From slavery to civil rights then disrepair: Rebirth nears for Lebanon's Pickett Chapel
But Pickett Chapel at 209 East Market Street is more than an ongoing restoration project with a future as a museum and small events venue.
There is a new life coming, and the rebirth is near.
The church is a symbol for hard lessons learned. It's a teacher with hands-on experience in slavery that can still be seen today. The fingerprints of the slaves who built Pickett Chapel are permanently etched into many of the reddish-brown bricks that make up the building's exterior.
More than 100 years after the prints were left behind, Pickett Chapel became a community venue in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. That included a particularly violent disturbance one evening in downtown Lebanon that targeted activists – some of whom regularly attended the church.
Now and many generations later, Pickett Chapel continues to shake loose from disrepair as old gives way to a gleam like white hair on the aged.
The simple-styled building's perseverance is personalized by Harry and Mary Harris, a Lebanon couple married for 68 years who mortgaged their home in tandem with other co-signers to bring the Chapel back.
'We're all equal in the sight of God,' Mary Harris said, 'and (from) slavery to where we are now, it has taken people who have felt that in their hearts … to treat each other like brothers and sisters. And to be treated with respect.
'That's why this museum is so important to us, to get it finished and let people know the truth. History is the truth and that's what we want to share.'
Harry Harris, 88, and Mary Harris, 86, put their home 'on the chopping block,' with several cosigners on the Wilson County Black History Committee in order to buy Pickett Chapel in 2007. The Harrises attended Pickett Chapel as kids.
The purchase was similar to how a group of freed slaves bought the church in 1866 for a reported $1,500 – 10 years after the white congregants built a new church on East Main in Lebanon and moved.
'Scary,' Mary Harris said softly about the financial investment and risk they took to buy Pickett Chapel. The Wilson County Commission approved a $25,000 donation in July 2017 for the restoration, which allowed the Black History Committee to pay off the remaining portion of the initial loan, she said.
There were about 8,000 enslaved people in Wilson County out of a total population of 26,000 when Pickett Chapel was built, according to Gratia Strother, archivist for the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church.
The enslaved could be often rented for big projects during the time-period, Strother said. And it's likely the white Methodists who commissioned the church in 1827 assigned some of the workers they enslaved to work on Pickett Chapel.
'It is much more likely than unlikely that enslaved workers also made the brick used in Pickett Chapel,' Strother said. 'The most emotionally powerful moment for me was finding a child's fingerprints on the East wall. Four little fingers imprinted into the soft brick as it was being removed from the molds.
'Brickmaking was incredibly hard work."
Molds typically held several bricks and were very heavy as a result, Strother explained, noting it was likely that an adult worker slammed the mold on the ground and lifted it back up, leaving the bricks in the dirt.
The United Methodist Church 'is committed to acknowledging the injustice of all oppression,' and is committed to the work of anti-racism, Strother said.
'A small, enslaved child working in the brickyard would likely have been assigned to pick up each brick and stack them on a wagon for transport to the construction site," she added. "That child would have done this hard work, likely for about twelve hours a day for days on end.'
Once the church opened in 1829, white people and the enslaved likely worshipped there.
'They were gifted enough to do all this work,' said Harry Harris, who played center field for the Lebanon Clowns Negro League baseball team. 'It's important to know how it came about, that the slaves built it by hand and how it was used.'
Harry and Mary Harris met in grade school, They both attended Pickett Chapel's youth group and continued attending into adulthood.
The Harrises have three children and raised them in Pickett Chapel.
The church had congregants involved in the Martin Luther King Jr.-led Civil Rights movement, and Pickett Chapel was a meeting place for the Wilson County Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality under then Pastor D.W. Simmons, which involved many from the area including those from outside the church, Mary Harris said.
On March 13, 1962, a group of activists went to the Capitol Theatre just off the square for a non-violent demonstration. The attendees had lighter fluid tossed around them and eggs thrown at them with injuries and bloodshed, according to news reports.
After working at a local bank, Harry Harris went home and accompanied a friend back to the square to support the activists. The windows of his 1951 Ford were smashed in and Harry Harris remembers returning home to his wife roughly a mile away with glass in his hair.
Sisters Maggie Benson and Sally Palmer, both cousins of Mary Harris, participated in the demonstration from Pickett Chapel, Mary Harris said.
'It was scary," she said. She was at home with the children that night. 'We didn't know what might happen to people in the Black neighborhood.'
Afterward, then Lebanon Mayor Charles D. Lloyd appointed a biracial committee to address racial inequality in the city.
'Restoring Pickett Chapel is important to remember the past, but also to help us move into the future,' Lebanon Mayor and City Historian Rick Bell said. 'From a historian's perspective, this building represents generations who were enslaved and their descendants who fought for equality. It is also an important part of our religious history and the birthplace of churches that continue in our community.
'As mayor, I believe that a restored Pickett Chapel will be the centerpiece of a revived Market Street and further commercial growth in our Historic Downtown.'
Pickett Chapel's congregation moved to a new building on Glover Street in 1973 because of growth and became known as Pickett-Rucker United Methodist Church, which is still operating today.
The original church building continued to be used as a community theater for years. However, by the early 2000s, Pickett Chapel was vacant, in disrepair and condemned, Mary Harris said.
The craftsmanship and materials used to build Pickett Chapel ― lumber and bricks ― are still in use almost 200 years later and its direct historical connection to slavery, two churches and Civil Rights are all part of Pickett Chapel's history, Committee Board Member Bill Moss said.
Hopes are that area schools and the community will utilize Pickett Chapel, which has already gathered items for the Roy Bailey African American Museum and History Center that Mary Harris hopes to open there.
'We want the true story of history and the interactions of that church and how important it was to this community,' Moss said.
About $300,000 has been raised in the last five years by the Wilson County Black History Committee through grants, fundraisers and donations to restore Pickett Chapel. About $550,000 is estimated to complete the entire project. Already done are structural repairs, new heat and air-conditioning and new electrical systems. A portion of the barrel ceiling is also finished.
Bob Black, who now owns the Capitol Theatre with his wife, has been on the Wilson County Black History Committee board and has been a financial supporter of the Pickett Chapel restoration.
'We must keep alive the history of the Civil Rights movement in assuring there are places to keep the dream alive,' Black said. 'Pickett Chapel will allow us educate the children who are no longer being enlightened in our education system.'
The Wilson County Black History Committee has applied for a 'Preserving Black Churches' grant that Mary Harris hopes can complete the work – perhaps by the end of the year. The chapel has already been used for small community events.
'It will mean everything. It has been such a journey,' Mary Harris said of the project nearing completion. 'There is a connection with a lot of citizens here, and we want to represent who we are and to be inclusive.
'We don't have a lot for our youth, so one of the hopes for the future of this project is that it will continue and there will be enough interest to hold on to it for generations.'
The church will celebrate the 159th anniversary of Pickett Chapel and Pickett-Rucker UMC since the freed slaves purchased the building in 1866 during the weekend of March 15-16.
The pre-anniversary celebration will be from noon-3 p.m. on March 15 at Pickett Chapel.
Pickett-Rucker UMC will hold regular morning worship at 10:45 a.m. that Sunday with lunch served afterward.
Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com and on X, formerly known as Twitter @ AndyHumbles.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Slaves, civil rights, disrepair: Lebanon's Pickett Chapel nears return
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