Shout hallelujah! First AME turns 120

On Sunday, when his church celebrates its 120th anniversary, Thurman Brewer plans to do as he's done for the past several decades as an usher.

He will get up around 5 a.m., fix breakfast, and make sure his hair — a thick cloud of downy white — is just so. He will get his black suit off the wooden hanger in his closet and choose a pair of white gloves from the many in his dresser drawer.

Brewer, 86 and a retired Boeing mechanic, has been a member at Seattle's First African Methodist Episcopal Church for 52 years, serving as usher most of those years.

"When people come into the church in the morning, you don't know how they're feeling," he said. "But if you're smilin' and welcome 'em in, it lifts 'em up. The looks in their faces get different. That's what folks are looking for."

Brewer is one of many members at First AME who say that the warmth and welcome is what drew and kept them there. While the church, the city's oldest predominantly African-American congregation, may be better known for its roles in the civil-rights movement and serving the community, it's that friendliness and support of each other that so many members hold dear.

"The first day I was there, they treated me like I was a member," Brewer said.

That's not to say the church, located where the Central Area meets Capitol Hill, hasn't experienced conflict and woes. There have been rough financial times. And four years ago, church members became deeply divided over a plan to sell their building and move to South King County.

"Through the years, we've held it together ... sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes almost level to the ground," said the Rev. Ellis Casson, a former First AME pastor and a retired presiding elder over AME churches in the Northwest.

"To live 120 years and still sustain itself — that's a reason to celebrate."

Brother's keeper

For Brewer, the place First AME holds in his heart is reflected on the walls of his small apartment a couple of blocks from the church, and in the photos and certificates he pulls from manila envelopes.

There are his "Usher of the Year" and "Man of the Year" awards. There is Brewer, his hair growing progressively whiter, in photos at the church's annual tea, in a choir, with a church family who took him in for three months after he had a heart attack several decades ago.

Brewer, who has never married, moved here from Tennessee, where most of his relatives remain. He figures church members thought he "should have someone looking after me." One church couple makes sure he never runs out of his medicines. Another drives him to church every Sunday.

The church was formed from such a closely knit community.

The congregation began in 1886 out of a Sunday school group held in the homes of local African Methodist Episcopalians. Around 1890, the group bought the property around 14th Avenue and East Pike Street that has been its home ever since.

At first, members worshipped in the large house on the property. It was replaced by the current building in 1912, and expanded in later years.

Early on, church membership was small, and paying for the property was sometimes challenging. But "going through the Depression, through it all — we never did lose the property," Casson said.

Rather, the church spread out, buying apartments in the area that members turned into senior and low-income housing, one of its many community services. Throughout the years, the congregation has also emphasized education, giving scholarships and creating a Head Start program.

During the 1960s, the church was a leader in the civil-rights movement. It was a place where people could "meet, could strategize, provide leadership," remembers Dorothy Hollingsworth, 86, who joined at the end of World War II.

The church was also a source of personal support for her when she served on the Seattle School Board — the first black woman to do so. It was the 1970s and schools were being desegregated. Some African-American community members were angered when some neighborhood schools were closed in the process.

"The pastor and church members would say to me: 'Dorothy, hang in there,' " she said.

About four years ago, the congregation faced a huge divide when the pastor at the time, the Rev. John Hunter, proposed selling the historic building and moving the congregation to South King County, which has seen growth in the number of African Americans.

Opponents of the move picketed the church, and the pastor received an anonymous death threat. Hunter concluded a better option would be to keep the congregation in Seattle while adding a Sunday service in Kent.

These days, that Kent service is still being held — at Emerald Park Elementary School. The Rev. Carey Anderson, who became pastor of First AME in 2004, hopes to find a building in South King County for a more permanent satellite church.

But there are no plans to move from Seattle, he said.

In fact, Anderson, 47, is hoping to expand. The church, which currently has about 1,500 members, is exploring the possibility of buying land nearby so its ministries and services can grow.

It's part of what he calls "transforming the community through ownership."

Doing his part for the Lord

Such grand plans are fine with Brewer.

But it's not really why, over the years, he's served as an usher, a volunteer cook and bus driver, and why he gives more than a tenth of his monthly retirement income to the church, the amount carefully penned on his monthly budget, along with his rent and utility bills.

Instead, it's this: That when he flashes a smile, it makes people feel wanted. "They've been out in the world. You know how the world is."

It's that people come up to him, grasp his shoulder, shake his hand, give him a hug and say: "How you doing, Mr. Brewer?"

He has no doubt: "If you do your part for the Lord, he'll do his part for you."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com