhile, the neighborhood declined. Prominent black families moved away from Moore Street. Ramsey Street grew as a corridor for white-owned gas stations, funeral homes and other businesses.

Mr. Drake is 95 years old. He's a retired brick mason, with strong hands and a sharp mind. He attended church meetings at Bishop Hood's house. He remembers the wide plank floors, the fireplaces, and the bishop's fine robes and portraits that adorned the family home.

Mr. Drake lives six blocks to the north on Ramsey Street. He said something nearly 10 years ago that stuck with me: You know the big vacant lot across from St. Joseph's? he asked. That's Bishop Hood's property. Nothing seemed to last there for long.

"There was talk in the neighborhood that, it wasn't cursed - it was kind of divine, more or less," he said. "Nothing could dwell on it on account of his spirit."

I tucked that away for years, until I noticed the brick buildings being constructed there along what's now a reviving business section. They include an insurance office, drugstore and offices for technology companies located here because of Fort Bragg.

I asked Daisy Maxwell of our library staff to see what she could find about the Hood property. Before her retirement in 2007, she spent many hours tracking down deed transfers, digging up old newspaper clippings and tracing the Hood family tree. As our resident history detective, as I called her, she put it all together in a black notebook for future reference.

I read more about Bishop Hood through documents posted on the Internet, including some of his own writings, and through a scholarly study published in 1999. The book is "For God and Race: The Religious and Political Leadership of AMEZ Bishop James Walker Hood."

I thought about the book's rare place in our history: How many other Fayetteville figures have full-scale studies devoted to their life's work? Other than pioneering black author Charles Chesnutt, our shelves are relatively bare.

I kept coming back to Bishop Hood, off and on, with some sense that he had faded with the passing of generations. We still see his name here and there: on churches; on a dormitory at Fayetteville State University; on the seminary at Livingstone College in Salisbury; on commemorative displays at his home church, Evans Metropolitan AME Zion; on artifacts we photographed years ago at Orange Street School, showing the bishop's top hat and Bible.

Bishop Hood can be a hard man to read, like others in history - a Marble Man, if you will, as impenetrable as his gravestone at Cross Creek Cemetery.

I finally decided to write about him, mainly because I had a reason to do it today.

That's because this week marks the 90th anniversary of his death, at age 87, on Oct. 30, 1918.

It's also because Walter Drake may be the last person still alive to ever see Bishop Hood.

Mr. Drake's father was a preacher, teacher and farmer in Vander. One cold night he took the young Walter by buggy into town for a meeting at Evans Metropolitan AME Zion.

Mr. Drake believes it may have been an annual conference of preachers. His father took him by the hand as they walked to the front of the church. He remembers seeing an old, feeble man, seated at the pulpit, leading the prayer. His hair was brushed back, his beard mostly gray.

"He was a sight to see," Mr. Drake said. "He had on a beautiful silk robe."

Yes, he said, this was the famous Bishop Hood.

I think about the sweep of history and also how we sweep some things under the rug. They are uncomfortable, unpleasant things that we're still trying to reconcile today.

J.W. Hood dealt with some of these obstacles head-on. From his early adulthood in Pennsylvania, he became known for opposing segregation in public transportation.

"Hood was a large man of courage, conviction, and persistence," John L. Bell Jr. writes in the "Dictionary of North Carolina Biography."

"From 1848 to 1863 conductors of the Pennsylvania Railroad tried on numerous occasions to remove him from first-class cars, but they never succeeded. In 1857, he was put off of streetcars in New York City five times in one night, but he was not deterred. In North Carolina, Hood was so insistent in demanding first-class steamer accommodations that he was never bothered after the first contest."

He found his ministerial calling in North Carolina after arriving here during the Civil War, in a coastal region occupied by Union troops. He quickly set out to establish one of the pillars of emancipation - the black church itself - by persuading black Southern Methodists in New Bern and Beaufort to join the AME Zion Church, according to the "Dictionary of North Carolina Biography."

He embarked on a lifelong mission to shore up these pillars crucial for black freedom, through Reconstruction and the imposition of Jim Crow segregation that followed:

• Church: He served as an AME Zion pastor in New Bern, Fayetteville and Charlotte, and as a bishop from 1872 until his death. He traveled widely but called Fayetteville home throughout his tenure as bishop. He established scores of churches.

• Schools: He served as assistant state superintendent of public instruction from 1868 to 1871, in charge of founding and supervising schools for blacks. Despite white hostility, he managed to get 49,000 blacks enrolled by 1870. He also helped to found and lead Zion Wesley Institute in Salisbury, now called Livingstone College. The college includes the Hood Theological Seminary.

• Civil rights: A state historical marker on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh commemorates the first statewide political convention for blacks, held in 1865 after the war - a convention presided over by J.W. Hood. Later, he played a major role in the state's constitutional convention of 1868, pushing for homestead and public-education provisions. Some referred to it as "Hood's constitution" until it was amended in 1875.

Fraternal organizations: He was a driving force behind the establishment of black Masonic lodges, serving as Masonic grand master for decades in conjunction with his work in the church.

All of these pillars have held up into the 21st century. But for decades after the war, as the Southern white power structure reasserted control, civil liberties were threatened and even lost - wiped off the map, like the bishop's house on Ramsey Street.

Sandy Dwayne Martin wrote the 1999 book "For God and Race." Dr. Martin is head of the religion department at the University of Georgia.

He describes Bishop Hood as conservative - standing up for black rights but not arousing violence, as some critics pushed for him and others to do after whites engineered a coup against black leaders in Wilmington in 1898, for example.

Dr. Martin said it's remarkable that Bishop Hood wrote five books although he was largely self-taught. He noted the bishop's strong stand against alcohol, as a proponent of temperance, and his "progressive" stand in favor of equality for women within the church leadership.

Dr. Martin said he believes Bishop Hood deserves more recognition outside the church, for his tireless work during a critical era for black Americans.

"Coming out of slavery, people said they'll just starve to death or vanish. They'll never be able to handle the freedom," he said.

Dr. Martin contrasted Bishop Hood's approach with the more-accommodating, economics-first approach of Booker T. Washington.

"Hood was more forthright in saying segregation is wrong, Jim Crow is wrong," he said. "I think Hood had a better understanding that you really can't have economic equity if you don't have political safeguards, if you are African-American former slaves."

Bishop Hood encountered controversies within the church. Detractors called him petty; others praised him for his openness. Through it all, he served until his death, ignoring whispers that he had grown too old to lead.

Bishop Hood was married three times. He had six children to survive. Among many descendants now scattered across the country, I caught up with a great-great-grandson in Los Angeles.

His name is Eric Thomas. He's 50 years old. He teaches middle school. By learning about Bishop Hood and other ancestors, he said, he can better impart the meaning of black history to his students.

He likened his growing appreciation to Alex Haley's discovery in "Roots." He said reading "For God and Race" helped to flesh out his family's stories.

"As I read the story that Professor Martin wrote," he said, "I was reminded of the work of the church in helping to preserve and support the growth of the African-American community. Reading through that material and understanding the role he played, really just established in our minds this man was a pioneer doing heroic work."

Earlier this month, Walter Drake visited the archives building next to Evans Metropolitan on North Cool Spring Street. The church archives include photographs of Bishop Hood and his house.

Mr. Drake said he regrets that the church and Masonic lodge didn't somehow step in to save the house years ago, to help preserve the bishop's memory.

"He was an amazing man, I'm telling you," he said.

And yet I wonder how many people outside the AME Zion Church know about J.W. Hood. We still tend to wall off or segregate our history - black and white, North and South, my church vs. your church, and on and on.

North Carolina has dedicated one of its gray highway historical markers to James Walker Hood. It's in New Bern, where he made his mark during the Civil War.

There's precedent for erecting more than one highway marker to honor an individual. One such example is for Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black member of Congress. There are markers for him in Fayetteville, where he was born, and in Lincolnton, where he operated a barbershop.

Michael Hill administers the marker program for the N.C. Office of Archives and History. He said that an advisory committee reviews applications each December. He said that in this case, the committee would need to understand the bishop's strong connections to Fayetteville.

"There's no guarantee," he said, "that a second one would be approved for Bishop Hood."

Community support would help with any application. And if the state were to OK a second J.W. Hood marker, he said, it would have to be erected along a suitable state or federal highway.

I have such a road in mind. It's called U.S. 401 North, or Ramsey Street in town.

A marker for Bishop Hood, there at the corner of Moore Street, would be right at home.

Published on Sunday, October 26, 2008

The following article is copied from The Fayetteville Observer archives from 1897.

Thursday, Sept, 23, 1897

Evans Chapel, the fine large brick metropolitan church of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, on Cool Spring Street, was last night filled with a highly appreciative audience, who assembled to witness the opening ceremonies of the celebration of the "Silver Jubilee," being the twenty-fifth anniversary, of the consecration of Bishop Hood. A section of the church had been reserved for the white people, and several score of our leading citizens availed themselves of the courteous invitation which had been extended to all, to attend.

We believe it is the general verdict of the latter that what they witnessed was a decided as well as an agreeable revelation. They were prepared to see the fine interior of the handsome church building which the colored people of the Methodist Zion faith, under the leadership of our excellent colored citizen, Joshua Council, had done themselves so much credit in erecting; and they were prepared to witness a decorous and intelligent congregation. But they were surprised and delighted with the scholarly attainments and the oratorical gifts of those who took part in the ceremonies.

The Zion Methodists constitute, we believe, the largest and most important body of negro christians in our country and therefore in the world. Their membership numbers over 500,000. Bishop Hood, who has his residence here and who has done so much to bring about the harmonious relations that exist between the races in these parts, is the head of this important body. He is the oldest African bishop. From the glowing tributes that were paid him last night it must be concluded that he is not only an able man, but possessed of a high order of executive ability and worthy of the headship which his brethren and followers have accorded him.

Mayor Cook welcomed the visiting bishops and clergymen in an admirable and well delivered address. Bishop Clinton, of South Carolina, delivered the response, which was eloquent and witty and characterized by a fine tone. His reference to the race question was in admirable taste and thoroughly conservative. Indeed a like gratifying tone was observable in all the speeches of the evening.

Other welcoming addresses were made by Principal Fairley and Professors Evans and Emma Council, of the State Colored Normal School and by Rev. Dr. Hill; and responses by Rev. Drs. Rives, Birchmore, Smith and Colbert, and Jno. S. Dancy. These were all characterized by the same good taste and scholastic correctness to which we have referred.

Rev. Dr. Scott, the pastor in charge of Evans Chapel, is a gifted man, endowed with both talent and genius. He appears to be equally at home as a writer of hymns, a composer and singer of sacred songs, a composer and declaimer of odes, an organist, a cornettist, and a trainer of choirs. His original poem "Honor to Whom Honor is Due," was much enjoyed. The music throughout was excellent.

The five Bishops present - Bishops Hood, Clinton, Lomax, Harris and Rives - are a dignified and fine looking body of men, and there were a number of strong looking men among the clergy, notably Drs. Smith and Simmons (both formerly of Fayetteville), McCain and others.

Rev. Dr. Hill was master of ceremonies.

Handsome tributes were paid to the character of the population of Fayetteville, both white and colored. Four Bishops have been contributed to this church by Fayetteville, viz: Bishops Hood, Lomax, Harris and Beebe.

If the high sentiments of the speakers last night are an index of their religious work, as we doubt not they are, this body of our colored citizens must be exercising a powerful influence for the uplifting of their race.

A collection was taken up for a testimonial to Bishop Hood, and, as a similar collection is being taken up in all the churches of this faith in the United States, the result will probably be a large sum.

Our people cordially welcome the excellent body of their colored fellow citizens to Fayetteville.

It is interesting to note that the grandfather of Bishop Lomax, a free negro, was a soldier of Gen. Green's army in the Revolution, and served side by side with the grandfather of Dr. W.C. McDuffie, who was present last night.