ABSTRACT
One day aft er Sunday School a bunch of us children decided to play church. I was the preacher. We all pitched in and cleared off a place on top of a little hill, over in the woods. It was just as nice, all covered with them slick brown pine needles that smell so good when the sun shines on them. We dragged in some logs to use for pews. Th ey called it, “Charley’s Church.” My pulpit was beside a big pine tree. (White and Holland, 1969, p. 3, as told by Reverend C. C. White, an elderly African American minister who grew up in east Texas and spent his adult years in charitable work with needy people of all races)
In 1620 a small sailing ship, the Mayfl ower, completed its three-month stormy voyage across the Atlantic from Plymouth, England, to the “New World” with 100 emigrants (including 30 children) intent on forming their own government, establishing their own churches, and living their own way. Th e Log of the Mayfl ower, written by William Bradford, later governor of the colony, is a careful account of the voyage and of the early experiences in their new home, and is held in the Boston Library. Th e welfare of their children was one of the reasons for the pilgrims’ perilous voyage, for they wished them to be free of association with worldly companions and the temptations of city streets (MacElroy, 1929). Little did they realize how monumental would be the obstacles they were to face in the New World.
