Gratitude for ‘Finding Fellowship’ | GUEST COMMENTARY
In the 1960s, three Maryland Methodist churches, two with all-white congregations and the other all-Black, were confronted with dwindling membership and faced the prospect of going under. During that time, the ministers and church members in their town, Quince Orchard, considered uniting. However, resistance to integrating ran high, and the congregations redoubled their separate efforts to stay afloat. All three churches continued to falter financially and offered frequent fundraising suppers, a progressively Sisyphean endeavor. Then, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. That event impacted communities across this country and catapulted Quince Orchard into action.
With tears streaming down his cheeks, the white minister pleaded with the church members of all three churches to end their reluctance to unify, and they did. A new church building was constructed and named Fairhaven United Methodist Church. Yet, integrating the three congregations was a rutted road. Threats of violence occurred, targeting the minister. At first, white members sat on one side of the aisle, while Black worshippers sat on the opposite side. Some people dropped out, but many continued Sunday worship under one new roof with the same minister who’d urged them to turn their racial differences into new-found harmony. In time, Fairhaven became a spiritual haven for all.
Gerard Green, a pastor and spiritual leader in the greater D.C. area, whose father had been a pastor of the all-Black church, says, “The church merger was successful because of intentional effort, like making sure there were both Black and white members in leadership and that people felt represented in the service and its music.” Gospel choir music brought joy and vitality to the newly formed church community.
This heartwarming story is celebrated in a PBS documentary called “Finding Fellowship.” The film captures and commemorates Quince Orchard’s journey from a community of segregated churches to a newly united, integrated one. The film’s documentarian, Jason Green, the son of Gerard Green, also weaves in his family’s poignant and surprising history, unearthing documents revealing that his great-grandparents were enslaved on the very churchland where Fairhaven United Methodist Church was built. Green learned that his heritage consisted of generations of formerly enslaved people who’d settled in one of the few areas in Montgomery County without the restricted covenants that had prevented Black people from owning land.
More than ever, we need fellowship across the myriad chasms dividing us today. We need hope. We must create oases where we can put aside our differences and unify. What could be respectful disagreements frequently degrade into angry name-calling and vitriol. We are politically split and polarized, whether it be about racial differences, immigration, the freedom to read books of one’s choosing, sexual identities, upcoming national elections or global events — especially the current War in the Middle East.
Thankfully, examples of harmony abound that don’t discount our differences but instead provide opportunities for those differences to create something powerful that can inspire us to be our best selves. “Finding Fellowship” is one such example. The film’s documentarian also heads the Montgomery County Commission on Remembrance and Reconciliation, which invites the community to “engage in conversations and practices to acknowledge, alleviate, and dispel the harms caused by racism and discrimination as evidenced in words, acts, and deeds.”
A deeply painful remembrance was commemorated with a marker dedication ceremony by the commission on Nov. 11 of last year: the racially driven, terrorist lynchings of two Black men, Sidney Randolph and John Diggs-Dorsey, in Montgomery County in the late 1890s. If you’re flinching at the dates of these dreadful slayings in recognition that they occurred after the Emancipation Proclamation and within our largely forward-thinking, diverse state, you join me in the recognition that shameful parts of our history are a mere arms-length behind us. Learning and honoring the whole truth of our American history may be painful at times. But that truth can unify all people of all races into one humanity. And together, we can forge a better future.
Patricia Steckler (PattiSteckler@gmail.com) is a psychologist.