Black History Month - February 27, 2021

In 2004 a quiet revolution was accomplished at 314 Upham Street: for the first time in almost 350 years of Black presence in Melrose, an institution run by and for Black people was established when the Redeemed Christian Church of God purchased the premises of the former Hillcrest Congregational Church. Twelve years later, just before Christmas of 2016, a second Melrose Black church was established in the former Methodist parish hall at 643R Main Street when the Grace & Faith Christian Church bought that building. A few decades before, the idea of Black congregations moving into white houses of worship in Melrose would have been met with shock. The lack of such concern in the early 21st century attested to the decline of both the segregationist ideal and the Christian faith among Melrose’s white people.

The two churches draw their congregations from immigrant communities, respectively Nigerian and Haitian. This is not a coincidence. According to a comprehensive 2019 study funded by the Boston Foundation, Boston’s suburbs have experienced historic influxes of people of color over the past thirty years, and most of that demographic change can be attributed to recent immigrants to the United States. Melrose was about 1% Black, 3% POC, and 6% foreign-born in 1990; in 2017 it was estimated that those numbers had shifted respectively to 4%, 15%, and 14%, representing the fastest rise in both the Black and POC population in the city’s history.

If all of these trends hold steady, in another generation, Melrose may have more predominantly POC religious congregations than white ones. Should this happen, it would solve a major historic preservation question looming in the near future: who will pay to maintain the architectural gems that are Melrose’s historic houses of worship if their dwindling white congregations can no longer afford them? The answer may be that burgeoning Black and brown congregations will rejuvenate sacred spaces from which they were historically excluded.

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