Historic Webster Groves institution celebrates on Saturday
By Ruth-Miriam Garnett For the St. Louis American
On Saturday, October 25, a banquet at the Viking Conference Center in Kirkwood will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Unity United Methodist Church, an African-American congregation in Webster Groves founded in 1908. Current leadership is provided by Rev. Antonio M. Settles and Rev. Linda Settles.
On Sunday, October 26, the Rev. John Heyward, a former pastor both at Unity and at Union Memorial in St. Louis, will address the congregation at the morning service, at 627 Cornell Ave. in Webster Groves. For information about the banquet and other anniversary activities, contact 314 962-6488.
Unity United Methodist Church, originally organized in 1908 as the Webster Groves Methodist Episcopal Church, sprang from a highly successful revival held under a tent across from the current edifice at 627 Cornell Ave. in Webster Groves. The revival was organized by the Rev. B.F. Abbott, pastor of Union Memorial Methodist in St. Louis, also a historic black church.
Historically and to the present day, members of Unity have had extensive ties to other families and religious leaders throughout St. Louis City and County. The first building for the Webster Groves church was completed in 1911. The first pastor, Rev. C. C. Kitchen served for six years beginning prior to the building of the actual church and remaining until 1914. He was assisted by Reverend Fred Knuckles, a white minister.
Notably, both the acquisition of the land and the construction of the church were accomplished without financial assistance from the Board of Missions and Church Extension of the Methodist Church. However, the Presiding Bishop of the Conference, Bishop W. P. Thurkield and the Rev. R. E. Gillum, district superintendent of the St. Louis District, strongly encouraged the establishment of the new congregation.
The First Baptist Church of Webster Groves was organized immediately following the Civil War in 1866, the same year the oldest white churches in Webster Groves, the First Congregational, Emmanuel Episcopal and Webster Groves Presbyterian were established. As with Unity, prominent whites helped in the formation of First Baptist. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, later Blackwell Chapel, was organized by former slaves in 1884 without white participation.
Unity stands out from earlier black churches organized in the 19th century in its later establishment during the early part of the 20th century with a membership not born during the slave period, which included some professionals and small business owners, as well as the laborers still migrating from the post-Civil War South who had been the original denizens of the community.
The history of the black community in Webster Groves is documented in North Webster, A Photographic History of A Black Community by Ann Morris and Henrietta Ambrose. Families mentioned in this tome comprise much of the history of Unity and its present membership and include descendants of Hallie C. Ewing, an early church organizer educated at George Smith University and whose family owned a dairy farm off Rock Hill Road.
A current member, Ruth Thomas Banks, a retired teacher from the St. Louis Public Schools, is a surviving daughter of early members Charles and Alby Thomas, who owned a grocery and a dry cleaners. One of Mrs. Bank’s sisters, the late Irene Thomas Garnett, was the first black student admitted to Webster College in 1946 and conducted the chancel choir at the church for 30 years. Donald Brodie, son of the late Orintha Breeden, a daughter of Henry Reeves, pastor from 1934 to 1936, is quite active in the congregation. Descendants of Howell B. Goins, principal of Douglass School in North Webster, are also current members. Current member Hutcher Dixon, is a descendant of Webster Groves grocer William Dixon. The late Zenobya Clark, Conrad Thomas, and Imelda Thomas Wyatt, teachers at Douglass School, were long-term members of Unity.
In 1939, the Methodist Episcopal and the Methodist Church merged, and all churches of the denomination became commonly identified as Methodist Churches. The Webster Groves Methodist Church again merged in 1989 with St. Mark’s, a Richmond heights congregation begun in 1927, and was renamed Unity United Methodist Church. The Rev. Winfrey Dickerson, Jr. was the first pastor of Unity.
Ruth-Miriam Garnett, author of Laelia and A Move Further South, is a native of Webster Groves and was baptized at Unity United Methodist Church. Historical documentation was provided by Hutcher Dixon.