Building a strong community at Mizpah

LIMA — It’s been a fixture for years in the black community. For many people, the words Mizpah Mission bring to mind a center that offered learning programs, activities and social outings to area residents for several decades. Mizpah began as an idea in the minds of the women who belonged in 1912 to the Lima Council of United Church Women. As the community of Lima was growing, this group of concerned ladies wanted to make certain that the lessons of the Bible were taught and adhered to in the burgeoning city.Originally, the group sponsored a “mission” in the north end of town, generally known as the North Broadway Chapel. That mission eventually became St. Mark United Methodist Church.On Lima’s south side, the Mizpah Mission was started. The original idea was to provide a Sunday school to the residents of the area. Also offered there were kindergarten classes, sessions in literacy and training in the home arts of sewing and cooking.Mizpah Mission was a busy place.A 1915 newspaper notice said the mission was located at 1218 S. Atlantic Ave. and held Bible studies at 2:30 on Sunday afternoons, with classes for all ages. The women of Church Women United in 1915 provided the children there with a Christmas tree and gifts.Concerns of the community were also met head-on at Mizpah. The Political Equality Club met there in 1917, and in 1918, the members there collected $10 for the Red Cross to send to soldiers in World War I.In 1921, it was one of several locations around town holding Vacation Bible School. The local newspaper wrote that “children will attend the school nearest their home, regardless of denomination or affiliation of children or parents.”At a time when kindergarten was optional for youngsters, Mizpah opened the only free kindergarten in the city. In 1926, there were 53 youngsters enrolled in the half-day sessions there, offered both morning and afternoon. Sessions were eventually moved from the Atlantic Avenue location to a few rooms inside the housing development, Grandview Homes.In 1954, Mizpah got a permanent home when the Church Women bought the old Danzby Grocery on the corner of Ninth and Central avenues. There were high hopes for the building, which they bought for $4,500. The concrete single-story building was 30 feet wide and 41 feet long, and full of promise. Teachers there included Mrs. Herbert Jones, Mrs. Samson Clark and Mrs. Delores Jennings.And Mizpah grew. By 1965, program coordinator Annabel Fisher watched over a Headstart kindergarten, a 4-H sewing and cooking club, teen activities, study sessions, adult classes, and Salvation Army programs. Most of those offerings were headed by volunteer help.As the city of Lima struggled through racial conflict in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Mizpah again played a pivotal background role in the turbulence. After a shooting there, talk turned to possibly closing down the center.But the cry to keep Mizpah open was strong. As one Letter to the Editor read, the real tragedy of the situation would be to close Mizpah. “It would be like taking our church, recreation facilities and school away from us,” the February letter of 1970 read.By June of that year, the center was again going strong, offering teen nights, community meetings, day camps, and even a carnival. To reflect better the community it served, the walls of Mizpah were adorned with African-American images.In fact, it was Lima’s first taste of what became known as black art. Local resident James Williamson painted on the Mizpah walls portraits of blacks who had made a difference on the landscape of the United States.His “Wall of Respect” included portraits of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Eldridge Cleaver, Marcus Garvey, Charles Lloyd, Stokely Carmichael, Leroy Jones, Claudia Stewart, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, and H. Rap Brown. There was also a black Christ painted there.The outside walls of Mizpah now reflected the contributions blacks had made in this country. And Mizpah Director Cooper Smith saw that as a step in bringing both races together to bring about better race relations between blacks and whites.“Any constructive changes that occur here must come by working within the system,” he cautioned.Which harkens to the original plans for Mizpah, promoted by those 1912 Christian ladies.