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Dr. Canady Preaches the sermon entitled "No Foreclosure on God's House"
Monday, June 02, 2008, 10:49 AM
Gospel service stirs crowd
By Janet Conner-Knox | Daily Times Staff Writer
The music could be heard even before entering Jackson Chapel Baptist Church.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Volunteer says he's so driven, he'll leave others behind
By Stephanie Creech
Daily Times Senior Writer Tony Ellison understands that he can't change the world. But he sees no reason why he can't at least try to brighten people's lives. Whether he's helping coach baseball at Wilson Christian Academy or leading a boy's ministry at Jackson Chapel Baptist Church, Ellison tries to demonstrate his faith in God and his desire to improve the Wilson community. Ellison, 34, and his wife, Kristi, decided to make Wilson their home in 1999, because he was trying to finish college at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, and she was working in Greenville at that time. Wilson was the right size for the couple and the right distance away from their families in Grifton and Vanceboro. Ellison had returned to NCSU in 1998 to pursue a degree in public and interpersonal communications after walking away from a short-lived career in professional baseball. He was drafted by the Chicago Cubs organization in 1995, but he tore up his shoulder and had reconstructive surgery. He played during the 1996 and 1997 seasons for Cubs' minor league teams in several states and with a league in Ontario, Canada. Ellison said baseball came with things he wasn't prepared to handle, however. He said he learned that people aren't always what they seem to be, and he tired of people always wanting something from him. When he decided to quit, Ellison said he had to find a way of focusing the energy he had put into playing baseball into something new. "My life was consumed with baseball," he said. "I love the game, but I love my life the way it is now. It was so hard. You really can't turn it off. It is hard to find a positive outlet." But Ellison seems to be proving it's not impossible to find positive outlets. He plans to help coach baseball at Wilson Christian Academy for a second year this spring. Ellison has over the past several years helped coach at different levels including Wilson County Senior Babe Ruth, Wilson County Junior American Legion and junior varsity at Hunt High School. Coaching is how Scott Swartzfager got to know Ellison, and the two have formed a strong friendship. "He is one of the most outgoing, outspoken, friendly people persons I've ever met," Swartzfager said. "He is the most unselfish person I've ever met. He is an all-around great guy." Swartzfager said he's known Ellison maybe four years now but he already considers Ellison one of his best friends. It's a friendship built out of respect. "I can honestly say he is one of the best people I've ever met," Swartzfager said. "His commitment to God, family, community and friends is remarkable. I wish I knew 15 of him." Swartzfager said Ellison dreams of one day being able to have a free, community baseball camp where children can learn about God and life. Coaching and working with the young boys in his church give Ellison an outlet to talk with children about life and to offer tidbits of wisdom about how to overcome obstacles or diversity in their lives. It bothers Ellison, though, when people ask why he volunteers his time to help at Wilson Christian Academy. For Ellison, it's not about race or economics. Instead, it's all about trying to be that positive role model. "I have more fun than the kids do," Ellison said. "I'm really enjoying it." He spends the first and third Saturdays of each month at Jackson Chapel helping serve soup and sandwiches and distribute clothes to people in need. It's a service sponsored by the boy's ministry, Focused, which is for children between the ages of 8 and 18. Ellison wants to teach the boys they are important to society and that if the community is going to change, then it has to start them. Ellison grew up like many of the boys he works with today. His mother was single and worked most of the time. The family didn't have much in terms of wealth. But Ellison said they were always surrounded by extended family. His grandmother, two uncles and two cousins lived with Ellison's family in a two-story house in the country outside of Grifton. Ellison describes his brother, Richard, as the father he never had and his sister, Lakeisha, as his playmate. "It shaped me into who I am today," Ellison said. "We didn't have much but you couldn't tell." With a 3-year-old son of his own now, Ellison said he tries to do all the things with Justin that he never had the chance to do with own father. Ellison is thankful for the sacrifices his wife makes in order to help him with community activities and for her reminding him to slow down. Ellison compares himself to the Energizer Bunny, because to an extent he said he never grows tired of trying to lend a helping hand. "I have to watch it," Ellison said. "Sometimes I'm so driven, I'll leave people behind." Born: July 12, 1974 Family: Wife, Kristi; son, Justin; mother, Minnie Ellison; brother, Richard Ellison; sister, Lakeisha Edwards. Education: Ayden-Grifton High School Class of 1992; Undergraduate degrees from Louisburg College and North Carolina State University. Career: Drafted in 1995 by the Chicago Cubs. Played minor league baseball for the Cubs teams in places like, Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona. He also played for an independent team, the Thunder Bay Whiskey Jacks in Ontario, Canada. Employed with GuardsMark, a private security firm, as an account manager for the past six years. Volunteer work: He has helped coach a variety of community and school baseball teams including Wilson County Senior Babe Ruth, Wilson County Junior American Legion and the junior varsity team at Hunt High School. Currently helps coach the baseball team at Wilson Christian Academy. Active in Jackson Chapel Baptist Church, where he serves as Sunday School superintendent and works with the boy's ministry group, Focused. Personal hero: His brother, Richard Ellison of Virginia Beach, Va. He taught Ellison how to play baseball. He was the father figure Ellison lacked and always looked out for his younger brother. Ellison says his brother showed him what it is to be a man. Jackson Chapel's Own Marion Turner recalls the March on Washington.Marion Turner: A lifelong marcher (taken from the News and Observer 1/21/08) Ask Marion Turner whether blacks have pulled even with whites, and he won't cite facts or figures. He'll just ask you to look around his adopted hometown of Wilson, 50 miles east of Raleigh. Look at the impoverished communities east of the railroad tracks, where many blacks still live. Look at the shiftless young men roaming the streets and the shells of closed-up businesses. Turner, 87, says that racism still defines the lives of many blacks in rural North Carolina. "It's not as out in the open as it used to be," Turner said. "It's so subtle you don't realize its happening until it's happened. You feel it, but you're not supposed to say anything about it." Turner sees the civil rights movement not as a phenomenon of the 1960s, but as a generations-long struggle that is far from over. His father, Frank Mitchell Turner, was a colleague of W.E.B. Dubois, a writer, teacher and civil rights crusader who helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at the beginning of the 20th century. Turner's father became deeply involved with the NAACP, and was its executive director in the 1930s, Turner said. As a child growing up on Long Island, Turner remembers picketing schools that refused to take black students and blocking bulldozers at construction sites that didn't employ blacks. In 1963, he marched on Washington and heard King give his "I Have a Dream" speech. And last week, he marched outside the courthouse in Wilson, one of a several hundred people protesting the prosecution of James Johnson, who faces accessory after the fact charges in the 2004 murder of Brittany Willis. As long as he is alive, Turner said, he'll be marching. "You never give up the hope," he said, "because then you're really lost." |
By Janet Conner-Knox | Daily Times Staff Writer
Wilson resident Marion Turner is not mentioned when you read about Martin Luther King Jr. But Turner played an important role in saving King's life. It was a routine day at Harlem Hospital in New York when the hospital staff got word that King had been stabbed in the chest. King was doing a booksigning Sept. 20, 1958, of his "Strides Toward Freedom," about the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala. On that day, a woman later described as mentally disturbed stabbed him in his chest with a letter opener. "The letter opener was in a critical area in his chest," said Turner, 87. "The ambulance brought him to Harlem Hospital because we had the reputation of across the country for successfully working on gunshot wounds and knife wounds near the heart." Turner said King came into the hospital with the letter opener still in his chest. The tip of the letter opener was near the aorta so the letter opener could not be removed without an X-ray. "You see any wrong movement would have caused him (King) to push the letter opener further, and he would bleed to death. His whole chest had to be opened to remove the letter opener," Turner said. A portable X-ray machine was taken to King's room so that Turner could perform the X-ray examination. "I could not afford to be emotional because of who King was. I had to make sure I did my job," Turner said. Marion's wife, Willia, remembers coming to the hospital that day to get her son because her husband was babysitting. But she couldn't get in. "Marion was watching our son at the hospital for a few hours while I went to a wedding, and I needed to come into the hospital to get my son," she said. "But the police would not let anyone in. They locked the hospital down. "The police were not taking my word that my husband was the X-ray tech and my son was with him, so luckily one of my husband's co-workers was outside," she said. "The co-worker had to bring my son to me." Willia King had actually met King 10 years earlier at her home. "We used to call him M.L.," said Willia Turner. "As a matter of a fact when I met him in 1948 he was a recent graduate from Morehouse College in Atlanta and was looking for a ministerial job. He wasn't married then." At that time, Willia, a Wilson native, was a young woman herself living in Queens, N.Y. Her church, First Baptist of Carona of East Elmhurst, was looking for a pastor, and the 19-year-old King was looking for a job as a minister. "King was a friend of Bob Owens, a family friend, and they both just happened to be up from Atlanta. I told Bob to bring him on by the house, and I would take him to church and introduce him," she said. But the introduction of King to Turner's church failed. "My church thought he was much too young, plus he was unmarried. That was taboo at that time. So he left and went on down South," she said. "I think that going South made him into the minister he became. I doubt if he would have made history in New York the way he did in Alabama." The Turners said they watched King carry his message of acceptance and nonviolence all across the country during the 1950s and '60s. They said they were proud of the work they saw King doing, and they took part in the March on Washington in 1963. "Even now, everytime I hear the speech, I can't believe I was standing right there. We were a part of history with Dr. Martin Luther King," said Willia Turner. Jackson Chapel's own Mrs. Belinda Scott helps local kids learn more about Black History.
Museum celebrates black history
By Gina Childress | Daily Times Staff Writer
Winstead Elementary students met Thurgood Marshall, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Jackie Robinson Friday to mark the end of Black History Month.
Belinda Scott, a first-grade teacher at Winstead, organized the Black History Wax Museum tour for students. About 15 teachers dressed up as famous athletes, writers, musicians and civil rights activists to give the children a "hands on" experience in learning. Scott said she wanted to do something for the children that would give them an opportunity to interact with the people they were learning about. "This has worked out really well," Scott said. "Everyone pulled together and has made this an experience for the children that goes beyond the ordinary learning process." Each historical character had her own station complete with props and posters. Classes were staggered throughout the room at different stations. When they heard a cymbal being struck once, it was time for the characters to come to life and interact with the students. When the cymbal was struck three times, the characters froze and the children were ushered to another station to await that character's life story. Grant Robertson, an art teacher at Winstead, portrayed Matthew Henson, an explorer who was one of the first to reach the North Pole. Robertson was dressed in winter gear and was propped up on a sled explaining to the students how he made his journey across the ice. Cindy Godwin, a second-grade teacher's assistant, was decked out in baseball attire and took on the persona of Jackie Robinson. "I played for the Brooklyn Dodgers," "Robinson" told the children. "I was the first black baseball player to play professional baseball on a team with white people." Godwin said working on this project was a rewarding experience for her. "The children have been very attentive, and they seem to be having a good time," she said. "This has enabled us to get down and talk with the children one-on-one, and I think they have learned more this way." The children didn't just stand and listen to the characters tell their story. Some of the stations allowed the children to actually participate in the presentation. Margaret Holt, a teacher assistant, portrayed the boxer Muhammad Ali. Outfitted in a robe and boxing gloves and standing in the middle of a homemade boxing ring, Holt told the children Ali's life story. At the end of her question and answer session, she invited students, one at a time, to enter the ring to "box" with her. While no blows were actually exchanged between the "boxers," the children had a great time dancing around the ring and pretending to exchange blows with Holt. Among some of the historical characters teachers portrayed were Mary Bethune, Dr. Daniel Williams (who performed the first open heart surgery), Oprah Winfrey, Mahalia Jackson, Maya Angelou, Dr. Mae Jemison, George Washington Carver, Venus and Serena Williams, Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Tyrique Jones, 8, a second-grader, really enjoyed his visit to the wax museum. "This was really fun," he said. "It was definitely more fun than being in the classroom." Classmate Mirisha Best, 9, had fun learning about Dr. Daniel Williams and Muhammad Ali. "I really learned a lot," she said. "This was very cool." Ishmael Lucas, 7, said he learned to follow his dream from Dr. Mae Jemison, an engineer and first black woman to travel to space. Lucas' dream is to be a famous football player one day "I learned to never give up," he said. "And I learned I need to finish my education and then start my journey of getting to my dream."
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| 265-7821 Congratulations To Jackson Chapel's Own Richard Ashby!
Mr. Richard Ashby of Jackson Chapel First Missionary Baptist Church kneels next to the cross. He will portray Jesus Christ in the church's Easter Production
Reaching the congregation
By Janet Conner-Knox | Daily Times Staff Writer
This Sunday is the one Sunday in the whole year that churches will be filled. Pulpits will be decorated with Easter lilies. Church pews will be decorated by church goers in pretty pastel dresses, ribbons and colorful flowers on Easter bonnets. Church celebrations will go from traditional flowering of the cross to elaborate stage productions. JACKSON CHAPEL Jackson Chapel Missionary Baptist Church on Nash Street has planned the biggest Easter celebration the church has ever had. "No church in Wilson has seen anything like this," said Alton Mitchell, minister of music. Mitchell said his approach, like Martin's, was to pray before planning. "The main thing is to draw people to Christ. So I thought we should try to show as best we could the pain of the crucifixion and the miracle of the resurrection." The plans are elaborate for the production, which includes 75 people. Furniture, including choir chairs, has been moved so that the front of the church can depict Jerusalem. Some choir members will stand in the choir section; others will be in the balcony. Mitchell had church member Robert Dixon build a cross that could hold the weight of Richard Ashby, the actor portraying Jesus. "We have a state of the art sound system," Mitchell said. "So when we show the nails going in his hands, it will sound like nails going in his hands. There will be lightning and thunder while he hangs there on the cross. You will see the lightning and hear the crash of the thunder." The set also includes a tomb. "The songs that we sing will commemorate that whole week before the crucifixion, directly after the death of Jesus, and the resurrection," Mitchell said. Some of the songs will be sung in Spanish. One of the songs, "Worthy is the Lamb Slain" features a seven fold "Amen." "It's like singing Amen in rounds, and it goes from singing it softly, and then it builds and builds," Mitchell said. "But the greatest part is when Jesus is resurrected and comes back dressed in white." Mitchell's group has been working night and day on the set. Mitchell expects this Easter to be one that will be remembered for a long time.
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| 265-7847 ============================================================ EASTER SERVICES: Across the county, churches will be holding special Easter services. Here are two: Peace Church 2838 Tilghman Rd. Easter service: Sunday 9 and 10:30 a.m. Jackson Chapel First Missionary Baptist Church 571 E. Nash Street Easter Service: Sunday 10 a.m.
Once in the sanctuary, there were hands clapping -- some double time -- people standing, and bodies swaying to Jackson Chapel's mass choir. There was not a seat to be found in the main auditorium of the church and the overflow had to walk up the stairs to the balcony. Sunday was the last day of the three-week celebration of Theater of the American South and was also the last performance of the church's gospel choir for this year's festival. Jackson Chapel has hosted the gospel music portion of the theater festival for the past three years, and attendees are invited to the church service to experience a typical southern African-American worship. The music came in a wide range, from anthems to toe tapping songs like "Stand Up If You're On the Lord's Side." While the choir sang, a mime team performed "The Blood Song" that brought some to tears. The song talked of multi-cultural church services. The sermon stirred some to stand, as the Rev. Darryl Cannady, pastor of the church, spoke on the economic status of the country and the many people whose homes are being foreclosed on. "There is no foreclosure on God's house," Cannady said as he looked out at the congregation with a smile. "We wanted to be a part of Theater of the American South so that we could show them (attendees) the black gospel experience," said Cannady. "We wanted a multi-cultural event here in Wilson and we thought that it would be very helpful for all to see how we have church and be able to worship with us. We have fostered some long-lasting relationships during the festival." Cannady said his church has "something for grandma and June Bug." But either way the visitors said they approved. "Jackson Chapel has the best choir anywhere around," said Bobby Boykin, Wilson resident and theater attendee. "I have been here every year and have loved every minute of it. Rev. Cannady always preaches a good sermon and everyone here makes you feel so welcome." Some of the guests say they have been to the church several times, in part because of the warm welcomes they get. Ann Thompson came to the festival last year and said she enjoyed this year's service as well. "It was just glorious. I was here last year and it made me want to come again this year. Because the members were so enthusiastic and welcoming it makes keep coming back." For one newcomer to the festival, the church service was much more than she expected. "It was the most awesome experience I have ever had," said Inza Walston, who lives in Wilmington. "There was all kinds of music. I told my cousin who is here with me that this would have never happened in a white church." Walston said she felt so welcomed at Jackson Chapel, and described her feeling as "like a warm blanket being put over your shoulders when you come to this church." Cannady asked all those who attended to not stop coming because the festival is over. The doors of the church are always open, he said.
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