We've Come This Far: A Baptist Preacher's Quest for Justice

Lisa Merlini

March 1, 2004

Unlike Abyssinian Baptist Church, with its elegant, ornate façade or Canaan Baptist Church, its name writ large over its doorway on 115 Street, St. John's Baptist Church blends in. So much so that a city employee sees no problem using a good portion of the sidewalk to park his truck, leaving the engine to idle and groan as he vanishes for an extended coffee break.

St. John's is tucked a third of the way down West 152 Street on its south side, around the corner from St. Nicholas Boulevard. In this neighborhood of run-down buildings and brownstones, where groups of young men hang out on the sidewalk at midday and younger women push infants in strollers, and where expressions are a little more steeled than they are a few blocks down, St. John's nearly disappears. A large white cross above its doorway indicates the church's name. It is its only discerning feature.

Yet each Sunday, a congregation of over 400 makes its way to "the friendly church on the hill," as referred to on the church's outgoing voicemail message, to hear Rev. Scott preach. During the week, members, many of them unemployed and frustrated, wait on the steps out front for a chance to shake hands and ask the preacher for a prayer or some advice. For Reverend John Scott, St. John's 62-year-old pastor, becoming enmeshed in the community is just what he hoped for, but sometimes, even for him, frustrations abound, the work to be done is endless, and the road ahead looks daunting.

The son and grandson of farmers in rural North Carolina -- farmers who owned their land -- Scott grew up torn between the values of independence his father espoused and the increased communal ties, instilled in him by his mother through the church. The third lesson of his childhood, the one he grew to combat at every turn, was that "if you weren't a Negro with your hat in your hand, [whites] had no place for you in this country."

Reverend Scott took over the role as pastor of St. John's over 20 years ago. He shepherded his congregation -- its membership waxing and waning -- through the drug and gang wars of the 1980s and the HIV/AIDS epidemic that followed. Scott worked with the police of the 30th precinct, just behind the church on 151 Street, to form the Coalition on Community Policing, organizing policing beats around the neighborhood to eradicate the area of its then 55 known drug dealers.

Scott's idea for the coalition stemmed from his years in the north Bronx, where he organized a coalition of clergy members to combat the drug epidemic of the 1970s. That, in turn, stemmed from his years of working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Leadership Conference in Birmingham, Alabama and later with Operation Breadbasket in Brooklyn under the tutelage of Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Reverend C. Vernon Mason, professor of theology at the New York Theological Seminary, considers Rev. Scott to be one of the most active and engaged pastors in the African-American community. He sees Rev. Scott's history of working with the SCLC and with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as being the central spiritual force behind his efforts in Central Harlem and in the Bronx.

According to Dwight Hopkins, professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, "Black churches are overwhelmed." Historically, black churches have been the center of the African-American community, dating back to the days of slavery. As the only independent institution slaves were allowed to establish, churches became the community's financial support and social hub. Not much has changed, he said, except that the frustrations within the churches are growing deeper. There are too many problems, like teenage pregnancy, single mothers, AIDS and drugs, especially in the inner cities, and not enough resources, financial, social or otherwise, to reverse the growing trends.

Dressed in a blue suit and tie with a gold tiepin and cufflinks, Rev. Scott knows this all too well. Sitting in an office tucked in the back of the sanctuary, filing cabinets and piles of boxes illuminated by the waning morning light coming through two stained glass windows, his voice rising a notch or two above his usual baritone.

"We have less Black businesses now than during the freedom movement. If we had the economic opportunity," Scott said, waving his arm to encompass the neighborhood around him, "we would own the buildings we live in. Blacks do not own these buildings. We don't live in a slum by choice, because we can't even afford the rent or to feed our children."

St. John's is in the middle of Central Harlem. The drug dealers that used to inhabit its streets are either in prison or have moved to less vigilant neighborhoods, and the violence, what Rev. Scott refers to as a "shooting gallery," has lessened considerably. But jobs continue to be scarce, and the church, as he sees it, is becoming of less and less importance or relevance in the community, especially among the younger generations whom he sees as forgetting their efforts their parents made on their behalf.

"We are on uncertain shores," he said. "It's almost as if there is no certain center. Where we go from here, and the future we give our young people, should be everyone's concern."

(Updated April 9, 2004)