From working for 75 cents a day as a sharecropper to dining in the White House with the president, the Rev. David Matthews came a long way during his lifetime.
The World War II veteran served as a community leader in Indianola for many decades, helping usher in progress in education and government for black citizens, and he led one of the city’s most prominent congregations, Bell Grove Missionary Baptist Church, for 64 years. Many throughout the country and world knew him as a contemporary and friend of blues legend B.B. King.
Local leaders are remembering his legacy following his death April 15 in Jackson at age 95.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete, and Dillon Funeral Home of Indianola is in charge. He is survived by his wife, Lillian; daughter, Denise; and five grandchildren.
The Rev. Matthews was born Jan. 29, 1920, at Woodburn Plantation south of Indianola. He shared memories of his early life as part of a book “Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South.”
“We worked on the plantation and we got paid 75 cents a day and the day was from sunup until sundown. … However, during those days of struggle and poverty the so-called black community was pretty close-knit together. There were problems, but they were closer together than they are now because we had to share,” he said.
The Rev. Matthews said in that book that his mother and father “were uneducated but they gave us some fundamental moral principles that will stand today.” The family was very devout; his father forbade drinking alcohol, gambling and other vices, and they regularly attended church activities.
The Rev. Matthews was drafted into World War II before graduating high school but received his diploma after being honorably discharged in 1945. He enrolled at Morehouse College in Atlanta, graduating with his bachelor’s degree in 1950. He then began a 33-year career teaching in the Indianola and Sunflower County public schools.
He also studied at Atlanta University, Memphis Theological Seminary, Delta State University and Reformed Theological Seminary. He was presented an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Natchez Junior College in 1973 and earned a Doctorate of Humanities from Mississippi Industrial College in 1977 and a Doctorate of Divinity from Morris Booker College in 1988.
He began pastoring Bell Grove in Indianola in 1951 and Strangers’ Home in Greenwood in 1958.
He was an original member of Indianola’s bi-racial committee, which officially formed during the 1960s but existed informally prior to that.
“We wanted good schools and good principals, and at that time we were not pushing so much for integration in the beginning. We were asking for good facilities. We didn’t have student lockers in our schools. We didn’t have lunchrooms in those days. So we had to push for lunchrooms and lockers and libraries and science labs,” the Rev. Matthews said in the book.
The meetings were an opportunity for people who didn’t normally interact to sit down and talk together about important issues.
The Rev. Matthews and black members of the committee pushed for blacks to be hired for various positions, such as in the post office. Matthews said longtime former Chancery Clerk Jack Harper asked him to work part-time as a deputy clerk and at the polls, the first African American to hold those positions. He later served as an Indianola election commissioner for many years.
“I wasn’t so much worried about being first, but the thing about it is we wanted to get something done that you could see with your eyes, and it had to be done by the community. Even though the government may put an axe over your head, you had to perform the job. So we got a lot done without the federal government coming in to do it for us through that bi-racial committee,” Matthews said in the book.
The Mississippi Legislature passed a resolution in 2008 recognizing the Rev. Mat-thews’ 50th anniversary as pastor at Strangers Home and another resolution this year paying tribute to his “civic and Christian leadership, legacy and longevity.” It noted that he met two presidents, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton, and dined in the White House with Clinton.
He served as moderator of the Sunflower County Baptist Association, a member and first vice president of the National Baptist Convention USA, president of the General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Mississippi, supervisor of the undergraduate oratorical contest of the National Baptist Convention USA, member of the St. John District Congress of Christian Education, Bible Society and Who’s Who in Religion, among other positions.
His civic affiliations through the years included the Sunflower County Progress Anti-Poverty Board, the Bi-Racial Committee, FHA of Sunflower County, Sunflower County Community Fund Budget Committee, Indianola Teachers Association, Mississippi Association of Educators, National Association of Educators, Mississippi Governor's Council of Research and Development and the Mississippi State Department of Education Task Force.
