"So Great a Cloud of Witnesses”

—Butler Presbyterian Motto 

Butler Memorial Presbyterian Church 

Established initially as Ezra Presbyterian Church in 1871, Butler Memorial Presbyterian Church has long and valiantly exhibited an enraptured historic African American congregation in Savannah. 

The church originated with the assistance of the First Presbyterian Church, and white ministers guided the congregation during its early years. The Reverend Joseph Roberts, who ironically had been the slave of a white pastor to a Presbyterian church in Savannah, became one of Ezra's earliest Black ministers. 

Birthed in the latter days of Reconstruction, the church became a towering light by courageously facing bigotry and the ravages of racism. The Election of 1876 — which most historians know as the stolen election of 1876 — was one of the most contentious and impugned presidential elections in American history. It involved twenty disputed electoral votes in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon.  

The Compromise of 1877 settled that dispute with one of the most corrupt political bargains in all of American electoral history, effectively selling free African Americans further down the river. Democrats conceded the 20 electoral votes in question, throwing the Presidency to Ohio Republican Rutherford B. Hayes over his challenger Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York. In exchange for the Presidency, the Republicans agreed to withdraw all federal troops from the Southern states, ending Reconstruction. 

The end of Reconstruction meant no institutional barriers remained to Southern states enforcing racial segregation laws. Immediately and everywhere, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public accommodations throughout the American South and were brutally enforced, including in Savannah. 

To make matters even worse for African Americans, the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson became the law of the land in 1896, ruling that racial segregation did not violate the United States Constitution if public facilities were 'equal' in quality. The 'separate but equal' doctrine wrongfully brought legal heft, institutional enforcement, and an unfortunate legitimacy to Jim Crow laws throughout the South. 

In the early Twentieth Century, Ezra Presbyterian Church received a great deal of its financial support from Robert Miller Butler, a local Caucasian cotton planter. In 1910, after laying the cornerstone to its new church building and in gratitude to its primary benefactor, the Ezra congregation voted to rename the church Butler Memorial Presbyterian Church. 

Between 1904 through 1934, under the extended leadership of Reverend Samuel Tyler Redd, Butler Memorial Presbyterian Church became a social vanguard of the African American community in Savannah. The church assisted in forming an Old Folks Home and an Orphanage. Additionally, the church was a continuous sponsor of the National Urban League and various fraternal organizations. 

Frankly, I stumbled upon the story of this beautiful and historic church as told by Savannah State University professor Charles J. Elmore in his 2006 book entitled: So Great a Cloud of Witnesses: History of Butler Memorial Presbyterian Church (USA) 1871-2006. Having been married in a Presbyterian Church, I discovered an extra special place in my heart for this historic African American church. 

Interestingly, Black Presbyterianism became forever entrenched in Savannah after 1831, when slave-owner Charles Colcock Jones became a full-time Presbyterian evangelist to slaves nearby Savannah. 

The current Butler Memorial Presbyterian Church, constructed in 1954, is located at 603 W. Victory Drive. I painted it en Plein air on a freezing January day, accompanied by Ashkii, my favorite Jack Russel.