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Grace Church has existed on the corner of Buckley and Sheldon since 1947. It was established as Buckley Chapel in one of the first neighborhoods in Grand Rapids settled by African-Americans. After World War I, families migrating north in search of jobs looked for affordable housing within walking distance of work. They found just that in the area from Wealthy to Franklin and Division to Jefferson in the 1940’s.
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Southgate Block Club Events
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Churches were always an important part of African American community life. The first African American church of Grand Rapids, St. Luke’s AME Zion Church, was established in this neighborhood. For Grace Church, extending Christian fellowship and meeting the needs of the community with compassion has always been an important focus.
In the late 1960’s Grace found itself involved in the national racial conflict with rioting and houses being burned only a block away. The church survived those turbulent times with a renewed commitment to demonstrating reconciliation and new ministries were formed to give attention to the needs of the neighborhood that had come to be seen as the “inner-city”. The church’s ministries included providing open housing, addict rehabilitation, tutoring children, voter registration, the Model Cities pilot projects, an inner-city council of CRC Churches, the conscientious objector status of a church member, participation in a CRC Black caucus, the appointment of an inner-city coordinator, an unwed mother ministry and the hiring of an Urban Corp worker.
In the mid 1980’s Grace began to host a Wednesday morning coffee time for neighbors and members. The group was informal, with more neighbors than members and changing faces but a steady 8 to 12 people who continued to meet for about 7 years. Alongside of this group a ministry committee attempted to organize a neighborhood block club but attendance was small. However, the Wednesday morning group began, without coaching, to act like a block club. The ministry committee talked to them and helped them decide to make it a block club that would meet the third Wednesday of every month.
The church and the block club worked together to address such issues as prostitution, drug dealing, and violence. A string of murders that affected the church and the community motivated them to action. The block club became an important communication link with agencies and the city. When the city wanted to turn the area from LaGrave to Division into a park, they fought for the homes of the residents. They picketed the private home of a notorious slum landlord who was allowing criminal activity to take place in the neighborhood houses that he owned.
The City of Grand Rapids eventually established neighborhood associations to help facilitate using funds from the new federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) program but somehow the small area of Grace’s neighborhood got left out of any association boundaries. Because of an article in the Grand Rapids Press the neighborhood received the nickname “Forgotten Corners”. The area was added to SECA or Southeast Community Association (SECA) but the name stuck and the block club became the Forgotten Corners Block Club. Pastor Roger Van Harn recalls that around 1999 the local business association decided they didn’t like the negative connotation of Forgotten Corners so they changed the name to Southgate since it is the first neighborhood, or the ‘south gate’ for downtown Grand Rapids.
Today the Southgate Block Club still meets at Grace Church on a monthly basis. They plan two or three events each year, talk about safety and housing issues, and generally just use the time to get to know neighbors who live, work and go to church here. They believe that people who care about this place should work together to make it a good place to live and work. The block club meets on the 2nd Monday of each month at 6:30pm. A light supper is served and all are welcome.
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