“I don’t know what to say, Mister Church.”

The reverend, normally a verbally adroit man, was utterly unable to express what the paperwork spread across the table before him meant.

“I think ‘Yes’ or ‘Thank you’ is a generally accepted place to start, and please, call me Robert.” Robert Church was gathering up his copies of the documents, a smile on his face.

“This is just such a shock, sir. We’re a church. We’re not used to receiving charity. We’re used to giving it.”

“Who ever said this was charity? You’ll pay that loan back.”

The reverend flipped a few sheets of paper over and pointed to an empty section in the middle of the page.

“You left the interest rate blank, and the repayment period. I don’t know of any bank that does something like that.”

“We’re not any bank.” Church put his had on and extended his hand to the reverend. “The Solvent Savings Bank and Trust Company was founded to help the black community in financial ways we couldn’t before, and keeping the Beale Street Baptist Church out of foreclosure seems right up our alley.”

The reverend gladly shook his hand. “I’ll see you on Sunday, Robert.”

Memphis Note
Robert Church was one of the most benevolent people to ever live in Memphis, and probably the first black millionaire in the South. Most of his giving was focused on bolstering the culture of the black community in Memphis. He also helped to found the first black-owned bank in Memphis since Reconstruction. If you ever need a role model, just look to him.

“You ever danced the blues, boy?” She asks, sliding around him, dragging a finger over his shoulders.

The low-ceilinged dancehall bar beneath the auditorium stage of Church’s Park and Auditorium is filled to capacity this Friday evening. In the corner, a blues band tries desperately to play over the revelers’ din. It’s his first time here, but obviously not hers.

“I’ve…I’ve danced to blues music before.” He stammers out, more or less lying.

“Not the same thing,” she whispers from behind him, her full, dark lips inches from his ear, her breath making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Letting her finger linger on his shoulder, she pulls herself into him. She has to force him to place a hand on her hip. His palms are coated in nervous sweat, his breathing ragged.

“We’ll get you over those shakes in no time, boy.”

As she begins to move, he can feel her body under the light shift dress. It feels fluid, like she is made of nothing but water. He can’t help but get swept up in her tide.

“The music, it..they ain’t started yet.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll catch up.”

Memphis Note
Church’s Park and Auditorium was built by Robert Church, Memphis’s first black millionaire. It had an large interior auditorium, a bar and hall beneath the stage, a soda fountain at the opposite end of the building, and a band stand for outdoor concerts. It was the largest black-friendly venue in the region. Oh, and “Balling the Jack”? It has two meanings. The first is a kind of blues dancing where you lock your knees together and move your hips. The second is more general, meaning for the person to go crazy dancing or having fun.

“Now, tell it to me again,” said the mocha-skinned man behind the bar, sliding the young man across from him a glass with a finger of whiskey in it. “And tell it slow, so I know what you’re on about.”

“Yessir. Thank you, sir.” The young man took the whiskey and sipped at it. It burned his nose, stung the cracks in his lips, and tasted absolutely terrible. But he dared not refused the gesture from a man like this.

He began, trying to talk slowly. “Well, sir, us house boys, we’re all out of work. We can’t find nothin’ since the fever. And it’s not that we’re bein’ turned away. The houses are empty, sir They’re empty all over the place!”

He took another sip before continuing, it didn’t taste any better.

“And so I told my brother the idea, and he told me to come see you. ‘Go see Robert Church,’ he said. ‘He’s solid for Memphis, he’ll know what to do.’ And, so that’s what I set my resolve to do, to bring you my idea.”

He winced the last sip down.

“Why not buy all them houses?”

“Why not, indeed?” Robert Church said back, grinning.

Memphis Note
The son of a steamboat captain and his slave, Robert Church was a self-made man who went on to become the South’s first black millionaire. Shot during the race riots after the Civil War, he refused to leave the city he loved. After the Yellow Fever Epidemic, he took the opportunity to buy large tracts of land that had plummeted in value. In the years after, he helped establish a stable black-owned savings and loan and built the city’s only black cultural center, Church’s Park and Auditorium. It was said that he would never turn away a request for help or a philanthropic cause. He was one of Memphis’s best.