Show notes to follow:

Welcome to the Legacy of our African American Lives podcast, where our stories

become oral histories created to uplift, empower, and embrace the next generation.

Hi, my name is Tan Iby and I am a G'S bin Legacy author, educator, and I am your.

I say this every week, but I am so excited about today's special guests.

When you think about storytelling and you think about the African

American experience, you cannot have those thoughts without thinking

about going to church every Sunday.

One of the highlights is the storytelling that you are bound

to have coming from the pulpit.

I think preachers are spectacular in their craft.

Grabbing you and making you come along with them as they tell you

the stories through the Bible, and then make connections to what we

are living and going through today.

And today's guest, Reverend Charlie Stallworth, is one of the best to do it.

So welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much.

You making such a generous introduction.

I'm honored that you would have me on with you.

I've had the privilege of sitting in the pews at East End.

I enjoy the people, I enjoy the ministry

It just takes you back to a certain place and time.

And so again, I am so grateful to have you here and I know that your

East End family is going to be listening when this episode airs.

I want you to tell me a little bit about your story.

If your grandkids were to turn on this podcast 10 years from now, 15

years from now, what is it about your legacy that you want them to know?

I think the ideal of legacy, if I can leave one, is that

God's grace is sufficient and I have only arrived at whatever.

That I've been able to enjoy in life by the grace of God.

My gifts and talents are limited.

But yet God has smiled on me in many ways beyond my expectation.

This morning I was just, Thanking God.

You know, Oprah says this thing about some of the things that we

take for granted now, or some of the things we only dream for years ago.

And so this morning I was just, thanking God for being able to wake

up and look in the ceiling and not see the, and not see the sky . You know,

growing up poor in Alabama, you could often wake up in the morning and look

into the ceiling and see the skies.

So I think just being what God can do with a.

Even when we are not faithful but God is still faithful.

So the faithfulness of God, the grace of God would be the themes of my life.

I was born in Beatrice, Alabama 30, 40 minutes from G'S , but

in Uro County, State of Alabama.

Little small time maybe four or 500 people at that time.

Cause at that time it was a Metron Polier.

I, at least in my mind but went to elementary school.

In high school there, there were probably.

75 students in my high school class which was a very small class and I

did not rank in the top 20, 40 or 50, yet I survived one of seven children.

My parents, both mother and father quit school in the 10th grade.

Because in that day and time my mother had to work to help her mother.

My father quit school in the 10th grade and then some strange

way went into the military.

So how he did it, I probably should not share don't know exactly how

the rules are, but he's in the land beyond now, so it doesn't make, I guess

that much, too much of a difference.

But once the little kid that probably no one thought would do much that would

not succeed, would not go very far.

I'm a mama's baby, I'd say I'm Gus's baby boy.

And cried every day for probably the first.

Four grades of elementary school because I didn't want to go to school.

And I remember when I told my mother I was going to college, she was like, College,

you were going to school, not used school.

So somewhere after I entered the ministry, which I ended the

ministry at age 16 but somewhere the desire for knowledge changed.

, and I four degrees later, I just have a thirst for it.

Now that I did not have.

So just coming out of that small southern environment, my father was on the

tail end of the civil rights movement.

I never heard my father say, Yes, sir, to a white man his entire.

Could have had something to do with, he had 22 pills in his back pocket.

, I'm not sure.

But he never said yes sir, to a white man.

He was always clean every day after he retired from the military.

So how did you end up from Alabama?

To Connecticut.

The long journey is, not a straight shot on interstate.

But when I went to an undergrad school, a small baptist school in Alabama,

in Selma, Selma University, across that at Miss Pettus Bridge every day.

So I went to small Baptist school and sitting in class one

day, I just looked on the wall.

And there were those little TA forms that you could send in this back in the

paper days Where you could just tear the form off and send it in and they

would send you a catalog of the school.

And so it was one on the wall from.

Vanderbilt and I just tore it off and filled that I didn't send.

Then ended up at Vanderbilt in seminary and went to Iowa.

Out of seminary, I went to Iowa.

Yeah, I know.

Des Moines.

Des Moines, Iowa.

I must have, as I said, I was not in the top 10 in my high school class because

I must have flunked geography because I didn't even know Desmoines Iowa existed.

As a matter of fact, what I told my faculty advisor that I was going

to apply for a church, I said, In Des Mos, he said, Wait a minute,

First of all, get the name right.

It is not Dess des, let's get right.

So I was there, the church for 10 years, left there back to Alabama and spend on.

Eight years, I believe.

And a friend of mine called me one day.

I remember I was in Selma, Alabama when he called.

And he said, Stalworth, there's a church in Connecticut.

Home folk problem from where you are from and they're looking for a pastor.

And I came up a couple times and preached and was.

Surprised, Pleasantly surprised to see people from Alabama.

I think.

Someone walked up to me and said, I'm from Camden.

I went, You are from Camden to Camden.

I know because in my hometown, Beatrice is in Maro County, which is dry county in

Camden is in Wilcox, which is wet county.

But those who listen, who may not know of, dry county, you can't sell alcohol.

Wet county, you can.

So people in our county always.

Went to Wilcox County to buy that alcohol cause they could buy legally there.

And so when I came here as a candidate, to preach and met people from Camden

and GE Bins and all those places, I went wow, this is the south of north.

A friend.

Mass a pastor who was helping East End, and their search for pastor was

the one who told me about East End.

That's the way I arrived here 17 years ago.

It does not feel like it has been that long, but 17 years ago.

I think when you move up To this, to the northeast, that

the New York vibe is in the air.

So, you know, you come up with the southern hospitality, you go in

the grocery store, you speak to everybody, you notice nobody's speaking

back, and you pull back, right?

But then you discover their pockets where people just as Southern and has just as

much southern hospitality and in some place, I think you find your own balance.

And I think I found my own balance in just being true to

who I am and living out my life.

When I walk around mean all day , . So I found myself in that southern flare.

Cause I'm really an introvert, so I have to sometimes work hard.

To get it out.

And the impact I really sense is when I go back home to visit and you run in

the store and you just wanna go in the store and get, I don't know, bottled

water or whatever, and come back out and you walk in the store and you get your

bottled water and you put on the counter and instead of the prison saying $2, $3,

it's like, So how are you feeling today?

You look, you got a great smile.

So you go, Okay, I'm back in Alabama.

You just can't walking the store and buy something to walk out . So

that's like being energized again with that southern hospitality.

. I've been in ministry, I've been preaching for 42 years.

That is just that blows my mind.

, maybe 30 years ago someone wrote a book, I don't even remember the name of the

book, but the emphasis of the book, I do remember that suggested that we should

start forming small groups and pockets because people would not be able to always

come to church and everyone read that book and went Ah, doesn't make sense.

We'll always be able to go to church.

Why wouldn you go to church.

Yeah.

And Some churches adopted what they call a sale group, ideal to being

connected with smaller groups , but it has been a shock to the church

because part of us, we survive on the preaching, the singing, the teaching,

but part of us is also the fellow.

Mean, that's the reason we dress up and go to church.

It's a, its, it's a style of freedom, you know?

So we also missed that part of the fellowship.

And so when Covid came about and really a shutdown and given the

African American community where maybe technology is not as present.

It has been kind of a shock.

We were fortunate at East End Church because we had already

decided to go online even before we heard the pandemic was coming.

And so when the governor said, Hey, shut down, we were like, Okay, flip the switch.

Let's go live.

But it's been a slow.

Coming back.

I think if you would line up grocery stores, dry cleaners

even movie theaters, people have gone back to those places first.

More so than they have gone back to the church because how can

you,, it's a hard challenge.

I can listen to the sermon and eat my toast at the same time.

You know, so I'm having my coffee and communion and I still have all my

snips, so it's kinda hard to fight that.

I think there will be a return that's going to be gradual.

I remember growing up and hearing about the big revivals where the young people

would have to seek God and I don't even know if I'm pronouncing it correctly,

so I'm asking if you could help me.

The morning bench.

That's where you would go to weep into mourn, sorrowful for your sins.

You know that you mentioned revival.

The fourth Sunday of September every year was homecoming and revival at

my home church and to your Baptist church these days were so important.

That I still remember first Sunday in August was Morningstar.

Second Sunday was shallow.

I think third Sunday may have been s best of one other churches

but that was their Sunday.

Every year everybody opened their trunks and their doors and they put out tables.

We serve food.

And we came back every night for the week for church.

And you are right, you went to the mornings bench.

You sat there until you got religion?

Yes, . Okay.

And hopefully by Friday night you got some religion.

So if you felt like you got some religion by Friday night.

Then you joined the church, but that, that was the morning's bench,

that very front bench and take.

Now lot of churches, people are little in the south, they are not eager to sit

on that morning's bench, although it's no longer called the mornings bench.

That psych says If I sit here, everybody's gonna think I must have been in sea it.

It's . So I'll take the second.

Yeah.

There are some stories I've heard of people saying, you had to sit there

until they just gathered around you.

Cause the preacher had preached that sermon about going across hell on

the spider's web . They would come and lay hands on you, pray for you.

They'd say, catch hold, Let it go.

Hold on.

Let it go.

And at the end of the night, you didn't know whether you wanted to hold on,

let go catch up, run to slow down.

Cause you'd have heard so many phrases come in into your ear.

But they would pray you through until you either got religion

or maybe in a few cases you made up a moment of getting religion

Two things church and politics.

And so, , as I have a politician the idea of separation of church and,

and state was really to protect the state against the Church of England.

So that the church would not control the state.

It is not that people won't keep state out the church, the church out the state.

That was not the ideal.

And it became kind of point of contention.

But I say to people, when my ancestors were stolen from their land and put on

slave ships, you involved me in politic.

Because you brought me over to a place you had a constitution.

you broke me over to a place that had this idea called voting.

So you involved me in politics.

I didn't have the option to opt out.

That was not a block I could check.

And so I come in, I fight for my rights.

I have two options to fight for my rights.

I can use violence.

Or I can use the law, which means I need to use politics.

And so for minorities and African Americans and others there's no

separation of existence in this physical world in my spiritual identity.

And so you cannot make me a slave, but tell me, but when you die, you

are going to heaven and be free.

But I'm a slave right now, so I have to do whatever is necessary to engage in the

liberation and the freedom for my people.

So I'm involved in politics because I don't see a divide in

line between one and the other.

And being a politician, often I hear people say I don't

get involved in politics.

Ah, yes, you do.

If you live in a home, politics, determine the codes that will be used to build that

home if you drink water that has been.

Regulated by politics.

If you've got a car, it has been regulated by politics.

If you drive on a highway, it has been regulated by politics.

If you have a job, it's been regulated by politics.

Very few places and very few moments other than no, breathing's been

regulated by politics too, because they control the environment.

So there's not an area of.

That does not involve politics.

And so I don't see a difference between my faith and my politics.

I don't see a divide in line.

I tell people who say, they just wanna, let whatever happened today

and then they want to die and go to the other side and drink milk and honey.

I said, Well, I don't want the milk cause I'm black toast intolerant

and I don't need the honey.

Okay?

I need a paycheck and some things while I'm here, and some freedom

and some opportunity right here.

Not when I die, but right here.

I think God's gonna take care of us when we die.

Right.

We do the right thing while we're here.

God's got it.

You talked about your church being online, so where can they find.

East, then Tabernacle Baptist Church, Bridgeport 5 48 Central Avenue.

We on Facebook we're on YouTube.

Our services each Sunday, nine 30 Eastern time.

And my last question to you is, why is it important for us to continue

to support the Black church?

For a long time the black church has supported us

when you look at the historical black colleges when you look at some of

the feeding programs when you look at the place where we could go to

protest, it was the black church.

We own the church before.

We own banks.

We own the church before we own corporations.

It has been the backbone of what has gotten us to the point

Where we are now, and if you're a black person, chances are whether it's been a

funeral or it's been a worship service, you've been through a black church.

Well, Reverend Stalworth, I want to say thank you so much for giving your.

To us on the podcast this afternoon.

This was a tip of the iceberg in terms of the questions that I have

for you . So I'm going to extend another opportunity to come back

and to talk to us a little bit more.

Awesome.

I will look forward to it.

On another note for my blue and white family that may be

listening, I enjoy talking to my frat Again, thank you so much.