Celebrating a new year brings back great memories of Watchnight services | Opinion

Happy New Year!

I am thankful and blessed to see another new year. If you are reading this, you are blessed, too. To me, a brand, new year means we have been given a brand, new opportunity to live this thing called life.

Celebrating a new year also brings back a lot of great memories. As a child, I loved to attend the New Year’s Eve Watchnight services at the old Ebenezer United Methodist Church that was a religious staple in Overtown back in the 1940’s, 50’s and early 1960’s. It was the church Momma joined when we moved here from Williston, Florida, in 1944. Momma sang in Choir # 1. The Rev. W.O. Bartley was the pastor.

A man of short stature, Rev. Bartley carried a black umbrella with him just about everywhere he went. He had a kind face and a raspy, but compassionate voice. Some of the children thought he was an angel. I think I did, too.

He was loved and respected by both Whites and Blacks. And in an era of Jim Crow, Ebenezer was one of two Black churches that had a white deacon on its board. The other church was St. John Institutional Baptist Church, also in Overtown.

Rev. Bartley was so loved that when he was raising money to build the church building that is still at Northwest 10th Street and Third Avenue, a white bus driver on the No. 21 bus route used to sell bags of peanuts to passengers to help him with the building fund. The church today serves as a center for performing arts in Overtown.

At many Black churches, the next big event in our lives after Christmas, was to attend the New Year’s Eve Watchnight Service. Rev. Bartley would have deacons stationed at the door of the church for the service. He called them “Watchmen”. And as the hours of the old year dwindled away, he would interrupt the singing of a mournful, yet inspirational hymn to call out, “Watchman, what time is it?” The watchman would call back the time left in the old year and the congregation would go back to singing and praying.

As the hour neared midnight, people started coming into the church right off the streets. The idea was for them to be in church when the New Year rang in. Some would be in their work clothes; some would be dressed in their fine, partying clothes, parties that they resumed as soon as they realized they had lived to see the new year.

Watchnight Service began with long prayer

The Watchnight Service was always warm and soul-searching. It usually stared with a long, long, long prayer by one of the deacons. I can still the hardness of the floor as my boney little knees got acquainted with the hard wood as I knelt next to my mom, who knelt between me and my brother Adam.

After the prayer, the choir opened with a rousing spiritual and then Rev. Bartley would take the pulpit to preach his final sermon of the old year. After he finished preaching, he usually led the congregation in a long, soul-searching gospel song, bringing some in the congregation to tears.

There would be periods during the two-hour service, where members of the congregation would “testify” of some of the hardships they had endured in the old year, and how God “brought” them over.

To a wide-eyed child of 7 or 8, it was a glorious and mysterious time. The New Year’s Eve Watchnight services usually started around 10 p.m. Momma would make me, and my brother, take a nap during the day on New Year’s Eve, so we wouldn’t be sleepy during the church service.

The nap was important because back then, only a few Blacks in our neighborhood owned automobiles. We were among those who didn’t. So, like almost everyone else we knew, we walked to and from church. Dragging two sleepy children home after a midnight Watchnight Service was not something our mom looked forward to.

When the new year was about 10 minutes away, Rev. Bartley led the entire congregation in prayer again. We knelt to pray, this time until the new year arrived. Most times we children fell asleep with our heads resting on our arms folded on the church pews while our parents prayed. We knew the new year had arrived with we heard Rev. Bartley’s raspy voice singing “Happy New Year to you…”

The congregants would join in the singing. There would be tears of joy as people hugged each other and wished them a Happy New Year. They happy to have been spared to see another year.

Years of struggle

Looking back during those years, I can now understand some of the tears of making it over into a new year. Those years during World War II and after the war weren’t the best of times for Blacks in America. I didn’t understand, then, why some in the congregation wept bitterly as they testified of their struggles in the old year and their hope for better times in the new year.

I was curious as to why people thought it so important to be in church when the New Year arrived. Back then, it seemed no one wanted to be caught outside church when the new year came in. I grew up to understand that to many Blacks, the church was a place of refuge, a place of hope for a better day. It was where we went to celebrate our rites of passage — marriages, baby Christenings and baptisms. And still do, to this day.

Today, those Watchnight services of the old days are just fond memories. While many churches still have New Year’s Eve services, I really miss the old-time Watchnight services.

Much has happened to end that tradition. Many people are afraid of venturing out on New Year’s Eve, even to attend church. They cite the random gun-shooting and other acts of violence. Because of the violence that now accompanies the new year celebrations, many churches have early services so that their parishioners can be safely home when the celebrating starts.

Yet, I still miss the good old days when some people rushed to be in church just before the new year came in, much to the delight of the regulars. I know time brings about a change, and that a lot of people would rather watch the new year celebrations on television, at home. But there is no guarantee that one is safe in his/her own home. In recent years, several people have died from random gunshots into their homes as people celebrated the new year carelessly.

While I find it sad that those old Watchnight services are a thing of our past, I am glad that I experienced them as a child. I am glad I can say that I am a witness to another part of our history.

Bea Hines can be reached at bea.hines@gmail.com