A house of worship and safety for 154 years

If walls could talk at Portsmouth's Emanuel AME Church, they'd have a big secret to tell.

So would the pipe organ, the ceiling and the basement.

That's because the 154-year-old building, built mostly by slaves in 1857, served as a safe haven for runaways from the South using the Underground Railroad to attain freedom in the North.

"One of the hiding places was up back up in that wall there," said Sara Choate Brown, church historian and lifelong member, as she pointed to a wooden pane along the base of organ pipes. "That one actually opens, but they didn't have the knob on it back then because you couldn't display what you were doing."

During the 18th century, the congregation, one of the oldest of any black denomination in Portsmouth, consisted of slaves and free blacks. According to church records, slaves traveling through the Dismal Swamp were directed to the church, then called North Street Church. Runaways could be hidden in a small room in the church basement, which is now a boiler room on the first level. In what's now the attic, slaves seeking freedom hid among the original ceiling beams.

In addition to the secret places, other features of the historic church remain.

A wrought-iron banister encircles the upstairs gallery where several oak wood benches sit. The bench legs were inserted without nails or glue, but slots carved in the seat slab provide stability. Stained-glass windows surround the back perimeter, and bare wooden beams support the balcony floor where the choir once sang.

"The slaves and all the others got together and put their innate abilities together. Those who were blacksmiths, those who were carpenters, whatever they had," Brown said.

The 81-year-old docent pointed to the balcony railing. "They used their hands and feet to make the molds and carve it," Brown said.

Cassandra Newby-Alexander, professor of history at Norfolk State University, wrote an application late last year for the church's inclusion on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. If approved, the church will gain more than anecdotal acknowledgement, she said.

"It'll make them open to opportunities for funds and for recognition and for grants," she said.

The church is on a local history tour, but it didn't make the cut for the National Register of Historic Places because of upgrades and renovations throughout the years, Brown said.

Over the centuries, the congregation met with its own struggles - and some help.

Originally the congregation met outdoors at the corner of South and Effingham streets and was called the African Methodist Society. But after Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831 in Southampton County, laws forbade blacks from worshipping alone and they were forced to join a white Methodist congregation at a Glasgow Street church.

Later the whites built a new building, but allowed the blacks to remain at the Glasgow Street location until it burned down in 1856. A white minister helped the blacks gain ownership of the present site, something they couldn't do themselves under the law at that time.

Within a year, the building was constructed and called North Street Church. In 1871 the church joined the African Methodist Episcopal denomination and was renamed Emanuel.

Lifelong church member Elizabeth Swilley, 80, said the church history is worth telling because it's a reminder of how blacks have excelled in harsh situations.

"God has blessed us and given us strength," she said. "So we can pass it on from generation to generation."

In a glass case in the church lobby, the history is archived in yellowed journals, treasurer reports, photographs and meeting minutes. One book shows the handwriting of former slave-turned-newspaper columnist Jeffrey T. Wilson, a longtime member. Brown rarely opens the case because air causes the documents to deteriorate faster. She and a committee are looking into preservation, but they're not willing to donate them a library.

"No no, that's our history, we gotta keep it. Now they can copy it, but they can't take 'em," she said.

There were dozens more books, Brown said, but they were discarded over the years by staff who didn't know their significance. Brown said she too grew to value the church's history.

"I wasn't able to really appreciate it as a young kid because I didn't understand the significance of it, but now that I do. There's a certain amount of pride that comes with it," Brown said.

Cherise M. Newsome, (757) 446-2794, cherise.newsome@pilotonline.com