c. 1998 Religion News Service

NEW MARKET, Ala. _ The Rev. Conley Bush is no stranger to racial prejudice.

He says he even felt it in his own family while growing up in Moulton, Ala. But the prejudice Bush experienced was atypical from most racial bias directed against blacks _ it was blacks who gave him a hard time, he says.

Bush grew up in a white neighborhood and attended a predominantly white school where he was a standout in football, basketball, baseball and track.

There, he said, it was mostly his black acquaintances and even some family members who resented his white friends.

“A lot of my black friends called me `Uncle Tom’ because of my white friends,” said Bush. “My oldest sister wrote me letters for a year criticizing me for attending a white church and forgetting my roots.”Outside my own family I had never really been around many other blacks until I went to college,”he added.”I had a hard time even understanding some of their slang talk.”

While the criticism hurt, Bush said, he now believes that God was preparing him for a particular task _ being the new minister of youth and recreation at Locust Grove Baptist Church in New Market, a nearly all-white Southern Baptist congregation.

“God has given me the ministry of breaking down racial barriers,” Bush said in an interview shortly after beginning his duties at the church this summer.”It’s not me, but him (God) through me doing it. I’m going into white churches where blacks don’t feel they can go. I think I’m developing some great relationships in the church and community.”

Bush is believed to be the only full-time black minister at a predominantly white Southern Baptist church in the Tennessee Valley and only the second in Alabama, according to a spokesperson at the Alabama Baptist State Convention office in Montgomery.

The first was the Rev. Sammy Campbell, who was hired as minister of local missions at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham, one of the largest Southern Baptist churches in the state.

A graduate of the University of North Alabama and Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, the 29-year-old Bush was hired to oversee the church’s new 16,000-square-foot Christian Life Center.

The gregarious Bush greets everyone with a smile and is said to constantly joke and tease with the other staff members. He also said he’s felt only minor opposition to his hiring, but he believes it will eventually iron itself out.”I don’t believe they hired me just to try and reach the black community,” he said.”I believed they hired me because I was the best person for the job.” Robby White, the church’s pastor, concurs.”His resume was in a group that the committee looked at, and as things developed, his name kept coming to the top,” said White. “It was not the intention to hire him because he is black.”It was a big step for us. We talk a lot about racial unity, but in reality, it doesn’t exist, even in an area as progressive as Madison County. It’s a sermon lived out and a chance to share our message of reconciliation and show that we can live together as brothers and sisters in Christ.”

White said initially the committee had “some apprehension” about hiring Bush, but eventually unanimously recommended him to the church. He said more than 90 percent of the congregation favored it.

“I don’t think those who voted against it based it on racial motivation, but were more opposed to creating the new position than anything,” he said. “Back in the 1960s when other churches were closing their doors to blacks, Locust Grove was opening them.”

Dixie Torbert, a member of the search committee, said the church is “thrilled” to have Bush on staff, but admitted it was a difficult decision at first.

“We knew he was black because his photo was attached to the resume and his credentials were very good,” said Torbert. “We had several names and his was at the bottom, but all the others we called either had taken other positions, we couldn’t reach or they weren’t interested. To be honest, we were prejudiced about it, but wouldn’t admit it. We kept coming up with hurdles, but he kept overcoming them. We could not get rid of his application.”

A telephone interview with Bush sealed the committee’s decision to hire him.”He is such a spiritual person and we were very impressed with him,” said Torbert.”We felt like he would be a superb role model for the kids. It was a big step for us because we didn’t know how it would be received, but we feel it shows a wonderful testimony for our church.”

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Bush grew up in a Presbyterian home, the youngest of four children.”We could not use the word `white’ in our home in any derogatory way,” said Bush. “My parents were the greatest and always encouraged me.” He played basketball at Northwest Community College for two years before transferring to the University of Northern Alabama, where he served as a trainer for the 1992 NCAA Division II National Championship basketball team.

After the title game, the team was invited to a social event at the Baptist Student Union by the campus minister, the Rev. Eddie Garner. Bush said he began regularly attending the BSU and signed up for a summer mission trip with the other students, but learned he had to be a Baptist to qualify for finances for his trip.

He told his parents about his desire to make the trip, and his mother worried he would leave the Presbyterian church. He told her he could join Woodmont Baptist Church in Florence under a “Watch Care” program while still retaining membership in his own church. She agreed, and he soon left for California where he helped with interracial backyard vacation Bible clubs.”I really grew closer to the Lord then and I began realizing the need to be immersed in baptism,” said Bush.”Eddie then asked me to lead a Bible study at the BSU to try and attract some black students.” And Fran Jackson, his older sister who had written him criticizing his decision to attend a white church has since changed her own mind, he said, and and now attends a predominantly white church in Decatur, Ga.

DEA END WHITE