Ward Chapel AME Church is the oldest historically Black church in Montevallo and one of the fifteen oldest AME churches in Alabama. It is proud of its history and will soon bear a plaque from Alabama's Black Heritage Council declaring its historical significance. Established in 1872, not long after Emancipation, Ward Chapel continues to offer a home to worshippers to this day.

Long-time member Alfred Campbell describes Ward Chapel as “a place of worship, but it is also a place where I can feel at peace. . . . Everything you need in life you can find right here at Ward Chapel. Counseling, doctors, nurses, teachers, I mean guidance, anything. You need your house worked. You'll find it right here at this one church." 

Cathy Gaddis adds: "If it's not here in Ward Chapel, we'll help you find it." "The doors are always open to any and everybody."

Founding of Ward Chapel

The founding of Ward Chapel is part of the larger story of Black self-determination during the era of slavery and Reconstruction. Black churches in Alabama were "at the heart of the community that blacks developed in slavery and in a segregated, racist society," writes Wilson Fallin in Uplifting the People. Churches were "the central self-help institution within the black community. Soon after the Civil War, blacks left white churches and formed their own congregations. . . Separate churches gave blacks an organization on which to build a stronger community." 

Even before the outbreak of war, Montevallans of African descent wanted to start building their own organization. According to the Ward Chapel official church history, the 1855 minutes of the Alabama Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South reveal the presence of Black Methodists in Montevallo by 1854: "Twenty-three colored members and eleven colored probationary members." They withdrew from what is now the First United Methodist Church of Montevallo to form an African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Ward Chapel got its name in 1872 when Bishop Thomas M. D. Ward came to preside over the state of Alabama and held his first conference in Selma. At the conclusion of the conference Rev. Jesse Brazier was appointed to the Montevallo Mission of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. A grandchild, writing in 1980, recalls Brazier as a "preacher who traveled over the country riding a horse or in a buggy drawn by a horse, preaching in churches or in certain churches every Sunday."

When first built Ward Chapel was closer to Shoal Creek than the present structure by some 50 to 70 feet. According to recollections that date back to the earliest memories of members of the Shortridge family, the "little Methodist church which the black people attended . . . sat on the edge of the creek. People used to wade in the creek and got water from a spring that flowed in the creek."

Quoted from The Family History of Lillian Shortridge Jones in Celebration of Her 100th Birthday, June 3, 1997, by permission of Dr. Linda Thompson, a descendant of Jack and Narcissus Shortridge.

Ward Chapel and Jacksonville in the Early 1900s

Recollections by a woman born in Montevallo in 1897 vividly describe Ward Chapel and the creek behind it — Shoal Creek — in the early decades of the 1900s. The recollections of Lillian Shortridge Jones also give us fascinating glimpses of life in Jacksonville, a now vanished black neighborhood northwards of downtown.

Jacksonville was a close-knit and mostly Black community the city dismantled in the 1950s and 1960s to make way for an all-white housing project and elementary school. An 1893 newspaper identifiedJack Shortridge as the community’s founder. (Birmingham Post-Herald, Oct 8, 1893).

For many residents of Jacksonville, Ward Chapel was their home church.

We learn from Lillian’s recollections that Jacksonville residents had to travel some distance to the spring behind Ward Chapel for their drinking water — some of it hauled in barrels in a wagon drawn by a team of oxen. They washed their clothes in the creek.

According to Lillian, her grandmother, Narcissus (or Narcis), was a devoted member of Ward Chapel. “Grandma was quite a christian and went to church every Sunday morning.” Jack was another story. He preferred to spend the day sitting on the front porch swing “with his corn likker underneath.” Narcis would often “bring the pastor home with her for dinner, but that did not alter grandpa’s idea of a quiet Sunday afternoon.”

Descendants

Jesse Brazier and his first wife Rachel Brazier had six children. Nero Brogan Brazier, the town miller, a prominent figure in the community, owned a house on Main Street in the Jacksonville area. Descendants of Jesse and Rachel still worship at the church their ancestors helped establish. "The Braziers have always been members here at Ward Chapel," says James Salter. "My mother [Polly Salter], my aunt [Onnie Dell Fluker], the rest of the family as well. So we're carrying on the Brazier legacy." 

A strong sense of African American cultural heritage is shared by Cathy Gaddis, whose connection to Ward Chapel goes back several generations. Her mother, beloved teacher and community leader Barbara Belisle, claimed Ward Chapel as her home church. Cathy says: "Here at Ward Chapel I can only think of one word: family. I feel so at home here. It's just like walking into your own home." 

During the era of the push for civil rights, Ward Chapel contributed its share of community organizers and activists. Leon Harris, Sr, famously outspoken leader of the local Suburban League, was one. In its heyday in the 1970s, the League worked to expand employment and educational opportunities here in town -- in the newly integrated high school, for example. Other activist members of the League from Ward Chapel include Mr. R. B. Burns, Anna Mayweather, and Ethel Mae Thompson (pictured below). The League met at local Black churches, among them Montevallo's two downtown churches, Ward Chapel and Shiloh Missionary Baptist on Selma, Road, and kept their congregations informed of what was going on. The League also met at the Prince Hall affiliated lodge hall at 160 Commerce Street, affectionately known as the "Mason Hall." 

James Salter reflects on what Ward Chapel meant to him as a boy and still means today.  It is known as "an inviting church. Because, when people want to have a funeral and they weren't a member of a church or had gotten out of a church, the first church they would think about would be Ward Chapel." 

What makes Ward Chapel so inviting? 

"It's the people," says Salter. "There's always been the families that have been a part of Ward Chapel and have always had that attitude, that welcoming attitude." The church has always ''served the community trying to help other people. There have been, you know, people who are less fortunate who will always come and know that they could get help from Ward's Chapel."

And it's the music, the singing from the heart that feeds the soul. Douglas Jackson, raised in Bessemer, began attending in 2021 because he found spiritual food at Ward Chapel. He is fed by the Bible and by the music. "We're not in no recording studio and we're not going to be perfect, but we just sing . . . breaking out in one good harmony. It's like that vegetable soup, your throw this in there and you throw that in there, but who's going to pass up a good bowl of vegetable soup. When it all comes together, it's a sweet flavoring."

The impact of Ward Chapel in our town is well known within the Black community. It is exciting to see the African American cultural heritage of the church gaining wider recognition. Ward Chapel AME Church will soon take its place as an inaugural site on the Montevallo African American Heritage Trail.

Thanks are due to local historian James Salter and UM archivist Carey Heatherly, who are part of the MLP Research Consultant team. Information regarding African American cultural heritage at Ward Chapel and other AME churches in Alabama comes from "Highlights and History of Ward Church A.M.E. Church," courtesy of Salter, supplemented by a recorded interview with Salter 29 August 2023. He also provided materials relating to the Brazier family. Quotes from church members Alfred Campbell, Cathy Gaddis, and Douglas Jackson are from a conversation recorded by Kathy King July 14, 2024. Special thanks to Richard Shortridge Cain, Melanie Morrison, and Linda Thompson for information about the Shortridges, Jacksonville, and Ward Chapel.