Historic downtown Tampa AME church to close its doors
TAMPA –
Oh, she knew it was coming.
Marie Sheehy saw the peeling paint, the leaky roof, the spreading cracks in the walls. They turned the phone off months ago and when the air conditioner went kaput, no one bothered to fix it.
But the most telling sign was the empty pews, rows and rows of them, on Sunday mornings.
“Most everybody is dead and gone,” sighs Sheehy.
For 60 years, she’s been a faithful member of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal, the oldest church settled by blacks in Tampa. It dates to 1870, and in its heyday, it was to the go-to for the city’s celebrity visitors: President Clinton, singer Ray Charles, activist Jesse Jackson, NAACP president Benjamin Hooks, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
The memories are all boxed up now.
At 4 p.m. Sunday, during a service where tears are bound to flow, what’s left of the congregation will say goodbye to the landmark home where babies got baptized, lovers sealed their unions, and mourners paid their respects to the dearly departed.
Because of its historical status, the building will be spared. A deal in the works calls for renovations and inclusion in a downtown development project, possibly as a community center. A few dozen members have pledged to stay together, first in a temporary location and then, hopefully, in a new permanent home, taking the name St. Paul with them.
“Can’t stop it now,” says Sheehy. “Just a sad day that it had to come to this.”
If the ending is hard, so was the beginning.
One hundred forty years ago, the Rev. Thomas Warren Long hiked 50 miles from Brooksville through treacherous swamps and thick woods. His mission: Organize an AME church in Tampa, as he had in other locations throughout the state.
Former slaves helped him hack away brush and stands of palmettos at the corner of Harrison and Tampa streets and create a makeshift sanctuary. They called it Brush Harbor Mission. As the congregation grew, services moved to a nearby log house. Two years later, the mission built a small church on Marion Street and called it Mount Moriah AME. Every time a storm blew through, it took part of the structure with it, and every time, members rebuilt.
The church eventually got a new name – St. Paul – and a new location at the corner of Harrison and Marion. Supporters made personal loan guarantees to finance the substantial expense of building a permanent sanctuary on a gr`and scale.
They broke ground in 1906 and finished the two-story red brick Gothic Revival-style building in 1913. With its prominent location, a sanctuary that could seat 1,500 and a spacious meeting area, St. Paul would become a gathering place for Tampa’s black residents.
During the years of segregation, it was a safe haven where members and guests felt acceptance and unity, bonded by their color and their faith. St. Paul wasn’t just for worship; it was the social hub, where congregants donned their Sunday best on the Sabbath for daylong activities, from Bible study to potluck suppers.
The civil rights movement ushered in a new era of activism. First-time voters registered at the church. Emerging community leaders found their voice here, daring to publicly express their views. When the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union dispatched national organizers to Tampa, they stopped in at St. Paul.
“To be frank, we could say whatever we wanted here, and knew it wouldn’t go beyond these four walls,” recalls Sheehy, a retired reading specialist for Hillsborough County public schools.
She and her late husband, Joseph Valentine Sheehy, a school principal, raised their son and daughter in this church. And she has been raising her 13-year-old grandson, Noah, there as well. The Plant High School freshman has already been awarded two college scholarships and has brought home perfect scores on his FCATs several times.
“I owe that to the foundation he gets at St. Paul,” Sheehy says. “You learn about doing the right thing, about being the best you can be. Make peace with God and you will have peace in your soul.”
Now Sheehy is looking for some peace herself. Years ago, for a church fundraising drive, she paid $1,000 for an engraved plaque bearing her name to be placed on a pew. That’s where she sits every week – eighth row down from the front, west side.
Next week, where will she go?
Downtown Tampa used to be surrounded by bustling neighborhoods.
But as residents migrated to the suburbs, churches in the city’s core lost members. Mainline denominations like the AME began losing parishioners to upstart churches, mostly nondenominational independents, that sprouted up in new neighborhoods. St. Paul, which once claimed up to 500 congregants, was no different.
The Rev. Bryant Fayson arrived from Dade City in November 2003 charged with a formidable task. The King High School graduate grew up in these parts and was well acquainted with St. Paul’s venerable reputation. He wasn’t expected to return the church to its former glory, but to help right a sinking ship.
A fourth-generation preacher on his father’s side and five-generation preacher on his mother’s side, Fayson was up to the task. With the building falling into disrepair and a rapidly declining membership, his first priorities were to find ways to restore the church and give the congregants some financial and spiritual stability so they could move forward and thrive.
From the beginning, there were considerable sacrifices. Fayson, a systems analyst for Hillsborough County, often received no pay for his work at the church. Moreover, he paid dues to the mother church out of his own pocket. In the meantime, the bishops in the AME’s 11th District – which covers about 500 churches in Florida and the Bahamas – agreed to subsidize St, Paul’s expenses and tax bill until a better solution could be found. As maintenance needs and other expenses rose, what began as a $14,000 monthly commitment grew to $17,800.
Fundraising sputtered. Regular attendance dipped to 30 to 50 people, with only about 15 consistent supporters. About a year ago, the church’s board began discussions with Sage Partners, a south Tampa development group. The company is working with the city on a project that would include affordable urban housing. Sage president Debra Koehler says that St. Paul would be a “key ingredient” to that proposal.
She envisions restoring the church to make it a community center for the proposed residential complex. Its stained glass windows and pipe organ would be integrated into that plan.
“My grandfather was a Methodist minister. I live in a historic home. I appreciate what this church has meant to the community,” she says. “This could give it new life.”
The church would receive more than $2 million from the sale; of that, $1.3 million is owed to the 11th District for its financial support. The rest of the money will seed a new church, likely in a family-friendly area in the suburbs. New Tampa is a location being considered.
The Rev. Henry Green, presiding elder over the Tampa AME district, says the challenge will be to preserve the history and legacy of St. Paul while positioning the church for growth.
“It’s time to consider the future and how to recreate ourselves so that the church meets the needs of the total family. It’s not easy,” Green says. “You can’t grow without growing pains. But being stagnant wasn’t working.”
Fayson, the church’s second-longest serving pastor, hopes to be part of the transition. As of next week, the remaining members will gather for worship at 7:30 a.m. Sundays at Mount Sinai AME Zion church on North Nebraska Avenue until a new home is found.
He’s aware that some congregants won’t make the move. It’s just too hard to uproot after so many years. And sharing a sanctuary with another congregation is not ideal.
“We move on faith. I took on this challenge based on believing that God would do what’s best for us. And now I believe God has spoken to that situation,” Fayson says.
Robert “Pete” Edwards will be going. The 59-year-old West Tampa native grew up in St. Paul. All of his childhood memories are woven into this place.
He says that church leadership over the years had numerous opportunities to save the building, but no one acted on them. He offers the story of St. Paul’s rise and decline as a lesson to his own children. Church is a business, he tells them, and “we didn’t use good business sense.”
“We had offers on partnering with senior housing and economic development projects and nothing came of it,” he says. “All this talk of yet another black institution going away gets folks all riled up. But you can’t blame the government, you can’t blame the white people. This was our mistake and no one else’s.”
He could join another congregation, but he doesn’t see the point. “They raise hell in all the churches. Might as well stay here and be a consensus builder,” he says. So he’s taking a positive outlook on the situation.
“Where there’s no vision, the people will perish,” he says. “In our case, our vision is to take what we learned here and go out into the community and plant new seeds. It’s what God requires us to do.”
Joselyn Walker Saffor, 52, is staying, too. She was christened at St. Paul’s altar. Leaving this building is bittersweet.
“We didn’t have the Internet or Wii when I was growing up. You came here to see your friends and socialize. This was our central meeting place,” she recalls. “Yes, we had a great past. But in our sights is an even greater future.”
Saffor says one of St. Paul’s greatest statements for history is the grit and determination of the blacks who banded together and built this grand sanctuary at a time when such things seemed impossible.
“No architect per se, but men and women with a vision for the future. And it has withstood more than 100 years,” she says. “When you walk through these doors, it just embraces you.”
Hayleye Davis, 2, and her sister, Caroline, 5, are the faces of the future. They’re the children of Benettye Griffin and Hayward Davis, who married here in a big wedding in January 2004. Though the family lives in Seffner, they still come here. Benettye’s parents, both gone now, were pillars at St. Paul, and it’s important for her to maintain that connection.
She credits the church for instilling in her qualities that have defined her life.
“I took my lessons from here to high school, to college and beyond,” Benettye says. “How to be a better person, how to determine right from wrong, how to serve God in your community. They taught me you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it.”
She will miss the church, but she’s also looking forward to a fresh start. A chance to build a new St. Paul, and develop it into a place that will draw young families like hers.
“I want my kids to have what I had,” she says.
Marie Sheehy is getting up in years. She won’t reveal her age, saying “it’s a number that’s unlisted.” She always assumed her funeral would be at St. Paul. It would be a big affair with a choir in white robes, attended by her church family and all her former co-workers in the school system.
But she has outlived that dream. People are dying off themselves. And now the St. Paul sanctuary will be shuttered, awaiting its metamorphosis. When her maker calls her home, Sheehy wants the undertaker to just handle it quickly and quietly.
She lives less than two miles from the church. She’ll move with St. Paul only if it stays in the vicinity. And leadership says that won’t happen. She knows the moment has finally arrived to say goodbye, and she’s not ready.
“I’ll always remember the good days,” she says, closing her eyes. “Always.”
ST. PAUL’S
FINAL SERVICE
WHAT: Includes worship, music and post-service fellowship
WHERE: St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, 506 E. Harrison St., Tampa
WHEN: 4 p.m. Sunday
INFORMATION: (813) 347-7466.
Michelle can be reached at (813) 259-7613.
