The parishioners of Shiloh Baptist Church knew their 126-year-old church hall needed a major spring cleaning. But when they tackled the attic, they met a mystifying collection of artifacts, dating back long before Alderson was even a town.
It seems Shiloh Baptist was not only a major religious and social center for the African-Americans who deluged the Southern West Virginia region in the 1800s. It was a hub of a black secret society, the black secret society, the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, that was instrumental in fostering the civil rights movement nationwide.
Hundreds of old documents, discovered in the church hall's nooks and crannies over the past several weeks, paint a portrait of an Alderson that defied the stain of Jim Crow.
** As my friend Jack and I walked in this little church, we felt a coldness that was beyond belief..Though it is beautiful, it was a very eerie feeling that we got just by being inside of it....
It seems Shiloh Baptist was not only a major religious and social center for the African-Americans who deluged the Southern West Virginia region in the 1800s. It was a hub of a black secret society, the black secret society, the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, that was instrumental in fostering the civil rights movement nationwide.
Hundreds of old documents, discovered in the church hall's nooks and crannies over the past several weeks, paint a portrait of an Alderson that defied the stain of Jim Crow.
** As my friend Jack and I walked in this little church, we felt a coldness that was beyond belief..Though it is beautiful, it was a very eerie feeling that we got just by being inside of it....