Prominent Beaufort Pastor Kenneth Hodges has died. ‘It's a shock to the whole congregation'

Yahoo

23-04-2025

The Rev. Kenneth Hodges — a prominent pastor of one of Beaufort's oldest churches, a former state lawmaker, businessman, community minded promoter and photographer whose pictures ranged from civil rights icons to famous entertainers — has died. He was 73.
Hodges, of Burton, was the pastor at Beaufort's Tabernacle Baptist Church in the center of downtown. After guiding the church for some 30 years, he was as iconic as the weathered wooden church with the massive steeple on Craven Street. The legendary church is a historic landmark where the enslaved first went to worship in the mid-1800s and continues as an active congregation.
He leaves behind a legacy of community activism and preserving the history of the church and historic figures with ties to it including Harriet Tubman and Robert Smalls. As a state lawmaker, he supported small businesses in rural areas where he said self-employment was a way out of poverty.
Friends and church members confirmed that Hodges died at Beaufort Memorial Hospital Tuesday morning.
'It's a shock to the whole congregation,' said Ed Allen, a church member and former Beaufort County coroner.
Hodges had been in the hospital since last Sunday, April 13 after complaining of weakness in his side, Allen said. But congregation members had expected him to recover, said Allen, who had spoken with Hodges this week.
Allen described Hodges as a 'community person.' One example, he said, was how he spearheaded a monument to abolitionist Tubman that was erected at the church in June.
The storied Tabernacle Baptist Church that Hodges led was officially established in 1863 as a church for Blacks worshipers, although the building dates to 1811. Hodges once described himself as a steward of the church and its history.
When whites fled Beaufort following the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Hodges told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet in 2021, 'Blacks remained and worshiped here.'
One of his crown jewels was the monument to Tubman which he promoted for years leading fundraising efforts that finally culminated in a sculpture by Colorado-based artist Ed Dwight depicting Tubman leading a faction during the Combahee River Raid in 1863. The statue captures the moments when Tubman joined Col. James Montgomery on an armed steamer sailing from Beaufort on a raid at the Combahee Ferry. Tubman, who had extensive local knowledge of the waters of the Lowcountry, directed the three steamboats with Black soldiers under Montgomery's command past mines to assault several plantations to free 750 formerly enslaved people.
'He was very engaged in the community, no question,' said Fred Washington Jr., a church member and former Beaufort City Council and Beaufort County School Board member. 'When he put his mind to something, he went after it.'
Hodges also lobbied for a bridge over the Combahee River on U.S. Highway 17 in northern Beaufort County to be named after Tubman. It approved and dedicated in 2008. At the time, Hodges told the Beaufort Gazette he advocated changing the name to educate residents about Tubman's role in the June 1863 raid.
Tabernacle Baptist is also known as the final resting place of Robert Smalls, who rose from slavery to Civil War hero and congressman, changing the course of Beaufort's history and he was instrumental in reconstruction after the Civil War. He is buried in the church's cemetery along with his two wives who preceded him in death.
Washington said of Hodges, 'he was a student of the life of Robert Smalls.' Smalls died in 1915.
Tabernacle Baptist emerged during the Civil War and its early members sent resolutions in support of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to the president on Jan. 1, 1863.
Hodges told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet in 2021 that the resolutions, which are recorded in the Library of Congress, proved the important role of the early church in the formative years of a people as they moved from slavery to freedom, and showed the significance of prayer and praise in their lives.
'The church was the foundation of the Black community,' Hodges said in 2023. 'It's where people come together to worship, to educate their children and to focus on the challenges of each era. Over the decades — from slavery through Reconstruction through Jim Crow through the civil rights movement to today — the church was home to rallies, lectures, concerts. It was here that people became knowledgeable about the various issues impacting them.'
Hodges grew up in Bennett's Point in Colleton County and attended Greenpoint Elementary and Walterboro High School. He earned an undergraduate degree at Clark Atlanta University and in 1986 and a master's of divinity at Morehouse University's School of Religion.
He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 2015 until 2016, representing Beaufort and Colleton counties, where he supported legislation that helped people start small businesses and honored S.C. history.
'I believe in self sufficiency, and I believe in some of our rural and remote areas, self employment is their major (opportunity) out of poverty,' Hodges said at the time.
Hodges ran unsuccessfully for the late state Sen. Clementa Pinckney's seat in the fall of 2015 after Pinckney, whom he considered a close friend and colleague, was gunned down alongside eight of his parishioners at his Charleston church in June of that year.
Hodges lost in a Democratic primary runoff against Walterboro attorney Margie Bright Matthews. She went on to win and is now serving in the S.C. Senate.
Tabernacle Baptist has 400 members. Its legacy includes 12 churches that spun off from the original, Hodges said in 2023. One of the biggest challenges today, Hodges said, is that the church is no longer surrounded by the Black community and Black businesses as it once was. 'How do you remain relevant when your community doesn't live right around you,' he wondered.
Above the church's sanctuary is this scripture: 'Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.'
Hodges also owned LyBensons' Gallery featuring some of his own photography including photos he took of famous figures such as jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie, entertainer Sammy Davis Jr., poet Maya Angelou and Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks. The gallery was once located on 211 Charles Street in downtown Beaufort. Today it is located in The Gullah-Geechee Cultural Visitors' Center on St. Helena Island.
Hodges told the Beaufort Gazette in 2012 that he started the business 35 years ago in Atlanta, where he had the opportunity to take pictures for area colleges and universities and those schools asked him to photograph important people who visited the city. One assignment, he noted, led him to the home of Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr.
'It was a unique experience,' Hodges said. 'When I went to Mrs. King's home for an assignment, she gave me an obituary from Dr. King's funeral. So that's something that I treasure.'