Community group aims to restore former N.S. Black church

When Vanessa Fells and a group of volunteers look at the site of a former historic Black church in Yarmouth, they can see the potential.

But first they need to fix part of the roof.

There is a hole in the roof, but contractors have said the building is sound otherwise, according to Fells, who spoke on behalf of a new volunteer board.

“We are trying to get things together as quickly as possible,” she said, noting that roof is the priority.

More than a year ago, Fells and other members of the town’s Black community connected to the former Rose of Sharon Church agreed to a proposal brought to them by a community group that wanted to use the building on East Street for a community hub that would provide meals and other resources.

The building needed so much work, however, that Fells said the organization decided it wasn’t something it could take on. That led her, members of her family and other people in the community to reconsider what could be done with the site.

“It’s the only still-standing remnants of the Black community in Yarmouth,” she said. “So it is very important to us that we preserve that as much as possible.”

Fells has deep family connections to the site, which is why she and her sister and one of her brothers wanted to be part of the new board.

Their grandmothers, Ada Fells and Claudine Best, were trustees of the church. The grandfather of another board member, Chuck Smith, was a pastor at the church.

Opened in 1877, the church has ties to the United States and people who built chapels there were involved in building the church in Yarmouth, said Fells.

“So, knowing that history, having that connection [and] understanding what that means, the church was always and still is a very big part of the Black community.”

‘We think it’s very important’

The board has applied to the town for municipal heritage status for the site and will do the same with the provincial and federal governments. The plan is to restore the building and then possibly create a type of museum and use the space for other community-related services.

Fells and the rest of the board members know it’s a long-term project to get to that point. The site needs “a lot of work and a lot of care,” she said, “and that is going to take quite a bit of time because we’re going to have to find quite a bit of funding in order to make that happen.”

But first they need to fix the roof.

“We think it’s very important for this type of history to be preserved,” said Fells. “We don’t do that as often as we should.”

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.