The future site of the African-American Museum of Church History was once a private home. Built in 1916, it is now owned by Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church, which sits just across the road in Huntersville.

Pearlie Cureton-Borders has a deep appreciation for all things historic. So when members of Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church began brainstorming potential uses for an old clapboard house the church had bought, the retired elementary school principal proposed a novel idea.

What if they fixed up the building and used it to house a museum devoted to African American church history, she suggested.

The idea caught on, and now five years later, the 250-member congregation in Huntersville is moving forward with that plan.

When the project is done, the African-American Museum of Church History will be part tourist stop and part teaching facility, organizers envision.

Cureton-Borders (insert), a member of Mount Olive Baptist for more than 40 years and whose father, the late Rev. Max McIlwain, once pastored there, said the history of the black church has gone largely untold.

“How has the African American church historically been that rock, that foundation, from which everything we do (in the black community) happens -- politically, socially, economically?” she said.

A place for learning

Cureton-Borders said she hopes the museum will attract local schools and seminary students, or anyone who values history and culture.

That history will be told primarily through the evolution of Mount Olive Baptist, founded in 1868 by former slaves and sandwiched between the historic Latta Plantation and the lesser-known Rural Hill Plantation.

“If you look at the history of Mount Olive, it actually parallels the history of most black churches,” she said. “We are all rooted in the same experience and were encouraged in the same way.”

The museum will house artifacts – pews, podium, a communion table, etc. – taken from the original Mount Olive Baptist, which was destroyed by fire in 1963.

Church and project leaders also are considering whether to excavate the church’s original, outdoor baptistery, which was paved over many years ago to expand a parking lot. And then there’s the church cemetery, which has markers dating back to the late 1800s. Cureton-Borders said she wants to catalogue some of the more historic graves.

The museum, however, won’t be totally about Mount Olive, Cureton-Borders said. Project leaders also will ask other black congregations in the region to share their histories.

“We want to connect with as many community people as we possibly can to help us realize this vision,” she said.

Project leaders are talking with officials at Latta Plantation about ways the two might partner. Cureton-Borders also has been meeting with other local churches – black and white – whose histories dovetail with project objectives.

Just up the road, for example, sits Hopewell Presbyterian Church, established in 1762. Cureton-Borders said she has toured the landmark church and believes that some Mount Olive families have ancestors once owned by former Hopewell Presbyterian members.

A former home converted

As for the old clapboard house, its history is unremarkable. Built in 1916 by a Caucasian family, it later was owned by at least two African American families before it was sold to the church in 1991.

Mount Olive members had used it mainly for storage until church leaders in 2005 decided to either tear it down or find a more suitable use for it.

Renovations began in 2007-- first a new tin roof, then new windows and new porches, front and back.

"When we received the house, it didn't look like the house that's over there now," said Cureton-Borders.

The project was granted nonprofit status, which organizers hope will make fundraising easier.

Cureton-Borders said the museum is still years away, depending on how quickly the nonprofit can raise money to complete renovations.

She said she never imagined that she’d be working on such an ambitious project in retirement. But given her love for history, she said, it seemed a natural fit.

“I think that too often, especially today, we are so concerned about the now,” she said. “We don’t care about those who went before us, those who struggled to get us to where we are today. So I think we sell short where we can go in the future. You can’t really make a better, more excellent future if you don’t have a sense of what went on before you.”

To learn more, call 704-549-8004 or email prlborders@aol.com.

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