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By MARY DEAN DAY | Special to the Selma Times-Journal

SELMA – One of the oldest Black churches in Alabama has been a historical landmark since 2004. The New Everdale Baptist Church, located at 77 County Road 888 in rural Selma, will celebrate its 100th Anniversary and Homecoming Worship Service on Sunday, Oct. 19, at 2 p.m.

Before the Civil War, traffic in slaves, bank notes and sporting goods made Selma the hottest town on the river, according to author Paul Good in his book, New South.

Industrial and agricultural production in Alabama expanded to meet wartime needs. Economic expansion continued through the 1920s, halted temporarily by the Great Depression of the 1930s.

But the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic recovery program helped ease poverty in Alabama and diversified the state’s economy. The most marked change in Alabama has been its rapid industrialization.

Many former slaves, farmers, sharecroppers and tradesmen organized and formed churches to symbolize their hope and faith for the future. They needed and faithfully desired a place of worship, a solid foundation, and a legacy of faith to leave for their children.

With their household of faith, they were able to keep their hope alive and faith active!  Their House of Worship became the center of their culture and faith, binding them together in this rural area of Selma.

Their first church was destroyed by fire in the early 1920s. The exact age of the building was unknown.  The early pioneers of Everdale came together in 1922, and cheerfully gave their nickels, dimes and 50 cents to buy land to build a new edifice. The New Everdale Baptist Church was completed on March 15, 1925. The first Board of Trustees’ names are still listed on the 100-year-old Cornerstone.

The current pastor of nine years, Rev. Allen Barnett, Jr., along with his wife, Elect Lady Alice Barnett, a lifetime member, welcomes everyone to attend and rejoice with them as they celebrate a century of faith. The guest speaker, Pastor W.R. Twilley, New Vernon C.P. Church, Marion Junction, will deliver the sermon for the event.

Everdale is historically known as a place for rekindling unions and redefining a deep-seated spiritual rejuvenation. The church is an expression of the time when Black sharecroppers and farmers kept their hope alive and created a better way of life for their offspring in the rural, quiet and gentle area along the River Road.