From Sermon to Gospel Tract

An evangelistic ministry piece from the past

(Click on image to enlarge)

Digital copies of Enrichment, a publication of the Assemblies of God, are now available online. While searching through various issues, I came upon a short piece I wrote titled, “From Sermon to Gospel Tract,” that appeared in the February 2003 issue. This brief piece of writing presents a list of practical tips for creating gospel tracts for evangelism and outreach ministry.

Zandra McDonald delivers message of hope at 85th commemoration of the Rhythm Night Club fire

Octavious Saul Jr. of Natchez High is awarded $1,000 scholarship

By Roscoe Barnes III 

Zandra McDonald, superintendent of the Natchez-Adams School District, speaks at the 85th commemoration of the 1940 Rhythm Night Club fire held Saturday, April 26, at the Rhythm Night Club (on site) Memorial Museum. Soloist Tony Fields is in the background. Photo by William Terrell and The Bluff City Post

NATCHEZ, Miss. – Zandra McDonald delivered a message of hope and inspiration at the 85th commemoration of the 1940 Rhythm Night Club fire held Saturday, April 26, at the Rhythm Night Club (on site) Memorial Museum.

“The Rhythm Night Club fire took so much from this community, but it could not take the spirit of this community,” said McDonald, who serves as the superintendent of the Natchez-Adams School District. “It could not take the hope of this community and it could not take the future of this community. Yesterday shaped us, today strengthens us, and tomorrow awaits us. Education is the way we climb.  Education is the way we honor. Education is the way we rise.” 
 
Betty Sago, who co-owns the museum with her husband, Monroe Sago, said McDonald’s message came from the heart. “It was so beautiful and inspiring,” she said. “As superintendent, she’s working with the present and future generations. Her message was dynamic.”
 
McDonald’s message underscored the program’s theme, “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Education the Way Up.” The program included music by several soloists and remarks by Mayor Dan Gibson.
 
“Every year we come here to a site that is so important to the history of Natchez and also to the history of our country,” said Gibson. “Because of this site, countless lives have been actually saved across our country and all of the years since because valuable lessons were learned here.”
 
Gibson said those who perished in the fire did not die in vain. “They are to this day remembered and appreciated,” he said. “But that does not come without a sacrifice and that sacrifice has been made by the Sagos.”
 
Octavius Saul Jr. was this year’s recipient of a $1,000 scholarship awarded by the Sagos for writing the winning essay about the Rhythm Night Club fire. Saul, a senior at Natchez High School, plans to attend Southern University in Baton Rouge where he will major in photography, said Betty Sago.
 
Saul is the son of Octavius Sr. and Quantonya Saul, both of whom were present for the scholarship award.

Octavius Saul Jr., a senior at Natchez High School, is the 2025 recipient of the $1,000 Rhythm Night Club Memorial Museum scholarship. Monroe and Betty Sago, the museum's co-owners, presented Saul with the scholarship Saturday, April 26, during the 85th commemoration of the Rhythm Night Club fire. From left are Monroe Sago, Octavius Saul, Quantonya Saul, Octavius Saul Sr., and Betty Sago. Photo by William Terrell and The Bluff City Post (Click on image to enlarge.)

McDonald began her presentation by acknowledging the contributions of the Sagos through the museum. “Thank you for creating this sacred space — a place where memory lives, where history breathes, and where our community can come together to honor, to heal, and to dream forward,” she said. “Your vision and dedication ensure that the lives we lost are never forgotten, and that the hope they carried lives on through all of us.”

 
She said the program’s theme is one “that not only speaks to our dreams for the future but also calls us to remember the echoes of the past.”
 
In keeping with the theme, McDonald said “Yesterday” is about remembering, especially those who lost their lives. She noted the fire of April 23, 1940, changed Natchez forever. “Over 200 lives were taken in the blink of an eye — mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, musicians, and dreamers. A tragedy that left a scar on our hearts but also taught us the power of resilience. It reminds us that every breath we take today is a gift paid for by those who came before us — those who, though gone, still sing in the spirit of this city.”
 
“Today” is about reflection, McDonald said. “We recognize that education is not merely about books and tests,” she said. “It is about freedom — the kind of freedom that allows a child to dream beyond circumstances, to envision a life untouched by tragedy, limited only by the size of their imagination. Today, we gather as proof that the seeds of progress planted generations ago are still growing — that from ashes and sorrow, hope can rise.”
 
McDonald said, “Tomorrow” is about rising. “Tomorrow belongs to the students we nurture, the leaders we inspire, the dreams we dare to believe,” she said. “Education is — and has always been — the way up. It is the bridge from despair to destiny, from loss to legacy, from brokenness to brilliance. When we teach a child, we don’t just change their life — we change the very future of our communities, our cities, our world.”
 
The Rhythm Night Club commemoration is held each year to honor the 200-plus victims who died in the club’s 1940 fire. It also pays homage to the survivors.

Freedom celebration for Prince Ibrahima and Isabella set for May 10 at Jefferson College

By Roscoe Barnes III
The Natchez Democrat 
April 27, 2025

Dr. Artemus W. Gaye

NATCHEZ, Miss. — A special event celebrating the 197th Freedom Anniversary of Prince Abdul Rahman Ibrahima and his wife, Isabella, will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 10, at Historic Jefferson College at 16 Old North St. It is free to the public.

Titled, “Freedom: Retold,” the event aims to retell the story of Ibrahima using new scholarship, an exhibition, and tours that focus on the prince and Isabella and “their incredible narratives of love, liberty, and lasting legacies,” said Dr. Artemus W. Gaye, chief organizer of the event.

Ibrahima was a Muslim prince from Timbo, West Africa, who was captured in his homeland and sold to slave traders. He arrived in Natchez in 1788, where he was sold to Thomas Foster. Ibrahima spent 40 years enslaved on Foster’s plantation before he and Isabella gained their freedom in 1828. They sailed to Monrovia, Liberia in 1829, where he died of a disease. He was 67.

Gaye said the public will learn more about the prince during the celebration. He said the program will feature a panel discussion by Dr. Eric J. Hearst of the Center Church of Hartford, Connecticut, the home church of Thomas Gallaudet (1787-1851), who was a supporter of Ibrahima.

Other panelists will include Dr. Abu Bakarr Jalloh, author of “The Fulani & Liberia: An Inclusive Approach” (2025); David Dreyer, local historian and genealogist; and Judy Rose, author of “A Legacy of Heirs: The Final Truth” (Jefferson Chapel Family & Friends Foundation Inc., 2016).

The exhibition will include paintings from Africa and new portraits of the prince, Isabella, Simon, and the family migration to Liberia, Gaye said. Creative renderings of artists’ impressions of Liberia from the 1820s to the 1860s, as well as the repatriated Africans who lived there, will be part of the exhibition, he said.

The day’s events will include a tour of various sites related to Ibrahima’s history.

Gaye said the event is also an opportunity to reconnect with local Ibrahima descendants and others who interacted with the West African descendants in 2003. Gaye, who was born in Monrovia, Liberia – the place where Ibrahima died in July 1829 — is a seventh generation descendant of the prince.

Specifically, Gaye noted, he is a descendent of Simon Rahman, one of the sons of the prince and Isabella, who returned to Liberia with his children, wife, and his brother, Levi, in 1831 on the ship, The Carolinian, and settled in Monrovia and New Georgia, Liberia.

Gaye is the author of “Dr. Isabella Rahman and the African Prince of Fouta Djallon” (Forte Publishing International, 2023) and “A Tossed American Pie: The Controversial Conception and Creation of Liberia by White Americans, Black Repatriates and Liberated Africans” (Forte Publishing International, 2023).

According to Gaye, the selection of Jefferson College as the site for the celebration is significant because of its connection to Ibrahima.

First, the land occupied by Jefferson College was donated by John Foster and James Foster, according to the National Register of Historic Places. Both men were brothers of Thomas Foster.

Second, it was in the area near the college that Ibrahima recognized Dr. John Coats Cox in 1807 at the market. Cox, an Irishman, had sailed to West Africa in 1781. After going ashore to hunt, he became lost and ill, but was rescued by the Fulani people and taken to Timbo, where Ibrahima’s father cared for him.

After their chance meeting in Mississippi, the doctor tried for many years to purchase Ibrahima’s freedom, but Thomas Foster refused to release him. Even so, Ibrahima’s fame spread because of his meeting with Cox, and it eventually led to his freedom.

Ibrahima’s story is told in Dr. Terry Alford’s book, “Prince Among Slaves: The True Story of an African Prince Sold into Slavery in the American South” (Oxford University Press, 1977).

The May 10 celebration is organized by the Prince Ibrahim Isabella Freedom Foundation and co-sponsored by the Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society Inc.

For more information, send email to liberiaaldc@gmail.com
 

A Prince Enslaved in Southwest Mississippi: The Story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (1762-1829)

 

Prince Abdul Rahman Ibrahima

This is my latest article published by Mississippi History Now, a publication of the Mississippi Historical Society and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. It’s titled, “A Prince Enslaved in Southwest Mississippi: The Story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (1762-1829).”

You can read it at this link:
https://mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/prince-enslaved-southwest-mississippi-story-abdul-rahman-ibrahima-1762-1829

Zandra McDonald to speak at 85th commemoration of the Rhythm Night Club Fire

By Roscoe Barnes III
Natchez, MS, USA / ListenUpYall.com
Apr 21, 2025 | 12:28 PM

Zandra McDonald, superintendent of the Natchez-Adams School District, will be the guest speaker for the Saturday, April 26 commemoration of the Rhythm Night Club fire of April 23, 1940.

NATCHEZ, Miss. – Zandra McDonald, superintendent of the Natchez-Adams School District, will be the guest speaker for the 85th commemoration of the Rhythm Night Club fire of April 23, 1940. The ceremony is set for 12 p.m. Saturday, April 26, at the Rhythm Night Club (on site) Memorial Museum at 5 St. Catherine St. It is free to the public.

The theme this year is, “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Education the Way Up,” according to Monroe and Betty Sago, the museum’s owners. Betty Sago said McDonald was the perfect choice this year given the program’s focus on education: “She is a product of Natchez public schools. She was born and raised here in Natchez.”

McDonald has worked for more than 25 years in different capacities in the school district. Her education includes a master’s degree from Louisiana State University and a Master of Education from the University of Phoenix. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and Literature from Tougaloo College.

In addition to McDonald, Saturday’s program will feature Wynetta Dangerfield, teacher and co-leader of Natchez High School’s African American Culture Club. Dangerfield will give a presentation on the club.

Music will be provided by several people who will perform as soloists. They include Dangerfield, Tony Fields, Lawrence Reggie Winston, and Lakeria Kaho.

One of the highlights of the program is the presentation of a $500 to $1,000 scholarship, which is awarded each year to a student who writes a winning essay on the museum. Last year’s recipient of a $1,000 scholarship was Daisha Green, a direct descendant of the late Mary Christmas, who died in the Rhythm Night Club fire. She plans to study pre-dentistry at Mississippi State University, according to the Sagos.

The program typically begins with the siren blast of a fire engine from the Natchez Fire Department. It includes a presentation of door prizes, refreshments, and a tour of the museum.

A new feature of the museum is a theater room where visitors can watch recordings of the people who survived the 1940 fire.

The Sagos have been holding this commemoration for the past 17 years to pay homage to the 209-plus victims that died in the club fire of April 23, 1940, as well those who survived. Those who died included students, business leaders, and Woodrick McGuire, band director of Brumfield School. Musician Walter Barnes and members of his band also died in the fire.

For more information, call 601-597-0557 or send email to bettysago@rnconsitemm.org.

See more at this link: https://listenupyall.com/2025/04/21/zandra-mcdonald-to-speak-at-85th-commemoration-of-the-rhythm-night-club-fire/

Fundraiser launched for Dr. John Bowman Banks Museum

By Roscoe Barnes III
Natchez, MS, USA / ListenUpYall.com
Apr 11, 2025 | 11:50 AM

Mayor Dan Gibson recently honored Dr. John Bowman Banks posthumously with a Key to the City, which he presented to Dora Hawkins, a staff member of the Dr. John Bowman Banks Museum. From left are Willie Woods, Kathleen Bonds, Bobby Dennis, Alderwoman Valencia Hall, Richard Burke, Mimi Miller, Sheryl Woods, Jacqulyn Williams, and Thelma Newsome. (Click on image to enlarge.)

NATCHEZ, Miss. — Mayor Dan Gibson kicked off a fundraising campaign Wednesday, April 9, for the Dr. John Bowman Banks Museum, which is commonly known as the Dr. John Banks House. Gibson was joined by the museum staff and other community members. He said a total of $15,000 is being sought to repair the building’s aging roof.

The two-story wood-framed house, which is located at 9 St. Catherine Street, was built in 1892. It is named for Dr. John Bowman Banks, the city’s first Black physician. Banks was also a co-founder of the Bluff City Savings Bank, the city’s only Black-owned bank.

While discussing the building’s history, Gibson honored Banks posthumously with a Key to the City, which he presented to Dora Hawkins and other museum staff, including Thelma Newsome, Willie Woods, and Jacqulyn Williams.

“It’s so very important, and we give a big thanks for the idea that you came up with to seek funds to continue to maintain this illustrious home,” Hawkins said to the mayor. “So we continue to invite you, all who are here today, the public to come visit and to see what this home is all about. It is those finances that will keep us going along with the work that our members are giving and bringing forth to maintain this home.”

Gibson said the house is a treasure in the Natchez community, and it is important to preserve it.

“The house currently is suffering from leaks — water intrusion,” he said. “These leaks threaten this important property. We are very grateful however to have found a roofer who has provided a very reasonable estimate to cure the problem. We need to raise $15,000 to get this done.”
Gibson said the second phase of the project is to restore and seal the building’s historic metal roof. “It’s important that the metal roof not be removed,” he said. “It can be restored without replacing it.”

Banks’ house was initially built in the Queen Anne style, but around 1905, it was remodeled in the Colonial Revival style, according to the Historic Natchez Foundation.

Gibson said donations are needed immediately for the building’s roof, which has ongoing leaks and major water damage affecting ceilings, walls, and floors, among other places. A couple of people in the community are ready to anonymously match the donations, he said, adding, “We want to beat the spring rains.”

The house is an important part of Natchez’s history, Gibson said. In addition to being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is the site of Natchez’s first Mississippi Freedom Trail marker, which was erected in 2023.

During the 1960s, the house became the headquarters for the Natchez NAACP and the home of NAACP President George Metcalfe, whose car was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan on August 27, 1965. Metcalfe survived the bombing, but the tragedy became a pivotal point in the Civil Rights Movement.

The house is featured in the film, “Black Natchez” (1967). It also served as “Metcalfe’s Boarding House” in the 1960s for members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the Civil Rights Movement.

Today, the house is owned and managed by Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church, the oldest Black Baptist church in Mississippi. The church inherited the house from Frank Robinson Jr., Bank’s grandson. The house was officially designated as a museum in 2020.

Tours of the house are available by appointment. Information on tours or donations is available by calling 601-807-2537. All donations are tax-deductible. Checks should be made out to the Dr. John Bowman Banks Museum and mailed to P.O. Box 501, Natchez, MS 39121.

Woven Wind is coming to Natchez

Program to feature clay exhibit and “Toles Family” film

By Roscoe Barnes III
Natchez, MS, USA / ListenUpYall.com
Apr 10, 2025 | 2:31 PM

Terry Minor of Detroit, Michigan, is a member of the Toles family. He is being interviewed by Marlos Evan and Vesna  Pavlović from the Woven Wind team for the "Toles Family: Coming Home" film. The interview took place in 2021 at the Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture. (Click on image to enlarge.)

NATCHEZ, Miss. – The Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture will host the Woven Wind project featuring clay vessels and the showing of the film in progress, “Toles Family: Coming Home,” on Friday, April 25, at 301 Main St., Natchez.

 
The event, which will feature a talk and reception, will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
 
The film includes oral histories of the descendants of the late Tom Toles’ family who was enslaved at Monmouth plantation. Members of the family, like the late Mary Lee Davis Toles, became prominent members of the Natchez community.
 
Mary Lee Davis Toles, who was Tom Toles’ wife, served as an Adams County Justice Court Judge and president of the Natchez NAACP. She was also a founding member of NAPAC museum.
 
The exhibition and film will be preceded by Woven Wind’s community clay workshop, which is set for 12 to 2 p.m. Friday, at the Mississippi School of Folk Arts at 5 E Franklin St., Natchez. The workshop is also free to the public.
 
“‘Woven Wind’ is a living, breathing project that evolves with each exhibition, workshop, and performance,” said Vesna Pavlović, the Paul E. Shwab Chair in Fine Arts Professor of Art at Vanderbilt University.
 
According to Nashville-based curator Courtney Adair Johnson, Woven Wind is a multi-layered artistic endeavor grounded in critical research on the Lovell-Quitman archive at the University of the South, Sewanee.
 
“Extensive plantation records, photographs, and objects found in the archive, document the lives of the officer William Storrow Lovell and wife Antonia, whose father was John A. Quitman (1799-1858), a large slave owner and former governor of Mississippi,” she said.
 
Johnson noted the inventories of the enslaved people produced in 1858 after Quitman's death led their team of artists with a genealogist to locate a family of descendants.
 
“Following this lead, the team met the Toles family to record their oral histories and examine America's history of slavery and bondage using their voice,” she said. “In the film, family members talk about tracing and searching for their ancestors, the value of repair, the legacy of racism, and how it affected their family. They also share their thoughts on moving forward and what reparations could look like.”
 
As for the clay workshop, it will include a trip to Monmouth, where community members will place unfired clay objects on site, Johnson said. Monmouth was Quitman’s former family home where the Toles family ancestors were enslaved.
 
“The clay objects, which symbolically carry the voices of the enslaved, will dissolve with the landscape over time to memorialize the site of the family's painful history,” Johnson said.
 
Woven Wind is supported by many institutions, the list of which includes: the National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Arts Projects; Vanderbilt University Scaling Success Grant; Mellon Partners for Humanities Education Collaboration Grant; Vanderbilt University’s Engine for Art, Democracy, and Justice; Tennessee State University; Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy Catalyst Grant; the Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation at the University of the South, Sewanee; and Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture.
 
For more information, call 601-445-0728.
 

Celebrating Lafayette: Special 200th anniversary program set for April 19

By Roscoe Barnes III
The Natchez Democrat
Published Friday, April 4, 2025

Ben Goldman of Washington, D.C. will perform as Lafayette at the “Lafayette Returns to Natchez after 200 Years” program Saturday, April 19, at the Historic Natchez Foundation. Goldman has performed as Lafayette for almost two decades. 

NATCHEZ, Miss. – A special event celebrating the 200th anniversary of Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to Natchez will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at the Historic Natchez Foundation at 108 S. Commerce Street. It is free and open to the public.

 
Lafayette played an important role in the nation’s victory in the American Revolution.
 
The program celebrating his visit is titled, “Lafayette Returns to Natchez after 200 Years.” It is sponsored by the American Friends of Lafayette, the Natchez Historical Society, the Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Historic Natchez Foundation.
 
The American Friends of Lafayette, which spearheaded this event, is joining other groups in following in the footsteps of Lafayette 200 years after he last visited the United States.
 
“Natchez was the only place in Mississippi that Lafayette visited in 1825,” said Brother Rogers, historian at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and secretary-treasurer for the Mississippi Historical Society. “Jackson, founded in 1821 as the state capital, was too new, too small, and too far out of the way. Natchez was the state's largest city. Lafayette planned to visit every state (all 24) and would be passing by Natchez on his river route from New Orleans to St. Louis.”
 
Rogers is one of the featured speakers at the Lafayette celebration. He gave a presentation on the Frenchman at the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration on Thursday, March 27. The NLCC’s theme this year was “Follow the Frenchman through Natchez: The Farewell Tour of Lafayette.”

Brother Rogers, historian at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and secretary-treasurer for the Mississippi Historical Society, is one of several people who will speak about Lafayette’s return to Natchez on April 19.

Rogers explained April 19 was selected for the upcoming event because the American Friends of Lafayette wanted the celebration to be as close as possible to April 18 – the date that Lafayette visited Natchez for 24 hours in 1825.

 
He said people may wonder why Lafayette felt rushed and only spent 24 hours in Natchez. The reason is that he had promised to be in Boston in June to lay the cornerstone for the marker for the Battle of Bunker Hill.
 
“He had promised them he would do everything to get there and he did get there on time,” Rogers said. “He did not want to miss Natchez but he didn’t want to break his promise.”
 
The Saturday program will open with actor Ben Goldman of Washington, D.C., who will portray Lafayette.
 
Presentations will be given by Rogers, who will discuss “Lafayette Visits Mississippi as the Guest of the Nation”;  and Tyler Diaz, an electric guitar player, music educator, and musicologist, who will perform the music of Francis Johnson, an early African American composer and bandleader who composed a march for Lafayette’s arrival in Philadelphia in 1824.
 
Other participants will include Chuck Schwam of Gaithersburg, Maryland, the executive director of the American Friends of Lafayette and the national chair of the AFL’s Farewell Tour Bicentennial Committee; and Alan Hoffman of Londonderry, New Hampshire, who is president of the AFL and Editor of the “Gazette of the American Friends of Lafayette.”
 
Schwam will discuss “Lafayette Really Delivered!” and Hofman will talk about “Lafayette and the Anti-Slavery Cause.”
 
For more information and to register, visit https://friendsoflafayette.wildapricot.org/event-6138817
 

'Lafayette Returns to Natchez after 200 Years'

Celebration set for Saturday, April 19 at Historic Natchez Foundation

Brother Rogers, historian at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and secretary-treasurer for the Mississippi Historical Society, is one of several people who will speak about Lafayette's return to Natchez on April 19.

200th anniversary of Lafayette’s return to Natchez

 A special program celebrating the 200th anniversary of Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to Natchez will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at the Historic Natchez Foundation at 108 S. Commerce Street. It is free and open to the public.
 
The program is titled, “Lafayette Returns to Natchez after 200 Years.” It is sponsored by the American Friends of Lafayette, the Natchez Historical Society, the Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Historic Natchez Foundation.
Lafayette played a crucial role in the nation’s victory in the American Revolution.
 
The program will feature presentations by actor Ben Goldman, historian Brother Rogers, and electric guitarist Tyler Diaz. Other participants include Chuck Schwam, executive director of the American Friends of Lafayette and Alan Hoffman, president of the AFL.
 
For more information and to register, visit https://friendsoflafayette.wildapricot.org/event-6138817