At Pleasant Grove Baptist

Although visiting in Gee’s Bend is quite church like, I always want to attend Sunday service. This year I carry Sammy to Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church; it’s the church where Martin Luther King, Jr spoke, and Mary Ann Pettway is in the choir. We drive up to the brick building as Sunday School is ending, a bit early for the main event, so we sit in the quiet comfort of the rental car’s AC, looking. A very large woman in a white suit carrying a massive watermelon greets a second large lady, putting the melon in the gleaming trunk of a big white car.

 It happens to be Homecoming on this particular Sunday, and we are there for close to four hours. The sermon itself is over an hour, with the pastor singing half of it. He talks about evil, he speaks of gratitude. The congregation responds. The choir belts out lovely punctuation. There are two collection events. The deacons speak. We are called on to speak, we are welcomed to the church. We watch squirmy children, teenaged boys elbowing each other, shirts pressed, tucked into pants that hang low. Finally it is over and we are invited to lunch in the fellowship hall. Women with aprons covering church clothes stand over large stainless steel trays filled with mac and cheese, greens, fried chicken. They spoon dollops onto Styrofoam plates. The room has a baptismal pool; it is painted aqua and has a painting of Jesus on the wall that was done by a member of the church. I am sad that no one has come forward on this day wishing to be baptized.