History of Soapstone Church and the Liberia Community

Liberia, South Carolina: an African American Appalachian Community, 

by John M. Coggeshall 

(University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

Excerpts from the book;

"While Native Americans had lived in the area for tens of thousands of years, Euro-Americans began settling the Upstate in the late 18th century. Many white landowning families owned slaves, who worked the farms, mills, and shops. While individuals generally owned about 10 slaves or less, even non-slave owners profited from enslaved black labor. 

According to the 1860 Slave Census, over 4,000 enslaved African Americans lived in Pickens District (present-day Pickens and Oconee Counties). Documented names of enslaved locals include Katie (Owens), Emerson (Kemp), and Joseph (McJunkin -- in northern Greenville County). After 1865, these newly-freed slaves generally settled in the same areas where they had lived prior to freedom.

Location of Liberia 

Although today a beautiful valley with a great view of the Blue Ridge, the area surrounding Soapstone Baptist Church was, in 1865, relatively worthless land because it was hilly and off the main roads. Throughout the South, including Pickens County, former white slaveholders needed their crops harvested but had no money to pay their newly-freed slaves, who now could bargain for their labor. Thus, white land owners were compelled to trade land for labor. However, former slaveholders did not surrender their best farmland to their former slaves, but instead they traded poorer land off the main transportation routes.

From the perspective of the African Americans, however, this land provided them with a secure means of production and a secluded enclave where they could speak their minds, practice their religion, teach their children, and protect their families and traditions. Throughout the South, including the Southern Appalachians, such black freedom colonies blossomed.

Naming of Liberia 

Several stories exist about the naming of Liberia. According to McJunkin family tradition, freed slave Joseph McJunkin remembered having come from the nation of Liberia on the West African coast, and so he named the community after his homeland. More likely, the area was named “Liberia” because it served as a substitute for a short-lived back-to-Africa movement sweeping the South, particularly South Carolina, after the Civil War.

The place name “Liberia” has deep historical roots. Since the late nineteenth century, the area was called “Liberia” in newspaper articles and in obituaries of residents (see Liberia, South Carolina for citations). In History of Pumpkintown-Oolenoy (B. H. Reece, 1970, pp. 41-44), the author calls the place “Liberia.” In an old photograph of Emerson Kemp, the place name is “Liberia.” When given a chance to name the road through the community, the Owens Family selected “Liberia Road.” It appears “Little Liberia” is a relatively recent place name.

Reconstruction 

During Reconstruction, African Americans could vote (males only), hold public office, serve on juries, attend public schools, own their own property, and work for fair wages. Throughout the South, black freedom colonies prospered during this period. For example, in 1870, the Pumpkintown Census District (including Liberia) was about 28% African American, including the former slaves (listed above) and their relatives and descendants; the community had a church and school. These institutions provided Liberia’s residents with multiple opportunities for social success. 

Segregation 

With the election of Ben Tillman as governor of South Carolina and the revised 1895 state constitution, “Jim Crow” laws legally establishing segregation caused many African Americans to flee the state (an emigration pattern common to the South). Better economic opportunities for African Americans also developed in northern and western cities. By the 1920 US Census, the black population of the Pumpkintown District had declined to only 9%.

Throughout the South under Jim Crow segregation, black freedom colonies presented an affront to many whites, seeking to maintain white supremacy. Even in Liberia, blacks felt this pressure. Oral tradition tells of whites loaning black farmers money with their land as collateral; unable to repay the loans, blacks lost their land. Liberia’s residents faced lynchings, gun fights, and assaults that created a culture of terror to keep blacks in fear. In April 1967, local arsonists burned the old Soapstone Baptist Church and a vacant, black-owned family home. Despite this culture of terror and the crushing effects of the inequality of segregation, African Americans in Liberia (and throughout the South) resisted and persisted. 

Liberia Today

Rebuilt with widespread white and black community support, the new Soapstone Baptist Church has risen on the same soapstone boulder its predecessors sat upon. With a present congregation of fewer than 10 people, the church and community persist.

Because of a deathbed promise to her mother, Mable Owens Clarke (great-granddaughter of former slaves Katie Owens and Joseph McJunkin) does everything she can to keep the doors of the church open and the history of the community alive. To assist Mable in her mission, all profits from the monthly fish fries return to the community, as do all the royalties and speaker’s fees from sales of the Liberia oral history.

Given land in exchange for their labor, 600 freed slaves who were relocated to the Northern Pickens County area, which is adjacent to Northern Greenville County, joined the freed slaves who had been raised in the area. Hundreds of African Americans farmers and laborers established farms and worked for local farmers and were able to build homesteads and pull together a community. The community worked together to make a place a worship.

The land for the church was donated by Mable Owens Clark's maternal great grandfather, Joseph McJunkin  up on the soapstone hill where it still stands over 150 years later. Joseph was born into slavery and raised near Marietta. 

Mable's paternal great great grandmother Katie Owens (McGowan) was born into slavery and raised right here in the heart of Pumpkintown. 

The community was sheltered by sheer isolation from the main roads,  which allowed them the freedom to speak their minds and worship and build their community unencumbered for some years. 

Until the Jim Crow Laws were established, the community had lived remarkably in peace. 

The community could not afford to build a church right away, everyone was in the process of  building homes and preparing the ground to farm so on the land that was designated for worship, they cut trees and made a shelter under the boughs of the branches for services and fellowship. 

The community saved their pennies and bought boards a few at a time until they had enough to build the church.

The church stood for almost 100 years before it was burned down by the KKK in 1967, during a time when the United States was transitioning away from the Jim Crowe Era. The Civil Rights movement was well under way but the south was dragging behind the momentum.

Once again, the community collected the money to rebuild the church, only this time out of cinderblocks. This building charge was led by Mable's mother, Lula Clark, and she and others in the community peddled eggs and produce throughout Pickens and Greenville Counties to raise the funds for the building materials. The Pastor, a stone mason, laid every cinder block to rebuild the church. 

With help from the Liberia community and Pickens County locals, the church was rebuilt in record time.

This photo is before the beautification projects and planting took place. These days you will find the church surrounded by lovely plantings and trees.

You can see the Soapstone School House to the right of the church. Built in 1928, education of all members of the Liberia Community was always an important goal. The school remained segregated until the late 1960s. School sessions began for children and members of the community as soon as possible after the families were settled into their new homesteads. The goal was for every child to have the ability to read and write although Black schools were given inadequate financial support until desegregation.

Today, one feels welcome on approach. You see the beauty and then you turn your head to the view from the top of the hill and it will take your breath away. 

There is a great deal of love poured into this stony hilltop, and it shows. 

There are many people and associations to thank for the continued support that keeps Soapstone ALIVE! 

Over the decades, residents were pulled from their lands by better economic opportunities up North and were pushed out by racism from the Jim Crow South. Today, very few descendants remain, but those who do remain, or who have returned, invite you to experience the beauty and history of the place called Liberia.

Even Mable was pulled away from the community at 17 years of age to Boston living with family there. This gave her the opportunity to become a skilled chef and nutrition specialist, and her return eventually to Liberia was made all the sweeter with these skills. 

Mable became a Deacon in the church and assists the Pastor in just about every element of the church upkeep and the services. But for us, we did get to enjoy her cooking once a month at the FishFry, 

    and it was mmmm mmmmm Good!