Tag Archives: Bob Gray

The Horrid Little History of the National Association for the Advancement of White People in Jax

Posted on March 12, 2021 | Leave a comment

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In the 1990s, the National Association for the Advancement of White People kept dragging Jax into national headlines. A school board member appointed a white supremacist to a task force on desegregation, a national racist hotline connected to a local elementary school and city officials apologized to the NAAWP when librarians defended black employees.

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Tagged A.C. Shuler, Alphise Brock, Beaver Street Baptist Church, Bob Gray, Calvary Baptist Church, Dan Daniels, David Duke, Donal Godfrey, Donald Van Fleet, First Baptist Church, Fuller Warren, George Hodges, Highlands Branch Library, J.D. Driggers, Jerry Driggers, Joyce Cochran, KKK, Lackawanna Elementary, Linda Sparks, NAAWP, National Association for the Advancement of White People, Pay Doyle, racism Jacksonville, Reno Wolfe, Susan Lamb, Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, Tommy Prater, Tonyaa Weathersbee, Trinity Baptist Church, W.A. Hobson

Spiritual Lighthouse Church

Posted on January 29, 2021 | 2 comments

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It was home, in the old days, to Southern preaching, bluegrass mandolin, and séances. Bluegrass gospel musicians Billie and Gordon Hamrick were staunch Southern Baptists, but Billie had “psychic visions.” The line of Spiritualist pastors here, almost all women, dates back to training by the famous psychic Edgar Cayce. In one of Jill Cook Richards’s first séances at the church, she says, her guardian angel came to her.

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Tagged Andrew Jackson High School, Anna Fletcher, Association for Research and Enlightenment, Atlantis, Billie and Gordon Hamrick, Billie Hamrick, Bob Gray, Chris Hansen, Cosmic Church of Truth, Crestwood Street, Duncan Fletcher, Duncan U. Fletcher, Edgar Cayce, Glidden, Glidden Chemical Company, Gordon Hamrick, Grace Brewer, Ida Pierce, Jacksonville Woman's Club, Jill Cook, Jill Cook Richards, Jimmy Cox, Katie Seltzer, Kirby Smith Junior High School, Lemuria, Marty Hamrick, Mary Ann Lindley, Mary Cox, Millennium Specialty Chemicals, Naomi Hansen, Norwood, Old Country Church TV show, Playtime Drive-In, Southern Gothic Jacksonville, Spiritual Lighthouse Church, Standard Turpentine Co., Symrise, Tim Gilmore, Tina McAlister, Trinity Baptist Church, William C. Hansen

Jefferson Davis Junior High School

Posted on February 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

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My father and I were the only white people on the basketball court. He was 40 years older, at least, than everybody else. I’m writing this story on his 96^th. He died six months ago tomorrow.

Of what beloved Jacksonville architect Taylor Hardwick thought of designing new schools with the names of Confederate leaders, there’s no record. The only black faces in 1960s Jeff Davis yearbooks are those of the custodial staff. And the school principal, Wilber C. Johnson, standing beside a Confederate flag and wearing blackface.

“We will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree. / We will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree. / We will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree, / As we march along!”

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Tagged Alexander Stephens, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Battle of Yellow Tavern, blackface, Bob Gray, Brown v. Board of Education, Confederate Park, Cornerstone Speech, desegregation, Fort Pillow Massacre, Grand Wizard, In Memory of our Women of the Southland, J.D., J.E.B. Stuart, jax psycho geo, Jay Dee, Jeff Davis, Jefferson Davis, Jefferson Davis Junior High, Jefferson Davis Middle School, Jesse Jackson, Kirby Smith, Lost Cause Movement, Martin Luther King, Morrison's Cafeteria, Natham Bedford Forrest, Nathan Bedford Forrest High School, Robert E. Lee, Robert Gray, Sam Wolfson, segregation, Southernaire, Taylor Hardwick, Tim Gilmore, Trinity Baptist Church, Trinity Christian Academy, Wilmer C. Johnson

New Story: First Baptist Church

Posted on October 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

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First Baptist Church has perhaps received more love and more hate than any other entity in Jacksonville. It dates to a ca.-Civil War split with black church members who retained the original name, Bethel Baptist. In 1923, Pastor W.A. Hobson welcomed 200 Klansmen in full regalia into his farewell sermon. In the 1980s, Pastors Homer Lindsay and Jerry Vines ignited a showdown with more “liberal” members of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2019, what once seemed unthinkable occurs: the church plans to sell 90 percent of its downtown campus.

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Tagged A.C. Shuler, Bethel Baptist Church, Billy Graham, Bob Gray, Calvary Baptist Church, Celebration Church, Christian Alamo, Donald Trump, Eleven22, FBC Watchdog, First Baptist Church, First Baptist Church Watchdog, Fuller Warren, Heath Lambert, Henry John Klutho, Hobson Auditorium, Homer Dome, Homer Lindsay, Homer Lindsay Jr., Human Rights Ordinance, James Fifield, Jerry Falwell, Jerry Vines, KKK, Ku Klux Klan, Lester Roloff, Liberty University, Mac Brunson, Martin Luther King, Moral Majority, Prosperity Gospel, Rebekah Home for Girls, Robert Calhoun Gray, Robert Morris, Southern Baptist Convention, Springfield Jacksonville, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Trinity Baptist Church, W.A. Hobson

Bebe Deluxe, Storybook Pride Prom, and the History of Gay Pride at Willowbranch Park and Library

Posted on June 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

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It’s the 50^th anniversary of Stonewall, and at Willowbranch Library, an epicenter of gay rights history in Jacksonville, hundreds of supporters of gender and sexual minority young people rally in their defense after Jacksonville Public Libraries Director Tim Rogers canceled their sold-out Pride Prom.

Now there are two teen pride events, instead of one. The prom still takes place, at a now undisclosed location, a local church, and hundreds of supporters rally at Willowbranch Library to express their solidarity and love.

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Tagged Activist Mommy, AIDS Memorial Project, Allman Brothers Band, Ashley Miller Kraan, Beatrice Palmer, Bebe Deluxe, Bernard Close, Bob Gray, Charles Deskin, David Hodges, Eliaz Jaudon, Elizabeth Johnston, Ernie Selorio, Evan Freda, Gay Liberation Front, Gay Pride Jacksonville, Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network, Jacksonville Dog Festival, Jacksonville history, Jacksonville Pride, JASMYN, jaxpsychogeo, Jennifer Janin Miskell, Lee Carlton, LGBTQ Jacksonville, Love Grove, Magnolia Plantation, Marsha P. Johnson, Metropolitan Community Church, Neena Eisenberg, Nicole Self White, Pride Month, Riverside Avondale, Robert E. Lee High School, Robin Patton, Ron Hersom, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Stonewall Inn, Storybook Pride Prom, Sylvia Rivera, Tim Gilmore, Tim Rogers, Trinity Christian Academy, Walt Whitman, Wilder Park, Willowbranch Creek, Willowbranch Library, Willowbranch Park

Hope for Life Baptist Church, Where Bob Gray Preached His Last Sermon

Posted on November 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

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Referring to the pastor whose sexual abuse of children Trinity Baptist Church covered for half a century, Gary Hudson says, “I knew Bob Gray for 30 years. I had Gray speak at Hope for Life that Wednesday night, March 22, 2006. It was the last time Gray preached in a Jacksonville church, the last time he preached anywhere.”

Gary Hudson says reading his Bible led him to renounce his faith. “The busiest guitar tech in the Panhandle,” describes himself now as “a very happy peace-loving non-believer.” His book is “dedicated to all I have influenced to believe in the Christian gospel.”

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Tagged Big Book of Bad Baptist Preachers, Billy Graham, Bob Gray, Boz Tchividjian, Devil in the Baptist Church, Gary Hudson, Gerald Fielder, Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, Hope for Life Baptist Church, jaxpsychogeo, Jerry Falwell, Liberty University, Martin Luther, Pat Cassell, Ramona Boulevard, Robert Calhoun Gray, Robert Gray, Surrender to Reason, Tim Gilmore, Tom Messer, Trinity Baptist Church, Trinity Baptist Church pedophilia

Hammond Boulevard Exit & the “Perfect Pedophile Paradise”

Posted on June 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

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Did God so love the world that he directed the Florida Department of Transportation to cut a new exit from Interstate-10 down to the northern entrance of what Dennis Cassell called Bob Gray’s “perfect pedophile paradise”?

Whatever Tom Messer believed about God’s desires for his predecessor Bob Gray, whose sexual abuse of children Messer shielded from the law, he believes God wants 20,000 people daily to take the new I-10 exit by the church.

So let’s do that. Let’s go. Here’s what we find.

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Tagged Ann Stewart, Ann Wagner, baptist church pedophile, Bob Gray, bus ministry, child sex abuse, Dennis Cassell, Devil in the Baptist Church, Elvis Presley, Exit 355, First Coast Connect, Florida Department of Transportation, Hammond Boulevard, Hope for the Hurting, Jacksonville City Council, jaxpsychogeo, Joan Gilmore, Joan Irene Gilmore, Joan Irene Glennon, Lenny Curry, Marietta, Melissa Ross, Pat Cassell, pedophilia, Prevention Intervention and At-Risk Youth Sub-Committee, Robert Calhoun Gray, Robert Gray, Tim Gilmore, Tom Messer, Trinity, Trinity Baptist Church, Trinity Baptist College, Trinity Christian Academy, Trinity pedophile, WJCT

Blinded by the Lighthouse Replica / First Baptist Church

Posted on July 7, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Just before Christmas, 1998, several homeowners downtown and just to the north in Springfield said they’d “seen the light” and the light made them mad as hell.

One Springfield resident called the new First Baptist Church parking-garage lighthouse replica “extremely obnoxious, just this blinding glare flashing in our windows.” It seemed like the church had stationed “a spotlight […] right outside the house.”

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Tagged Bob Gray, Bruce Holbrook, David Galbreath, Dudley Freeman, First Baptist Church, First Baptist Church lighthouse, Homer Lindsay, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, Jerry Vines, Karla Crawford, Maria Williams, Matanzas, Springfield, Springfield Preservation and Restoration, St. Augustine Lighthouse, Tim Gilmore, Tony Crawford, Trinity Baptist Church

Posted on June 6, 2017 | Leave a comment

Click below for the fourth story in a series of seven about the KKK in Jacksonville. On June 13th, come to Coniferous Cafe in downtown Jax at 7 pm, to hear Tim Gilmore’s talk “The Klan in Jax: Its Repugnant Rise and Hysterical Collapse.

For most of his life, he’d not realized the full traumatic effect of the Klan’s bombing of his childhood home as retaliation for his being the first black child to attend Lackawanna Elementary School.

Can anyone feel the brutality and tragedy in the landscape? Does the Klan’s hate and the Godfreys’ fear and sorrow and determination remain in the soil or the air or the trees? I can’t tell, because I can’t not know what happened here.

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Tagged Beloved, Bob Gray, Donal Godfrey, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, KKK, Ku Klux Klan, Lackawanna, Lackawanna Elementary, Murray Hill Heights, Ottis Toole, Robert Gray, Sethe, Terianne Summers, Tim Gilmore, Toni Morrison, Trinity Baptist Church, We Shall Overcome

New Story and Footnote: Old Trinity Baptist Church and Gray’s Grave

Posted on June 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

Pastor Robert Calhoun Gray told her, “I am like God in this church, and you are just a little girl.”

Lackawanna: Trinity Baptist Church

Marietta: Gray’s Grave

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Tagged Bob Gray, child molestation, child sexual abuse, pedophilia, Tom Messer, Trinity Baptist Church, Trinity Christian Academy

Tag Archives: Bob Gray

The Horrid Little History of the National Association for the Advancement of White People in Jax

Spiritual Lighthouse Church

Jefferson Davis Junior High School

New Story: First Baptist Church

Bebe Deluxe, Storybook Pride Prom, and the History of Gay Pride at Willowbranch Park and Library

Hope for Life Baptist Church, Where Bob Gray Preached His Last Sermon

Hammond Boulevard Exit & the “Perfect Pedophile Paradise”

Blinded by the Lighthouse Replica / First Baptist Church

New Story and Footnote: Old Trinity Baptist Church and Gray’s Grave

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