Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson was looking forward to their July 21 wedding. Te’Andra had been attending the predominantly white First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs in Jackson, Miss, for about a year. Her father also attended the church and her uncle served as the church custodian. Her fiance, Charles, had just starting attending about month prior. The invitations had been sent and the printed program with the date and church address were finalized and mailed out.
But in the hours leading up to the ceremony, the couple had their hopes dashed after the church’s pastor informed them that he would not be able to perform the wedding at the church.
The reason? According to church insiders, several members of the congregation began complaining to the pastor, Rev. Stan Weatherford, about a black couple marrying in their white church. After all, the 150-year-old white church had not had any black couples marry there in modern times.
In an interview with the Weatherford on WLBT-TV in Jackson, the pastor stated: “I didn’t want to have a controversy within the church, and I didn’t want a controversy to affect the wedding of Charles and Te’Andrea. I wanted to make sure their wedding day was a special day.”
After America’s shameful history of enslavement of the black race coupled with much of the church’s inexcusable silence during the civil rights era, this is just another ridiculous page in the American church’s history.
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