Sager Brown: Sacred Ground

By A. Craig Fisher

Sager Brown, as an orphanage and school in the bayou country of Louisiana, served the intellectual and social developmental interests of black children for over a century when few if any other avenues were available. Their story is one of compassion and heartfelt dedication of key individuals who, with help, countered the destructive force of oppression of post-emancipation and segregation, resulting in thousands of redeemed lives. A brief history of the Bayou Teche area is offered to pinpoint the site of the school, which exists today as the major shipping depot of the United Methodist Committee on Relief for relief supplies both nationally and worldwide. Divine intervention is in evidence throughout the book as the institution ebbs and flows from one crisis to the next, always raising its head to move forward from apparently insurmountable odds to the new light of day. Although Sager Brown is and has always been a Methodist church-supported institution, anyone interested in the plight of children and their eventual redemption will find the book a worthwhile read. It was a joy to document the only in-depth history of this historic institution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499010626

Book preview

SAGER BROWN: SACRED GROUND

by

A. Craig Fisher, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2014 by A. Craig Fisher, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/01/2014

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Contents

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1: OPPRESSION AND COMPASSION

CHAPTER 2: PARADOX OF EMANCIPATION

CHAPTER 3: A SAVIOR SURFACES

CHAPTER 4: ABOUT BAYOU TECHE

CHAPTER 5: EXODUS AND GENESIS

CHAPTER 6: THE GODMAN YEARS

CHAPTER 7: IN HIS ABSENCE

CHAPTER 8: A NEW BEGINNING. WHAT’S IN A NAME?

CHAPTER 9: ILL WINDS BLOWING UP THE TECHE

CHAPTER 10: OUT OF THE EYE OF THE STORM1

CHAPTER 11: BRIEF REFLECTIONS

EPILOG

NOTES

DEDICATION

This history of Sager Brown and all its predecessors is dedicated to the group of compassionate New Orleans citizens who founded the Orphans’ Home Society for the purpose of resurrecting black orphans from destitute conditions. Along with their benefactors, Monsieur de Bossière, Louise De Mortie, and General Oliver O. Howard of the Freedmen’s Bureau, they laid the foundation for the orphanage, school, and mission supplies depot that lasted from 1869 to the present.

William Gilbert played a significant financial role with his endowment that allowed for the construction of buildings, which allowed for the expansion of educational services to disadvantaged black children.

The hope of the Orphans’ Home Society only became a reality through the untiring dedication of two of the countries’ most honorable and Christian citizens, William D. Godman, D.D. and his wife Agusta H. Dexter Godman, M.D., who gave up their comfortable lives in Ohio for the purpose of providing security and education to those who yearned for and deserved a better existence. To them, and to the God they served, goes the credit for giving generations of black children and their subsequent families the opportunity to reach the American dream.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It has been said in other circles that it takes a village. This concept is never more true than when it comes to putting a book together for publication. The worst fear an author faces is leaving a significant omission among his or her valued contributors.

Credit is extended to those members of Acton Methodist Church who participated in the mission trip to Sager Brown in April 2010, especially those who responded so positively to my brash assertion that Perhaps I should write the history of Sager Brown. Thanks also to my friends who repeatedly asked how the book was coming and when would it be finished. In retrospect, I wish they had been more forceful when my motivation waned at times.

Thanks are extended to the libraries and staff at Centenary College, Southern Methodist University, Godfrey Memorial Library, Hood County Library, St. Mary Parish libraries at Baldwin and Franklin, and the museum/library at UMCOR Sager-Brown. Special thanks are due Chris Brown, Archivist, Archives Research Center, Migale Library, and Centenary College for his help in accessing online copies of the Louisiana Annual Conference proceeding and providing access to significant unpublished works related to Sager Brown.

Kathy Kraiza, Executive Director, UMCOR Sager-Brown provided room and board for my wife and me plus access to the library files during a week of research, which allowed a week of necessary reflection on site.

I am indebted to my good friend, John Pelham, for allowing me to include his poem "Sager-Brown Is Sacred Ground."

Lynn Abbott, Assistant Curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University opened my eyes to the whole issue of jubilee singing and the very significant role it would play in the fundraising and continuing existence of the institution that eventually became known as Sager Brown.

Thanks to Denise Benjamin McDermitt, my good friend and right hand at Ithaca College for her sleuthing skills in ferreting out the given names of Mrs. C. W. M. Brown (the Brown in Sager Brown).

And to my wife, Fay, for keeping things together on the home front when I was squirreled away from housekeeping reality, and also for her advice and the unenviable task of manuscript proofreading.

Credits

Photo of Yei Sudan student reprinted by permission of Bob Schultz.

Photo of twin oaks at St. Martinville reprinted by permission of Deborah Scannell Photography.

Photos of Rosie Ann Cobb and UMCOR Sager Brown volunteers praying over the relief supplies just loaded onto a truck provided courtesy of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. Used by permission.

Photo of Sager Brown children at lunch courtesy of Kathy Kraiza, Executive Director, UMCOR Relief Supplies. Used by permission.

Excerpt from The Negro Dependent Child in Louisiana, 1800-1935, The Social Service Review, 45, 53-61 by Robert S. Moran. Copyright 1971 by the University of Chicago Press. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans by James B. Bennett. Copyright 2005 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 by Eric Foner. Copyright 1988 by Harper & Row. Reprinted by permission of Harper Collins Publishers. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from Love in Action/ UMCOR: 50 Years of Service by Norma Kehrberg. Copyright 1989 by Abingdon Press, The United Methodist Publishing House. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from various United Methodist Church websites provided courtesy of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. Used by permission.

PREFACE

Our story of the institution known as Sager Brown is set in the South central part of Louisiana, in the bayou country of St. Mary Parish. But, to tell the story in its fullest, it seems essential to provide salient background information so as to provide enough perspective for the reader to grasp and appreciate the significance of what transpired over the years of Sager Brown’s birth, growth, and development.

Chapters one through four set the stage for the remaining six chapters by allowing the reader just a brief glimpse into the complex issue of slavery and the emancipation of enslaved blacks from their stronghold. Although slavery is viewed by most, if not all, as a blight on the American landscape, emancipation created enormous problems for those plantation black families, especially the children, who suddenly found themselves thrown into a Southern white society without any direction on how to survive.

Chapter three describes the benevolent nature of a group of Methodists who saw the problem of destitute black orphans and organized to create a solution for a particular segment of this disadvantaged population housed in a New Orleans orphanage. Their struggle to make their dreams a reality was nearly an impossible venture, but help surfaced.

Chapters four and five provide some insight into the geographical area of Louisiana where the orphans were be domiciled after their relocation from New Orleans, and where the history of Sager Brown formally begins, initially under the name of the Orphans Home and soon after, La Teche Seminary.

The remaining chapters, the heart of the book, document the difficulties faced by numerous Christian men and women in keeping the dream of the institution alive for over 100 years, amid storms, hurricanes, fires, droughts, and economic hardships. The strength of character of these leaders was sorely tested but was shown worthy under the most difficult of conditions. Of course, there was progress but it always seemed to be followed by hills too steep to climb—but, as we know, mountains can be moved by faith.

The second to last chapter is indeed the zenith of Sager Brown, greater in magnitude in a whole lot of ways but totally unforeseen in the minds of those compassionate few who started the enterprise. Larger in scope, definitely; aimed at the assistance of diverse populations around the globe, most certainly; but more important?—this is a decision I leave to you.

CHAPTER 1

OPPRESSION AND COMPASSION

Slavery imports an obligation of perpetual service, an obligation which only the consent of the master can dissolve. Neither in some countries can the master himself dissolve it, without the consent of Judges appointed by the law. It generally gives the master an arbitrary power of any correction, not affecting life and limb. Sometimes even these are exposed to his will, or restrain a master of harsh temper. It creates an incapacity of acquiring anything, except for the master’s benefit. It allows the master to alienate the same, in the same manner as his cows and horses. Lastly, it descends in its full extent from parent to child, even to the last generation.¹

It seems useful and necessary to elaborate briefly on some of the characterization inherent in John Wesley’s above commentary on the institution of slavery, something he spoke out against from early in his life. Enslavement was a life-long proposition for both parents and children, a contract that only ended with dangerous and difficult escapes or death. It was not merely one human’s personal intent to become master over another; slavery was instituted and protected by law with no rights afforded the enslaved. Slave owners demanded absolute subservience, both in body and mind, from their chattel. In reality, slaves were considered property just as were horses and cattle and were useful only until their productivity declined. A good working horse or mule was deemed worth a good deal more that the human slave holding the reins and directing the plow’s path.

As Wesley was one of the first prominent people to adopt an abolitionist perspective, he was criticized for his stance. That is not surprising because a great deal of the Southern economy depended on slave labor to manage the plantations. In his journal, Wesley described his acquaintance with John Newton, a slave-ship captain. Certainly this was an individual who did not share Wesley’s compassion for the dire circumstances that enslaved blacks had to endure. Newton delivered the slaves to the auction sales so bidders could pick over the merchandise. Wesley’s stance, on the other hand, was in direct opposition because his purpose was to abolish the practice of slavery. To Newton and all others associated with slavery—from those in Africa who delivered their own people into slavery, to those who ripped blacks out of their houses, to those who bought slaves in America—John Wesley addressed the following diatribe:

Are you a man? Then you should have a human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as compassion here? Do you ever feel another’s pain? Have you no sympathy, no sense of human woe, no pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was [sic] you a stone, or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the great God deal with you as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands. And at that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you! But if your heart does relent, though in a small degree, know it is a call from the God of love. And to-day, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart. To-day resolve, God being your helper, to escape for your life. Regard not money! All that a man hath will he give for his life! Whatever you lose, lose not your soul: Nothing can countervail that loss. Immediately quit the horrid trade: At all events, be an honest man.²

History fails to give up all of its truths so it is unclear whether John Newton ever read or heard John Wesley’s impassioned plea above, but he most certainly knew the sentiment. Nonetheless, somewhere along the line, Newton had an epiphany; his conscience felt the pangs of his guilt. John Newton, the ex-slave ship captain, converted to Christianity and adopted an anti-slavery position. Some amongst you might be trying to remember something about Newton because his name strikes a resonant chord. John Newton, the slave captain, the same person who was responsible for so much personal misery and degradation, wrote one of the world’s most well-known and beloved hymns: Amazing Grace. The next time you sing or hear the following words of the hymn think back to Newton and the life path he was on compared to his transformed spiritual mindset that allowed, no… prompted, him to write:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now, I see.

T’was Grace, that taught my heart to fear.

And Grace, my fears relieved.

How precious did that Grace appear

The hour I first believed.

Based on the precepts of John Wesley and his brother Charles, the prolific hymn writer (e.g., Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Jesus, Lover of My Soul, Christ the Lord is Risen Today), the Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1784 at a time of revolution and revolt. From its inception, Methodism has been rooted in the social gospel and the eradication of injustice, within the parameters of the Christian perspective. Slavery was certainly inconsistent with Do unto others, and the church adopted John Wesley’s stance as he outlined in his pamphlet Thoughts Upon Slavery.³

Because our Sager Brown story is rooted in the state of Louisiana, it is important to offer a brief glimpse into the Church’s role in the lives of plantation blacks. Even long before statehood was granted to Louisiana, Methodist circuit riding preachers had been dispatched to the bayous, hills, and towns for the purpose of spreading the Gospel. As today, each of the evangelists had his own style of reaching his audiences. Bishop Holland McTyeire singled out and described the very disparate evangelistic styles of three prominent itinerant preachers. Richmond Nolley persuaded sinners with his ministerial logic; Lewis Hobbs wept over them; and Thomas Griffin made his listeners quail and shrink (probably using the fire and brimstone scenario).⁴

As you might have inferred from the above, the Church reached out to blacks, free and enslaved.