CADIZ, Ky. (WTVF) — We certainly have our share of old churches in this part of the country, but this story really is something special. A church this old has stories to tell.
There is an energy you find in every Sunday service at Corinth Baptist Church in Cadiz, Kentucky. However, there was something special about this week, something that had Stacey Wimberly prepared to share some history.
"Like many people, I was born to this church," she said.
Joe Rogers was getting ready to go up and speak. He was trying to find the right words to deliver on a day as important as his church's 200-year anniversary.
"My grandparents were in this church," Rogers said. "When I was a kid coming up, everybody was old! Everybody was old!"
Those elders have long been carrying stories of the church.
The church originated in the Donaldson Creek area. It was 1825 and much of the congregation would have been slaves. Church members said it was the only church around this farming area. They also said it was integrated then.
"Both white and Black attended the church," Wimberly said. "They were poor white people."
Wimberly added the back row then was reserved for people called 'the sinners', people attending who hadn't been baptized yet.
"And the saved, they couldn't look back at them!" Wimberly said.
A few years after the Civil War, the church moved to the place where it is now. There was a one room school house also on the property for Black children in the days of segregation. This area was a place to find education, church, and community.
Wimberly shared a picture. It was Corinth Baptist Church in 1975, 150 years into the story. I asked Wimberly and Rogers what the church has long meant to them.
"Everything," Wimberly nodded. "The foundation of my life."
"It was home," Rogers added. "The closer we've gotten to the 200 year celebration, I was wondering if I'd be around or what."
It was time for Rogers to speak to the congregation.
"We celebrate today because they celebrated in truth in 1825 while yet in bondage," Rogers told the crowd. "Can you let your mind explore that setting? Enslaved but still realizing God is still good. They knew that slavery, war, they were all things of this world. God and the church offered hope of things eternal. God has delivered a message every time we needed one."
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