The Rev. Reuben J. Boyd Jr. outside Third Street Bethel AME Church (Photo by Jay Paul)
Standing before rows of tables filled with people in need of a meal, the Rev. Reuben J. Boyd Jr. reads from Isaiah 53, verses 1-5. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
It’s lunchtime on a Wednesday in late November, less than a month before Christmas, and the scripture passage concerns the coming Messiah, long-awaited but met with derision and disbelief, who brings healing through his suffering.
The prophet Isaiah’s words could apply to those here in the fellowship hall at Third Street Bethel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church who may be homeless, unemployed or in distress, walking the streets of downtown Richmond, virtually invisible to workers hurrying between meetings or taking a lunch break. In part, the words also describe Boyd, still grieving the death of his 47-year-old son, Kevin, from chronic illness in October.
“Keep your loving arms around these, your children,” the pastor prays. “Lord, we trust that you can fix all things.”
Boyd came to ministry from a place of sorrow, he tells me after providing a brief tour of the church, constructed in 1856 — five years before the start of the Civil War — as the home of a congregation formed by African-Americans who had attended Trinity Methodist Episcopal, a white church where they were restricted to the balcony.
In his early 30s, about three decades ago, Boyd was gripped by depression so debilitating that he could not work or even drive a car. He had studied criminal justice and was working in law enforcement as a sheriff's deputy, but he kept having dreams about pastoring a church.
“I was raised in the church, so I was always part of the church,” says Boyd, who was living in his hometown of High Point, North Carolina, at the time. “I began to feel that God was calling me to do more than I was doing.”
A turning point came when the doctor treating him suggested that his wife, Sonja, take him to a group home each day and drop him off.
“Somehow, I was able to look at that situation and say, ‘No, this is not where I want to be,’ and my wife even said, when we left that home that day, ‘I’m not going to put you in a place like this,’ “ Boyd says. “I just started really calling on God and trusting God to get me through.”
As his depression lifted, Boyd continued to feel that he was meant to do something other than police work.
Photo by Jay Paul
“One Sunday, I was in church and I just said to the Lord, ‘Yes, God, I will go and do that, that you want me to do.’ “
That promise led Boyd to part-time and eventually full-time ministry. He started a commercial cleaning service and later established an industrial supply company, providing safety equipment and cleaning products to clients such as Dominion Energy, the Virginia Department of Corrections and Philip Morris USA. He also returned to school to earn a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy and a master of divinity at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“When I look back on those times now, and I try not to look back on them often because I have some memories of some tough days, it reminds me of what God can do for you. With that experience, I’ve been able to help people that are going through similar situations.”
While running his business full-time and traveling to see clients, Boyd began a part-time, 10-year pastoral assignment in 1990 at an AME church in Rocky Mount, followed by an appointment to another church in Martinsville. In the AME denomination, bishops make pastoral appointments or reappointments annually. He commuted back and forth from High Point a couple of times a week.
“Sometimes I didn’t know what hat to wear,” Boyd says. “I may be at the office in the morning and may have a funeral to do at the church I was serving in the afternoon. I would think to myself, ‘What am I? “
In the early 2000s, Boyd downsized his business as demand slowed, and about six years ago, he decided to focus full time on ministry. That led to his placement in 2013 at Third Street Bethel in Richmond — somewhere he had never expected to land.
“I used to come here for business and would spend one night and be out the next day, and to be honest with you, I didn’t like Richmond,” he says. “I always say that God is a humorous God, because now I’m living in the area and pastoring in the area and I’ve grown to like the area.”
The impact he’s had since arriving here is what led me to seek an interview with Boyd, whom Richmond magazine had hoped to spotlight in our December issue commemorating Arthur Ashe, as one of the people who exemplify the athlete-activist’s model of working to strengthen the African-American community. The death of Boyd’s son delayed our meeting until after the deadline had passed for that issue.
Still, we wanted to recognize his work as leader of a historic African-American church with a legacy of civil rights activity. As Boyd explains it, the mission of social justice has been ingrained in the African Methodist Episcopal denomination since its founding by Richard Allen and others in Philadelphia in the late 1700s, a reaction to racial discrimination in Methodist churches.
“I see Jesus as being very active in standing against those things that oppress people,” he says. “That’s the part we feel we should play in the community.”
One testament to the church’s influence is the $404,821 that Third Street Bethel received in 2017 through the National Park Service's African American Civil Rights Grant Program for structural rehabilitation. Boyd oversaw the application for the grant, which enabled the church to put on a new roof and to waterproof and reseal around the foundation.
According to history provided by the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, Third Street Bethel was home to one of the first Freedmen’s Bureau schools in Richmond after the Civil War, and it was the place where Walker delivered a pivotal speech in 1901 leading to the creation of a bank and a newspaper to serve the black community.
More recently, Third Street Bethel opened its doors to the community for a vigil two days after the June 17, 2015, massacre of nine black worshipers by a self-described white supremacist at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
“The week after, I got a call from [the Rev.] Matt Bates from Centenary United Methodist,” Boyd says. “He was wondering what we could do. We decided we would get together once a month, the two of us, and just talk about racism and try to decide how we could bring our people together.” Then, Boyd received a call from the Rev. Brent Melton of All Saints Episcopal Church about addressing racism and invited him to join the conversations. After a few meetings, the three pastors invited others, leading to the organization Clergy Against Racism, which now comprises representatives of 19 Richmond-area houses of worship.
In August 2017, when Third Street Bethel hosted another vigil after the violent Unite the Right rally and counter-protest in Charlottesville, participating churches filled the sanctuary, Boyd says. That November, Clergy Against Racism held a community discussion and screening of the documentary “13th” at VCU, and members of the various churches also came together for a Thanksgiving service.
“It’s creating a dialogue and that’s very important,” Boyd says. “We realize it has to start within our own congregations.”
Alex Evans, pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, credits Boyd with sustaining and energizing the organization.
“From my own perspective, it’s raised the awareness for me and my congregation that we need to keep working hard to build community in our city across racial lines,” he says. “We think we’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go with these continuing incidents of racial violence and tensions in our communities.”
Meanwhile, Third Street Bethel’s social action committee focuses on issues such as helping Richmond residents get their voting rights restored and register to vote, and, along with other congregations involved in Clergy Against Racism, advocating for legislation to address the disproportionate incarceration of African-Americans.
Six months ago, Boyd initiated a twice-monthly mentoring program for boys between the ages of 9 and 14 from low-income neighborhoods who don’t have fathers at home.
“They’re paired with members who have volunteered to be mentors,” Boyd says. The mentors have to love children, he adds. “That’s what’s missing now, for so many of these young people. They don’t find love.”
Boyd says there are 11 boys in the program, and the plan is for them to continue in it until they finish high school.
“We are bringing these young boys in and, through this mentoring program, exposing them to mentors who have been successful in life and just teaching young boys to become productive men, productive citizens,” he says. “We want these kids … to understand that the drugs and the violence they may see in their communities — there’s more to life than that.”
On a Thursday evening in mid-December, six of the boys talk about their favorite football teams and play tag in the fellowship hall as they wait to go to Golden Corral for a pre-holiday celebration. As they head out to the parking lot with their mentors, one small boy grasps the lanky pastor’s hand, walking tall.
Although Boyd isn’t sure how long his assignment at Third Street Bethel will be, he says he believes there is still work for him to do in Richmond, adding, “I really hope to stay here for a while.”
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