PBH’s McCarthy honored for work in the South

The National Coalition for Burned Churches (NCBC) will honor 11 men and women Friday (Dec. 14) for their decadelong efforts to rebuild Southern black churches. Among the recipients of the 2007 Humble Servant Award to be given at the Atlanta ceremony is Timothy Patrick McCarthy, lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Kennedy School of Government, and founding director of Harvard’s Alternative Spring Break (ASB) church rebuilding program.

Since 1997, McCarthy, who is also a visiting scholar in the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, has brought nearly 200 students to the South to rebuild African-American churches that have been burned by arson. He began this work when he was a doctoral student at Columbia University, and brought the program to Harvard when he began teaching at the University in 1998. He also started an ASB church-rebuilding program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was a visiting scholar from 2003 to 2005.

“It is a tremendous honor to present the 2007 Humble Servant Awards to a group of incredible men and women and the teams they represent,” said the Rev. Terrance G. Mackey Sr., NCBC president and executive director. “They have stayed the course, remaining committed to this cause, and for that we are eternally grateful.”

Over the course of the past decade, McCarthy and his students have helped to rebuild the following nine churches: Rising Star Baptist Church in Greensboro, Ala.; Prayer House Mission Church in Summerton, S.C.; South Richland Bible Way Church in Gadsden, S.C.; Full Gospel Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Hinesville, Ga.; Antioch United Holy Church in Rocky Point, N.C.; South Capitol Church of God in Tallahassee, Fla.; Union Grove Baptist Church in Opelika, Ala.; Bethel Apostolic Temple in Wheeling, W.Va.; and St. Joe Baptist Church in Little River, Ala. This spring, McCarthy and his students will embark on another church-rebuilding trip, followed by a two-day conference on black church burnings at Harvard in mid-April.

The awards ceremony is part of the NCBC’s 10th anniversary “Call to Action” conference. Established in 1997 by pastors and members of burned churches in response to the 1996 church-burning crisis, NCBC is a multiracial, interfaith coalition working in partnership with individuals and organizations devoted to civil rights and social justice.