A New Voice in Normandie

The little white Methodist church at Normandie Avenue and 38th Street in Los Angeles is grimed and paint-peeled on the outside, dusty and scuffed within. For years the neighborhood, none too prosperous to begin with, has been sliding downhill: property values dropped, and, taking advantage of low rents, Negro families moved in until they now make up about 60% of the area's population.

But the 43 members of the Normandie Avenue Methodist Church's congregation remained solidly white, and the 30-odd who went to services regularly were cool to the few Negroes who dropped in. Thirty churchgoers are not very many. In the hope of increasing church membership. Bishop Gerald H. Kennedy of the California-Arizona Methodist Conference decided to give Normandie Avenue a Negro pastor. District Superintendent Ray W. Ragsdale appointed 39-year-old Nelson Burlin Higgins Jr. A descendant of four generations of preachers, Higgins is a husky ex-athlete who went through Louisiana's Roman Catholic Xavier University on a football scholarship, later trained for the ministry at Philadelphia's Temple University.

The 30 regulars promptly resigned in a body. "I have no objection to the new minister, except that he's black." said retired Laundryman John Henry Seal, 77.

Faced with a congregation numbering zero. Pastor Higgins rounded up 15 volunteers, canvassed the neighborhood with flyers proclaiming: "Look what God has done! He has placed a new voice in the community!!!" One white woman called 125 friends and urged them to come for the next four weeks, "to establish a pattern for the congregation." Last week

Pastor Higgins mounted the pulpit for his first sermon.

Before him 350 men and women jammed the aisles of the 250-capacity church. The social hall behind them was packed with 150 more, nearly 300 were outside in the basketball court, and another 250 milled about Normandie Avenue and 38th Street. About half of them were Negroes.

"I am overwhelmed with joy. I can say only thanks," said Nelson Higgins, tears streaming down his cheeks. Just before the benediction, an elderly white woman stood up and said: "God bless you, Mr. Higgins." Later. Pastor Higgins announced that he had received three applications for membership, and asked if there were more. Nine people came forward. (By week's end, membership had reached 16, including four whites.) To gather up the offering, pots and pans from the parsonage were pressed into service to supplement the four collection plates. In all, the throng contributed $543.43.

Superintendent Ragsdale was delighted. "I think the church will have 250 people by the end of the year," he said happily. "And in a few years we may have to buy more property and expand."

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