#ebenezer ame

[eaboschnsf-blog]

Ebenezer AME

Although I did not get many opinions on gentrification, I did get a lot of personal stories that painted how Ebenezer played a role in the community.  

One woman had been in Ebenezer since she was 6 years old, now in her 80s.  She witnessed on numerous occasions a sunday school teacher making all the children hold hands across hanover bridge, stop traffic, and bring all the children to sunday school-- she would hunt down the homes of children who weren't in church and give their parents a good berating.  This woman went on to tell us how she had played every role in the church, including being the first woman on the board of trustees.  

Another woman we interviewed grew up on the houses that were somehow once on hanover bridge, "with yards and everything".  She had always come to Ebenezer, and now her niece was also attending.  The niece was handling all of Ebenezer's public relations.  

The dominant force of Ebenezer seemed to always be the women. The women were the core of the church, and the community, and after all these years, they will not be moved.  

[rsargentnsf]

Individualism vs Community

Throughout the summer, we have been interviewing several different kinds of people from different areas of Baltimore.  None of them seem to be connected with each other, but there’s a continual theme that has come up between them and that is a sense of community – of family.  Sometimes it feels as though people are pushed to strive to be individuals.  There is a fear of being blended into a crowd and being forgotten.  One must push themselves to be someone who stands out to avoid being forgotten.  In doing so, however, the sense of community dies away.  People begin to think only of themselves and are no longer involved in their communities, which leads to the possible death of history.

Today we attended church at Ebenezer AME in south Baltimore’s Sharp-Leadenhall.  I haven’t been to church in almost ten years now and I certainly have never been to a church like Ebenezer.  It felt very awkward because it felt as though I should be doing certain things throughout the service, but didn’t know what to do so there was this weird ‘should I stand/should I sit’ yo-yo action going on.  Something that surprised me a lot was how welcoming the members of the church were.  Though I didn’t want to compare to my previous church experience, I found myself doing just that.  I remembered when new people would attend service, most people would ogle from a distance and only the ‘outgoing’ members would greet them.  Yet in Ebenezer, we were pointed out and welcomed and many members of the church came up and shook our hands.

The woman I got to interview today has been a member of the church seventy years.  She talked a lot about the community of the church and the gentrification of the area.  She seemed a little stiff when talking to me at first, but when I asked what her favorite memories of the church were she began to relax a bit more and talked about brunches after church with her godmother and other get-togethers.  I’ve been working on the transcript to be able to make decent edits and that’s my favorite part of the whole interview.

Yet it still takes me back to think about how communities are becoming less priority to people some times.  I was only at Ebenezer AME for one day, but my impression is that the church is in danger of becoming only a written history and no longer an oral history that can be told through those have experienced it.