Finding Fellowship

[Piano music] Funding for Finding Fellowship is provided by... And by the following... [Gospel Music] ♪ Something about the Lord, whoa yeah ♪ ♪ Something about the Lord, do you believe ♪ ♪ Something about the Lord, that's mighty fine, mighty fine, ♪ ♪ I know there's something about the Lord, ♪ ♪ that's mighty fine, mm mm.

♪ ♪ I promised him that I, would serve him till I die ♪ ♪ I know there's something about the Lord, that's mighty fine ♪ - My name is Jason Green.

My two sisters and I grew up in this house in what was once called Quince Orchard, Maryland.

When we were younger our dad worked... a lot.

I remember waking up in the morning and he was often already gone but I was guaranteed to see my dad at church on Sunday morning, delivering these poetic sermons, calling on all of us to love our neighbors as we loved ourselves and be part of something bigger.

[Rock Music] JASON GREEN: You see it was a lesson he'd learned decades before.

In 1968 the country was on fire, it seemed no matter the issue the country was divided.

And in the midst of all that division the congregants of Pleasant View, our small family church in Quince Orchard, gathered one evening to break bread and discuss a potential merger with two local white congregations just as racial tensions shocked the nation.

[rock music continues] REV.

GERARD GREEN: There came the knock on the door from the pastor who had been assigned to the three churches that were trying to merge and the pastor said that he'd been listening to the radio and received word that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot.

[singing] NEWSCASTER: Dr. King was shot and fatally wounded as he strolled alone onto the balcony of his hotel.

He died approximately one hour after being shot in the emergency room of St. Joseph's hospital.

REV.

GERARD GREEN: There was silence that came across the room.

And then the pastor, who happened to be white, called us together in prayer.

And I was just a little seventeen-year old who wanted to see what was going on, so I kept my eyes open and I watched the pastor as tears trickled down his cheeks.

And in that moment, I realized that Dr. King's death wasn't about black folk or white folk, it was about relationships between human beings and how we're able to be in relationships and that we need to be able to reconcile, we need to be able to move forward.

[crowd cheering] SEN. DICK DURBIN: From the state of Illinois, Barack Obama.

[upbeat music] JASON GREEN: In 2004 I sat in the audience of the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, I thought the nation was moving forward, that King's dream was coming to life as Barack Obama preached this sermon about reconciliation and being part of something bigger.

BARACK OBAMA: It is that fundamental belief.

I am my brother's keeper.

I am my sister's keeper.

That makes this country work.

It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.

[Rock music] JASON GREEN: But we were wrong.

We were right to be hopeful about America, but we were wrong to assume the fight for equality and justice were somehow over just because he got elected.

NEWSCASTER: Virginia's governor declared a state of emergency in Charlottesville today as white nationalists clashed... JASON GREEN: I remember talking to my then 98-year old grandmother after the Charlottesville protest turned deadly and she reminded me that though things felt divided, we had come a long way, and our job now is to remain vigilant.

IDA PEARL GREEN: We have to keep working and praying and not give up because things are not going our way.

And we have that faith, that things will... come our way.

It takes a long time sometimes, but I believe that we will, we will get through this.

[piano music] REV.

GERARD GREEN: We gather this day for our soul's hunger for home.

I often say everyone should have a home.

But what happens when that location no longer exists.

My family's hometown of Quince Orchard doesn't appear on the map anymore and though that still hurts, I realize what I value most is how it made me feel.

The community of family and neighbors that lifted me up when I was tired, told me that I belonged.

JASON GREEN: The name Quince Orchard dates back to an 800 acre land patent originally granted to Henry Claggett in the 1760's.

The town was never incorporated and was often considered part of neighboring Darnestown or Gaithersburg.

It was really a web of small farms, owned by blacks and whites.

It was segregated but economically dependent.

And to understand the story you must understand the people and the places that called this small community home.

IDA PEARL GREEN: I am Ida Pearl Green.

Better known as Pearl.

I was born June 18th, 1918 in Quince Orchard, Maryland.

16020 Riffleford Road.

I am the oldest of eight children.

Five boys and three girls, there's eight of us.

[piano music] REV.

GREEN: Quince Orchard, I don't want to say it's unique, but it was made up of whites and blacks.

We, to some degree operated independently of one another but there were times when we were somewhat dependent on one another.

MELVIN JOPPY JR.: We were a close-knit community.

The majority of families that lived on Quince Orchard Road were African Americans.

We had maybe three or four, I would say, white families there at the time.

ROBERTA HALLMAN: People knew each other, they looked out for each other's children.

If you did anything wrong, well your parents already knew before you got home.

VIRGINIA BLAIR: My mother was raised in Quince Orchard.

This is my grandmother and grandfather and that's at the house.

THOMPKINS HALLMAN: There was a couple that lived on the opposite side of where we lived.

They had two little boys.

Two white boys.

They used to come to the house and play with my younger brothers and around lunch time my mother would sit them down and feed them.

And it raised questions in my head because when they got older, they'd go to the white school and we'd go to the black school.

That sounded kind of crazy to me.

ESTHER LYONS: We had a bucket that we used at night and then we had to go out and dump that into the toilet the next day.

They were the good, good days yeah.

(laughs) REV.

GREEN: Some would say that we were kinda poor, but I never got the sense of being poor.

I remember butchering.

That was a time when the community would come together.

The food was good, but what was most important was the comradery the fellowship that was taking place around that.

ADDISON GRAHAM: Quince Orchard was just a drive through country town.

Donald Snyder had that old store there.

All cluttered up.

There was only one way in one way out.

[piano music] SHAUN CURTIS: Snyder's Store really was the center of town.

All the old timers say they really used to hang out there that was their night and day, after school.

That's where they'd go.

Candy, ice cream, soda, everything.

REV.

GREEN: It was at the intersection of Quince Orchard Road and Route 28.

I remember Dad taking us to, on Halloween.

HALLMAN: He'd say 'here have a piece of candy" and so forth.

We thought he was our real friend.

BLAIR: We used to steal eggs and go out and go to Don Snyder's store and give him an egg for a piece of candy.

We used to spend many an afternoon sitting up there on an old telephone pole and we'd sit there and eat that candy.

We had to do something on Sunday afternoons.

(laughter) JASON GREEN: Though Donald Snyder's store might be full on Sunday afternoons, Sunday mornings in Quince Orchard were reserved for church.

This small rural community was somehow home to three Methodist churches.

One Black.

Two White.

The White churches had divided generations earlier over the issue of slavery.

REV.

GREEN: So within 3 miles you had these three congregations, McDonald Chapel, Pleasant View and Hunting Hill.

REV.

GLENN YOUNG: Well Hunting Hill was a Methodist Protestant church and they were formed in the 1820's.

McDonald Chapel was Methodist Episcopal South and they split in the 1840's over the civil war, about the issue of slavery.

And, the African American church was in a completely different conference.

REV.

GREEN: Three years after the end of the civil war, 1868, three African American men had the foresight to purchase three acres of land from a white couple for the establishment of a house of worship and place of education for the African Americans within the Quince Orchard community.

M. JOPPY JR.: This is where I was taught my values coming up as a kid.

This is the place where I developed a relationship with my God.

This church provided that environment to be encouraged and motivated regardless of our color.

REV.

DOUG HARTON: I graduated from seminary in 1965 and was appointed by the Bishop of the Methodist church in that area to be pastor of two Methodist churches: Hunting Hill Methodist Church and McDonald Chapel Methodist Church.

The services at both Hunting Hill and McDonald were identical with the exception of the pianist that played when we were singing.

I don't remember which one was better, but one needed a few more lessons.

ESTHER LYONS: We went to church and we had Sunday school and then we had the church service.

I grew up with sister Pearl playing the piano.

But when Pearl stopped playing the piano, she said "Esther, you will now play the piano" and at that time there was "No, I won't".

You didn't do that no, and I started to play the piano at Pleasant View.

BLAIR: I remember when we were kids we got up and we went to church every Sunday.

My mother and father did and we went whether you liked it or not.

And I remember one minister we had and he'd make us children sit up front and he'd preach and he'd preach and all of a sudden he'd stop and look at you and he'd say, Virginia, did you understand that?

Sometimes your mind would be so far off you didn't know what in the world he was saying.

But he was like that.

EDYTHE JOPPY: This little church was the biggest church in my life.

This is the church where I taught Sunday School.

This is the church where I was in the junior choir.

This was home.

KENNY JOHNSON: We came out to Quince Orchard every Sunday for church.

At that time McDonald Chapel was about 80% family and then rest of them knew the family for years and years and so they were like the adopted family.

My first taste of a strong culture is what it amounts to because everything was involved in the church.

DR. CHERYL LAROCHE: People misunderstand the church and the Black church in particular as just being the place for the spiritual home.

The religious home.

But it was so much more than that.

JOSHUA DUBOIS: They are the places where people come for psychological, emotional and spiritual healing.

These are the places we come to be restored, rejuvenated, and set free from the things that are holding us back.

[mellow piano music] JASON GREEN: And I started to hear all these stories about visiting Donald Snyder's store, fellowshipping with neighbors and friends over food, worshipping at church and I started to forget that these folks were living in a segregated society, but it was the talk of segregated school that brought me back to reality.

REV.

GREEN: In 1868 my great great grandfather Gary Green and two other men, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Ricks purchased land on that same site for the education of the African American students within the community.

[piano music continues] JASON GREEN: As we look through our history we've always known, we've been told Gary Green meets Matilda Green in Quince Orchard but it struck me that I've never heard about slavery.

DR. KISHA DAVIS: I do remember asking grandma one time if there was ever slavery in this area or if we were slaves and she said "well there wasn't any slavery in this area".

I don't think that she was lying to me about whether or not there was slavery.

If there is or was a slavery story in our family, it was never told to her.

IDA PEARL GREEN: We did not talk about slavery.

And so therefore I don't know whether my parents, my grandparents were slaves or not.

I think it was too hard to talk about.

[choir singing] JASON GREEN: Now I was taught that slavery existed in a time long ago in a land far away, but we started doing our research and with the help of a local historian we learned that not only did slavery exist right here in this part of Maryland, but that it existed much closer than any of us expected.

[choir singing] [talk in background] TONY COHEN: First of all, thanks for having me here and Jason has been doing a lot of research.

I pitched in here and there.

I have some documents that I think that might help branch out your family tree.

DR. DAVIS: So the title of the document says "Record of Slaves in Montgomery County" and under Sam Higgins the first name is Matilda Green.

It says "Female, age 28".

Then it says Jane, Jane, Ned, Robert, Eldridge, Henry, and then a Douglas Mason.

[dramatic musical build] COHEN: And that's for Samuel Higgins.

The document you're holding is a slave census.

If you will read that document and tell us what it is.

REV.

GREEN: It says Record of slaves in Montgomery County.

It says name of owner: John H. Higgins.

Name of slave: Gary Green.

Male.

33.

COHEN: Term of servitude: For life.

REV.

GREEN: Wow.

COHEN: For Life.

RITA GREEN: Wow.

REV.

GREEN: For so long Gary Green was a mystery where he came from and to some degree he still is, but I think the tears came more because I'm not lost anymore.

I have a sense of a beginning.

JASON GREEN: I think there was a moment of shame.

You know, not understanding this institution.

Knowing but not wanting my ancestors to have had to endure an institution like that.

Though there is a real sense, in a true contradiction of emotions, some pride, some natural pride of seeing your ancestor's name in print even if that print is a slave record.

[soulful piano music] DR. DAVIS: You know I think I pull a lot of strength in knowing the stories from right after slavery.

There's a lot of different courses that they could've taken, they could've scattered throughout, they could've left the area, but they stayed here and decided to build a future for their own family and for the community.

JASON GREEN: A few years after the abolition of slavery in the 1870 census I saw Gary and Matilda were still living near the Samuel Higgins farm.

And I understood why they poured themselves into Pleasant View because this church and this schoolhouse laid the foundation for a new future.

HALLMAN: Education was something that was stressed.

We had excellent teachers and they actually showed an interest in the children.

They knew not only the children but they also knew the families.

So, they really felt a part of the community.

WILLIE RIDGLEY: We had 7 grades in one room.

First grade was to the left of the school.

Seventh grade was the last grade over to the right.

HALLMAN: It was very difficult for my parents to explain how is it that you can have playmates and play with them but when it came time to go to school you went to your segregated school.

THOMPKINS HALLMAN: I remember the pot belly stove.

The little, small desks.

And sharing books, books that often had missing pages.

W. RIDGLEY: Books would come into us with pages torn out and had names all through them: nigger, clown, crow.

It made you feel very unsettled.

It made me feel that I wasn't equal.

IDA PEARL GREEN: Well.

It was better than having nothing.

The teachers never let that be an excuse for us not learning.

NINA CLARKE: We were tough.

We went through a lot of bad things, but they wanted to keep us back.

They had that old slave stuff and we weren't supposed to be anything but somebody dumb and stupid, but we fought back.

W. RIDGLEY: Something had to be done.

I didn't know what at the time was gonna be done but we knew something had to be done.

[children singing] JASON GREEN: Black students were proud and strived for academic excellence but separate was not equal and something needed to be done.

Brown v. The Board of Education delivered the much-anticipated desegregation of public schools but it brought with it much uncertainty for the Black community.

[children talking and singing] DR. SONYA HORSFORD: The Black community wanting to end this segregated system because as Kenneth and Mamie Clark argue in the Brown case psychologically it did damage to the Black students because it placed on them this badge of inferiority.

Some of the unintended consequences, some would argue intended, but unintended consequences of desegregation was the dismantling of the community.

REV.

GREEN: In fifth grade things changed.

Schools were integrated and getting on the bus were some familiar faces.

Folks who lived at the end of the road who happened to be white.

M. JOPPY JR.: The only concerns or apprehensions and questions I think I had at the time was how would I be received or perceived by white children?

What they would think about Black people, just being together learning, period.

REV.

GREEN: There was a sense of being alone.

I was looking around for some of my classmates and often found that I was the only Black student in the classroom.

In some ways feeling as though, I was not a part of the Black community that I'd been raised in, that had nurtured me, that I was, in some ways, losing that.

M. JOPPY JR.: I think it was the first time that I was called a nigger by a white person, in fifth grade.

It was my turn to be at bat and the guy just wanted to butt in line and go ahead of me.

And when I called him out on it, he said something, "you nigger" and hit me on the leg with the bat.

I think I kinda internalized that what he was saying was true.

I equated that word nigger with being less than, not good enough.

JASON GREEN: I knew that dad and cousin Melvin went to the same elementary school that Kisha and I did.

I just didn't know that they were a part of the first integrated class, or that despite being the same age, from the same family and the same community how isolating and difficult that experience could still be.

Given how hard it was to integrate our schools I can almost understand why we stopped there.

DR. HORSFORD: I define desegregation and integration differently.

We use the terms interchangeably but I think there's an important distinction in that desegregation is really just the mixing of bodies, but integration is based on perfect social equality.

[crowd cheering] It's part of Dr. King's beloved community and when he talked about integration and desegregation he mentioned that desegregation was physical proximity without spiritual affinity.

And so, I definitely think it translates into our faith community.

[Soloist singing "We shall overcome"] DUBOIS: Dr. King's Beloved Community was a vision of how we could function together as a society.

Where, even if we disagreed, we were still uniting with one another on the basis of our shared humanity and a shared love for our fellow man no matter their race, their class, their gender, their sexual orientation, where we were connected heart to heart and soul to soul first and foremost and made what we had in common more important than what divided us.

[young people in crowd clapping and chanting] REV.

GREEN: The culture in which I'd grown up in those first four or five years had changed we kids, Black kids and white kids, were interacting with one another in schools, we were going to dances together and we were in the midst or on the cusp of civil rights and changes taking place within society.

And yet, the reality was that the place that was segregated was the church.

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I think it is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies that 11 o'clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours if not the most segregated hours in Christian America.

BISHOP MATTHEWS: Dr. King as we know was a visionary and, unfortunately, I think that remains one of our challenges even today.

I would say, in our denomination probably 85% of our churches remain segregated.

It's not intentional.

But they remain either all White, or Black, or Hispanic or Korean.

The reason why you don't have many churches merging in our denomination is that we have a lot of family churches.

Because their families started this church.

"This is my uncle's pew, my mother's pew" They don't want to give it up.

JASON GREEN: In 1968 Quince Orchard was a microcosm of America represented by the breadth of these three Methodist churches.

One Black, two white, one northern, one southern.

As each struggled with its bleak financial future, segregation threatened the future of all three small Methodist churches.

I. PEARL GREEN: In 1968, we were thinking that we could not make it by ourselves in our church because the membership is dwindling and so at that time we only had a part-time minister.

HALLMAN: Actually, we had taken an inventory of the potential growth of pleasant view.

That wasn't very promising.

LYONS: My brother Melvin was one of the ones that was instrumental in saying "You have got to realize that you cannot carry this church on by yourself."

ESTHER LYONS: We had so many dinners.

We had a dinner I think every week.

That's how we raised our money.

But the same people came to the dinner.

The same people brought the dinner.

The same people furnished the food for the dinner.

I. PEARL GREEN: McDonald Chapel and Hunting Hill was almost walking distance from us.

So why should we have three little churches striving to get along when we could all come together, one church, and have the minister?

REV.

HARTON: Well, I was initially pastor of just McDonald's Chapel and Hunting Hill.

Their pastor at Pleasant View came from clear on the other side of Gaithersburg.

He and I were talking and I said "Well maybe I should become pastor of Pleasant View".

He said go do it.

So, I began to explore that possibility and I became the pastor of all three churches.

M. JOPPY JR.: It wasn't like I didn't have any interaction with white people back then.

It's just that we just never went to school together or church together.

E. JOPPY: I had feelings about it.

I didn't want to lose- this was mine, this was home, this was all I'd known since a kid.

I didn't want to go anywhere else and be somebody else's whatever.

I wanted to stay here and let this be my church until death do I part.

DUBOIS: People's identities are really wrapped up in a lot of ways in a church.

And the question then emerges, will I have that space anymore.

Not just the physical space where I'm sitting on but the space in this ecosystem that is the church.

And that feels threatening to some people.

REV.

GREEN: My dad's grandfather had been one of the folks who put up the funds to purchase this land.

So he was very vested in this church and in this property.

The question that was part of his mind was "If we do this, what happens if it doesn't work."

J.

GREEN: On the evening of April 4,1968, the members of Pleasant View gathered for a dinner to discuss their uncertain future.

DR. DAVIS: Do they stay as a small church and potentially cease to exist or do they merge with two other white churches and lose some of the independence and autonomy that they've had as this small church.

We thought it would be interesting to bring some of those members back together to discuss and reflect on what that night was like for them.

[organ music] REV.

ESTHER HOLIMON: We give you thanks for the meaning and the purpose of this gathering as we reflect on the same that happened so many years ago.

I. PEARL GREEN: Each church could not afford a minister.

We had to be with another church.

And the congregation was just dwindling.

Children were growing up and they got jobs and they moved close to where they worked.

So neither of the other churches had enough of a congregation to continue keeping the church.

REV.

GREEN: Discussions were taking place about whether or not there was actually going to be a transfer of membership from Pleasant View, and I remember that having gone to schools where integration had taken place, I was kind of in favor of that transition taking place.

And yet that put me at odds with my dad.

DR. DAVIS: The room was tense as you can imagine.

Really separating families.

I know my father and his father had a difference of opinion on whether or not the merger should take place or not.

REV.

GREEN: That particular day I remember we had eaten a meal here and Melvin and Douglas Horton, who was the pastor of the congregation, they were in the car, and they were listening to the radio and they came in and they told us that they heard on the news that Martin Luther King had been shot.

REV.

HARTON: Dr. Martin Luther King Junior had been assassinated, on the radio LYONS: We just forgot about the dinner.

We just broke down praying.

And I think that was the best thing that anyone could do.

REV.

GREEN: In that moment I remember all of us gathering around the flag pole and Rev.

Horton having a word of prayer.

[crowd singing softly "We Shall Overcome"] And as he prayed, I didn't close my eyes, I wanted to watch him.

I noticed there was a tear that was trickling down his cheek.

Reverend Horton was white and all the others in that circle were Black.

And what moved me was there was this white man who was moved by the death of this Black man.

And it said to me that Dr. King's death was about more than just rights for Black folk, he was about human rights.

And that what Pleasant View was about was the moving in the direction that was a fulfillment of his dream.

DR. DAVIS: At that point the meeting dissolved there was no vote taken at that point.

They couldn't then bring themselves together to make such a big decision in the light of such a big event.

But they did still come back together.

HALLMAN: Yes, we had a vote, that was the secret vote and I cannot tell you who voted for it and who voted against it.

But it was a majority vote that wanted it to happen.

All three congregations came together in one setting and cast the vote.

J.

GREEN: Did you want the merger to happen?

I. PEARL GREEN: On the Sunday morning of September, I think it was the fourth Sunday of September, 1968.

I remember very clearly, we went up to join the church and we sat in their services.

We enjoyed their services.

When the doors opened for us to come to join the church we walked up to join.

REV.

GREEN: Those three churches, two white and one Black, decided to reconcile, to come together and to forge a new future.

Create something different not just for themselves but for their children and generations to follow.

REV.

HARTON: We certainly needed examples of African Americans and White Americans living together, working together, worshipping together.

I didn't have any question about whether it should happen.

J.

GREEN: It's so hard for me to believe that, while riots erupted and cities burned, these three small churches decided to merge and yet the hardest decision wasn't to come together.

It was the decision to stay together.

When Hunting Hill, McDowell Chapel, and Pleasant View all came together they decided to build a new building and take on a new name: Fairhaven.

You see, when the apostle Paul was traveling to Rome he and his crew encountered rough seas, they took refuge at the port of Fairhaven.

So, Fairhaven's an appropriate name, because it wasn't all smooth sailing.

REV.

HARTON: There were some threats of physical harm to myself and family and there was a few weeks where Sam and other members of the congregation kept watch at the parsonage at night just to make sure that somebody didn't come and shoot the place up.

RIDGLEY: When the merger came they had police up there, they thought something might happen.

HOWARD: McDonald Chapel lost members and Hunting Hill lost members.

LYONS: Pleasant View lost people.

Each one of the other churches lost people because they did not want to integrate.

They wanted to stay in an all Black or all white congregation.

M. JOPPY JR.: I did not feel comfortable attending church with white people.

I felt more comfortable being in a church with my people, Black people.

REV.

HARTON: There were people in the white congregations that were very unhappy with me and my pushiness in this issue so they asked the Bishop to replace me.

REV.

YOUNG: You know I called up one guy one time and he didn't want anything to do with this church.

He was on the roles, "well I'm not going to put up with those people."

He said take me off the list.

I said "Yeah, alright fine."

REV.

GREEN: Part of the challenge that my dad faced in terms of this merger, was whether or not the gifts that he had would be valued.

Within the Black church, there was a certain status that he had as a trustee, as a treasurer.

And there was a question about whether or not he would be able to do those things when there was a merger.

I. PEARL GREEN: My parents may have felt sad because they were leaving the church where their parents had built for us.

But they never showed us that they were sad.

They went along with us.

SAM ADAMS: Well, when we first got together, there was not a lot of hugging and hand shaking and kissing like there normally is in church.

It was still like two separate congregations it was like here comes one group here comes another.

They didn't sit like this they sat like this.

eventually they started to merge.

BISHOP MATTHEWS: My experience has been mergers in most cases don't work.

History has shown that to us to a large extent.

Where it has worked, it has worked well.

In most of our cases what it has meant is the larger taking in the smaller and what tends to happen is the traditions, the history, the culture gets absorbed.

I. PEARL GREEN: Maybe it's because we were into the church we went in not taking over, we wanted to be a part of it.

We didn't take their jobs from them.

I think that's probably what they thought we were going to do.

No, we wanted to work with them.

HALLMAN: I looked and saw all the whites on this side and all the blacks on this side, and then we had our handful of whites and blacks who said "we'll go over it and we'll sit in between."

ANITA KOWALSKI: I felt like I wanted to balance it out.

If there were many Black members on the left, I sat on the left.

I wanted it to be integrated.

J.

GREEN: I was so moved by their intentionality.

In the face of open hostility these dedicated members were committed to something bigger.

Willing to commit themselves to small defiant acts that actually gave Fairhaven a chance for survival.

I. PEARL GREEN: When we went to Fairhaven, some of the things that we did at Pleasant View we carried to Fairhaven.

[Royal Harmonizers singing] REV.

YOUNG: When I got into it I had African American pastors come as often as possible, the Royal Harmonizers who I grew to love and I went to their concerts and really appreciated, this spiritual music that they were giving.

KOWALSKI: My friend Alma Ridgley she wanted a gospel choir and that was a dream that she had.

A. RIDGLEY: The hymns sounded different.

I wanted to hear a hymn relating to me.

Relating to what I knew in the church.

It had to be some kind of spirit to it that I didn't seem to get at Fairhaven in some of the hymns, most of the hymns that were sang.

RITA GREEN: That's why I worked with Ms. Alma Ridgley to start a gospel choir.

We had a meeting one time I remember in Esther's basement to see how we could address the needs of the African American community of Fairhaven and out of that meeting came the thought of "Why don't we start a gospel choir?"

LYONS: The first person to join the gospel choir was, I believe, Bill Phillips.

Bill Phillips.

Dr. Phillips.

He said "I can sing Gospel just like anybody else."

[choir singing] ♪ We have a ship sailing over the storm ♪ BILL PHILLIPS: When I came to Fairhaven I was hearing a different kind of music than what I grew up with.

But at the same time what I didn't realize was that was a pale shadow of the kind of music that had been so much a part of Pleasant View, a Black church, before the merger.

To me it was just an opportunity I couldn't miss.

This was something I could really be a part of something that I was really feeling drawing me in.

REV.

YOUNG: When I got to Fairhaven I began to see that the community was changing quite a bit.

And we were actually the beginning of what was coming.

There was gonna be a lot more change and a lot more houses built and a lot more other things that were going to happen.

REV.

GREEN: I also remember the community changing when Donald Snyder was shot.

SHAUN CURTIS: This guy from Silver Spring thought Donald Snyder was wealthy but he was all land rich.

So he went and robbed him, thinking there was a safe somewhere in there with all this cash, and shot him in the head.

SHAUN CURTIS: From my history, from my research it kind of signified the end of Quince Orchard.

I mean it was like the churches merged, they shut this down it became a shopping center.

M. JOPPY JR.: It left a void there.

It left a void.

So, it kinda became commercialized, or modernized per se.

REV.

GREEN: For me that's when the community started to change.

That's when more people started coming into the community, that's when, the town houses were being built, that's when 28 was starting to be wider.

Off of Quince Orchard was another dirt road which is now known as Fellowship Lane.

DR. DAVIS: Before Fellowship Lane was paved my brother and I would go out and try and make the road straight.

REV.

YOUNG: I had been down Fellowship Lane and it was a bad road and I can't imagine during the snow or the rain what it must have been like.

So anyway, your grandfather said look we are going to testify in front of the county council.

And we want to get this place paved, would you come and participate.

And I said "Well of course."

DR. DAVIS: When it did finally get paved and we had a big ceremony and my brownie troop got to hold the colors, the flags, on that day when we had the ribbon cutting ceremony for the street.

REV.

GREEN: Question went around and around in terms of what name should be given to that road and Reverend Talley who lived at the end of the road she thought that the name of that dirt road should be called Fellowship Lane because of how the people who lived on that lane came together in fellowship with one another; were mutually supportive of one another.

JASON GREEN: Fellowship was the perfect name for this little lane in our little community, but as more people moved in as it transitioned from rural to suburban everyone had to wrestle with that change and the tensions of progress.

A. RIDGLEY: We lived in Quince Orchard.

I remember they were thinking about naming... the high school Potomac Valley.

BLAIR: Well I thought it was terrible (laughs) because to me I'd only known Quince Orchard and to me I couldn't see Quince Orchard being North Potomac.

A. RIDGLEY: We had a meeting went to Ridgeview and protested.

We made our voices known that we wanted the school named not Potomac Valley.

We wanted it named Quince Orchard.

[marching band playing] I. PEARL GREEN: So we fought and we won that, so it's called Quince Orchard High School.

A. RIDGLEY: That was one where I know the protests really worked.

Everybody together can change things.

It was a change for the good.

[upbeat piano music] I. PEARL GREEN: Now they turned around and names the area North Potomac.

REV.

GREEN: In some ways the change was good, because there were more opportunities, but the sense of community, was kind of lost.

[wistful music] REV.

GERARD GREEN: McDonald Chapel and Hunting Hill are no longer standing.

They sold those properties.

Where McDonald Chapel used to be there is now a bank and where Hunting Hill used to be there is a Kentucky Fried Chicken and several other buildings.

Of the three the one that is still standing is Pleasant View.

And it's important that one of those three sites still exists because there's an important story that needs to be told and we have a responsibility to to make certain that it continues.

EILEEN MCGUCKIAN: This is a letter from the trustees of the Pleasant View Historical Association.

"Dear Friend, it is with pride and pleasure that we can announce that the Historic Preservation Commission has added the Pleasant View Church site to the Master Plan for historic preservation.

It will help document the accomplishments of our forefathers and will remain as a legacy for our children and our children's children.

But there is still much work to be done."

LYONS: We did sacrifice a lot.

We gave up our membership down there, although we kept the Church and the parish house and that was one of the things that we said that we were going to keep.

It was so seldom that black people had something that they could call their own, we weren't about to give it up.

[piano music] M. JOPPY JR.: Being a trustee is so important.

It helps me to continue, I guess, the good work of the legacy that our ancestors started and helps to take it to the next level to make sure this property is too precious to lose, man.

I figure that this is something I can really do in my generation I felt a sense of duty to be a trustee to carry on the good works that our ancestors started.

M. JOPPY JR.: Why do I come here.

It's peaceful it's inspiring.

It reminds me where I come from and where I'm headed and it gives me an opportunity also to stay in touch with my family's spirit.

I know they're still watching over me looking out for me care about me.

It's your blood son, part of your DNA is out here, your great grandparents.

Lord I lift my arms to thee and all the help I know if I take the love for me tell me where, where else I would go.

J.

GREEN: Pleasant View and the merger of the three churches is obviously central to Fairhaven's beginning but it turns out that there's more to Fairhaven's foundation story.

DR. MELISSA BLAIR: What we learned when we dug into the research to find out more about where Fairhaven is now, we searched through the land records and went backwards in time to determine the ownership of this property.

Right now it's about 4 or 5 acres, as we move back in time we learned that it was part of a much larger farm property.

And as we got back into the 19th century what we learned and even prior to the civil war, this farm was owned at one point by Samuel and Eliza Higgins.

The Higgins' owned Matilda Green and her children.

This is the farm.

The farm where she lived, where she toiled, where she attempted to carve out a life in the constraints of being enslaved.

And that happened, not at some random place, that happened here.

REV.

ESTHER HOLIMON: That's amazing!

That is amazing.

DR. BLAIR: And you can see those black dots along there.

That's the house and outbuildings various outbuildings, this is the farm lane.

And right here is where the church site is.

REV.

HOLIMON: When you walk into this church on Sunday morning there's not just one color there are many different colors.

And, I believe that that is part of the redemption process.

J.

GREEN: I know exactly what pastor Holimon means.

Learning that my great great grandparents were enslaved confirmed something that I didn't know quite how to confront, but it can only be divine that the descendants of those former slaves and former slave owners picked this place to call home.

I. PEARL GREEN: When we first mentioned about homecoming they said "Homecoming?

That's for baseball teams or football teams, like that they have a homecoming."

I said, "No, we have a homecoming when we invite all the people who once belonged to Pleasant View."

They would come home that Sunday and we would have sermons and we would have singing and we would just have a wonderful time together.

[piano being played] DR. PHILLIPS: We walked into this church 37 years ago.

It was Percy Pollard was the first one that greeted me.

Percy, you've changed a little bit, so have I.

[laughs] [piano in the background] So many lovely old friends here, it warms my heart so much, we celebrate our history and we look forward to the future.

I was at choir practice, and I walked down to Rev.

Esther's office.

Now Reverend Esther hadn't been with us for very long, but there was something about her that we just took her into our hearts immediately, and I sat down in her office and I said you've talked about this about how the diversity that we have provides a kind of welcoming environment.

She said "Yeah."

I said, "Well my wife just told me about this family that came in.

I don't think you met them.

White parents, four adopted Black children.

What a great place for them to be here in Fairhaven."

She said "Absolutely, this is a wonderful place for a family like that."

REESE SCHEER: We're not the white picket fence family walking through the doors.

We're a whole new generation of family and who is going to be receptive to that especially coming from a religious view.

I'm the father of four children.

1 daughter.

3 sons.

Amaya being 11, Tristan our youngest who is 6 now, and then we have McKai and Grayson are both 8.

[congregation singing] DR. PHILLIPS: And I said, "There's just one problem" and her face fell and she said "Well what do you mean?"

I said, "Both of the parents are guys."

She said, "That's not a problem."

I went over and I hugged her because I didn't know for sure because she hadn't been here that long how she was going to react.

ROB SCHEER: Two years ago today it was homecoming that my family we were coming to visit and I said I hope this is the one in my post.

It's been two years.

I can't thank you enough, it's good to be home.

[clapping] R. SCHEER: The warmth that we felt when we walked into that church that first Sunday was a feeling that is so hard to describe.

I couldn't wait for the next Sunday.

Do you remember who was speaking that day?

REV.

GREEN: We gather this day for our soul's hunger for home.

And I often say, "everyone should have a home."

But what happens when that location no longer exists.

My family's hometown of Quince Orchard doesn't appear on the map anymore and though that still hurts I realize what I value most is how it made me feel.

You see our story isn't one of three buildings coming together, three buildings didn't merge, people did, descendants of former slaves and former slave owners.

I know that our country feels divided now but we were pretty divided back in 1968 as I recall and ours is a legacy of the possible that demands that we answer the question what will we do for those who don't look like us, who don't pray like us, who don't love like us.

My 99 year old mother often says "Doers Do", so Fairhaven what are you prepared to do?

REV.

GREEN: Today Jason and I would like to share a story of our past that has brought us here today, and will hopefully give us direction as we leave this place.

You see we both call this community home and so our story begins... [applause] [Singing "This Little Light of Mine"] ♪ This little light of mine ♪ ♪ I'm going to let it shine ♪ ♪ Oh, this little light of mine ♪ ♪ I'm going to let it shine, ♪ ♪ This little light of mine ♪ ♪ I'm going to let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, yeah... ♪ ♪ In my neighbor's home I'm going to let it shine ♪ ♪ In my neighbor's home I'm going to let it shine ♪ ♪ In my neighbor's home I'm going to let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, yeah... ♪ ♪ We have the light of freedom, ♪ ♪ We're going to let it shine ♪ ♪ We got the light of freedom, ♪ ♪ We're going to let it shine ♪ ♪ We got the light of freedom, ♪ ♪ We're going to let it shine ♪ ♪ Let it shine, let it shine let it shine ♪ [applause] [Singing "Singing in the Christian Band"] ♪ Oh heavenly father, heavenly father, ♪ ♪ you know my heart, know my heart ♪ ♪ I'm looking for an answer, looking for an answer ♪ ♪ Help me do my part, do my part ♪ ♪ The further I go, further I go ♪ ♪ I want the world to know, world to know ♪ ♪ Sending on up some timber, sending up my timber ♪ ♪ so the Lord can remember, so the Lord can remember ♪ ♪ When I'm done, now tell me Lord, ♪ ♪ I want to be able, I want to be able, ♪ ♪ Able to take my stand, to take my stand ♪ ♪ singing in the Christian band, singing in the Christian band ♪ ♪ The further I go, the further I go ♪ ♪ I want the world to know, world to know ♪ ♪ Sending the lord up some timber, sending up my timber ♪ ♪ so the Lord can remember, so the Lord can remember ♪ ♪ Yes, I know, yes, I know, ♪ ♪ Yes I'm singing in the Christian band ♪ ♪ No, I never been to heaven, take my stand ♪ [Piano music] Funding for Finding Fellowship is provided by... And by the following...