Initial hesitancy to work for the church and helping establish community center in Augusta
Stevens discusses her initial hesitance to work for the Methodist Church after having completed her master's degree at Scarritt College for Christian Workers in the late 1920s. Stevens was concerned that the church was not concerned enough with race relations. When health problems led to the church's initial refusal to employ her, Stevens prepared to become a teacher at the Hampton Institute High School in Virginia. When the church changed its mind about hiring her, however, and offered her a job setting up a community center for African Americans in Augusta, Georgia, she readily accepted.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Thelma Stevens, February 13, 1972. Interview G-0058. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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Why did you not want to go work for the church?
- THELMA STEVENS:
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What I told you just now. I didn't want to work for the church, because I
didn't think the church would give me a chance to do what I wanted to
do. See, my experience with the church had been sort of isolated from
life. I mean, it had been a sort of . . . well, I hardly know how to say
it, but the church was isolated from life. It was a place where you go
on Sunday morning and listen to the sermon that didn't mean a thing to
you. You'd sing the old gospel hymns and people would shout or people
would amen or people would do this or that. But the church didn't give a
darn about those kids out there in that black school, that they got
three dollars a year for their education, and the white children got
from nine to twelve dollars, in that generation. Of course, now, a lot
more than that for both of them, and they're on an equal basis now, but
they sure weren't then. I mean, moneywise. And, you see, the church
wasn't interested in that kind of thing. The church was highly
evangelistic, you know. Argued about whether you were going
to be immersed or whether you were going to be sprinkled
when you got baptized, and, you know, things that were so - for me, at
least - irrelevant. What difference does it make whether you were
immersed or sprinkled? In my mind, it doesn't make a difference. That's
the reason. I mean, I don't know any other reason. And so when I kept
corresponding back and forth, I finally got the word that I would have a
chance to do some of the things I wanted to do. And so I eventually made
up my mind that I would come to Scarritt that fall, and I did. And I got
my masters at Scarritt, and about four months before school was out,
they gave us all who wanted to go to work the next year physical
examinations to see if we were able to go. So my doctor told me that he
wouldn't recommend me for anything. He said, "You won't live many
years." And so he turned the report into the office down at the Board of
Missions, and so Mrs. (J.W.) Downs, who was then the woman in charge . .
- THELMA STEVENS:
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Mrs. Downs, who was in charge, said how sorry she was. She really was
deeply sorry and sympathetic with me. So I said, "All right." So Miss
Louise Young sent for me, and said, "Thelma, the church won't have you
and you want to work in the field of race relations. I can get you a
job." And so she called a friend of hers, who was the principal of
Hampton Institute High School, up in Virginia. In those days they had a
high school and a college. I don't know whether they do now or not. So
she talked to this man, and she said, "I have a student who is
interested in teaching in your high school on your
campus. Would you like to interview her?" And he said, "We're in
desperate need of some teachers. Have her come up. We'll pay her
expenses."
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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Miss Young was a teacher at Scarritt?
- THELMA STEVENS:
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Yes, Miss Young was a professor at Scarritt from
from 1924 until she retired around '58. And she was my very favorite
professor. And so we made the arrangements, I got on the train and went
to Hampton. Stayed about three days. Was very excited by it. I got the
job, and came back. I'd been back one day, and the contract was
scheduled to come any day. I had to sign the contract, but they were
mailing it to me. And Mrs. Downs called me in. She was the one who told
me how sorry she was. She called me and said, "Would you come down to my
office?" I said, "Yes." She had a way about her, you know, you didn't
tell her no. You just went. She was very bossy. And so I went down to
her office, sat down at her desk, and in her abrupt, gruff voice, she
said, "Miss Stevens, I hear you got a job." And I said, "Yes, Mrs.
Downs. I have a job. I've been to Hampton and I'm going to teach at
Hampton next year." And she said, "Well, . . . " she said, "I think the
church needs you." And I said, "Well, Mrs. Downs, I thought you told me
the church didn't have any place for me." She said, "Well, I've changed
my mind. We've got a job for you, and we want you to go in August. And I
said, "Where is that?" And she said, "Augusta, Georgia." And said,
"We've got $75,000 in reserve. We want you to go and make a study for a
year of that whole community, and then recommend to us what kind of new
building facilities we need. We're going to put
$75,000 into a new building." Now, this was back in '28. And so I can't
tell you how I felt, because I wanted . . . by that time, see, I was
sick because the church wouldn't have me. I wasn't worried about my
health. I was worried because the church wouldn't take me. And then when
she said they would, then I said, "But, Mrs. Downs, I promised Hampton."
And she said, "Well, have you signed the contract?" And I said, "No."
And she said, "Well, why don't you go and send a wire to Mr.
and ask him if he would release you." She helped
me word a wire. So I sent it to Mr. and
explained it to him, and so I got released. And I went to Augusta,
Georgia and they built a center for blacks, and I worked there for
eleven years until I came on this job (in 1940) and retired from it.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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And that's what the settlement house . . .
- THELMA STEVENS:
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Yes, community center, was what we liked to call it. it is the same thing
as a settlement house, except I think it's . . . at least, my concept of
what we did was not like my concept of what people used to do in
settlement houses.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
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How was it different? What kind of things did you do . . . ?
- THELMA STEVENS:
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Well, you see, I always thought of settlement houses, the ones I read
about and studied about, as more or less a charity operation to a great
degree. By charity I mean you had just a bunch of poverty ridden people,
for whom you're providing some of the necessities of life and some of
the activities that were important. But you didn't have a long term
leadership development process. It was not my concept of development, of
community development. I'm talking about community development, not just
community organization.
And to me a community center doesn't have the same connotation in the
minds of people in the community, as I thought . . . as I used to think
- maybe I didn't understand the settlement houses. I had read a lot
about them. But anyway, it was called a community center. It was, I
suppose, in a way, most of them were the same things that the settlement
houses were, but ours was a little different.