The Rev. Sylvia Bell leads two United Methodist churches in Arkansas.  A UMNS photo by Billy Reeder.

It’s been fifty years since schools in America were legally forced to desegregate. The small town of Charleston, Arkansas, was the first public school district in the South to implement the law.  Prior to desegregation, the school for black students in Charleston was a small wood-frame building that did not have indoor plumbing. A single teacher taught students in grades one through eight.  After 8th grade, students had to travel nearly 50 miles each day to attend Lincoln School in the larger town of Fort Smith.   

On the first day of integration eleven black students joined 480 white students in their school. Sylvia Bell was one of the black students, and she realized it was an important first step. 

“Desegregation took place in Charleston in 1954,” says Sylvia.  “Riding the bus wasn't the big deal…it was stepping off the bus.” 

One day Sylvia got off the bus and began chasing a little boy after he called her a name.  A school official grabbed her.

“What do you think you're doing?” the official asked.

Lincoln School in the larger town of Fort Smith.

“I'm chasing him because he called me a nigger,” Sylvia replied.

 “That's what you are,” said the woman.

But many in the community strived to be color-blind.  At school Sylvia developed a friendship with a young white girl.  One day the girl told her that her parents forbid her to play with Sylvia, and Sylvia said, “If your parents say you can’t, then you must obey your parents because I obey my parents.” 

 The next day the girl came back and said, “Well, I don’t care, I’m going to play with you anyway.” From then on, the girls were friends.

Integration soon spread from the schools to other areas of the community, including the local Methodist church whose members invited African-American families to worship with them.

Today, Sylvia Bell is doing something that would have been difficult to imagine in those early days of integration.  Ordained in the United Methodist Church, she is leading an all-white congregation.

 “Sometimes others can step in and erase what someone else has done,” Sylvia says.

To view this story

Negro crossing himself and praying over the grave of a relative, All Saints' Day, New Roads, La., November 1938. Credit: Library of Congress

United Methodists are focusing new attention on the Central Jurisdiction era, a period of nearly 30 years when African-American members were segregated from the rest of the church. In August 2004, many who lived and worked in the Central Jurisdiction gathered in Atlanta for a first-ever reunion. Months earlier, the denomination’s General Conference apologized for its treatment of blacks who stayed in the church despite segregation and racism.

Through extensive interviews and research, United Methodist News Service has produced this special report on that era, “Unlocking the Future: Remembering the Central Jurisdiction.” You will hear and read the stories of people who lived in the jurisdiction and fought to eliminate it. You will meet them face to face through portraits, a flash feature and other images.

And you will see how eliminating segregation helped the church unlock the door to a more inclusive future.  [More]

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