Posted on Saturday, February 28, 2009 - 06:28 am:

Lucy Byard, a gravely ill Black woman and longtime Adventist from
Brooklyn, is admitted to Washington Adventist Sanitarium and Hos-
pital, but is discharged when it is discovered that she is Black. She is
transferred to Freedman's Hospital. She later dies of pneumonia. This
incident, along with others, stirs the Black leadership to press the
General Conference to act to ensure that such discrimination and
inhumane treatment does not occur again in church institutions.

101 Facts About Blacks and the Regional Work in the Seventh-day Adventist Movement
(a DjVu file)

With rapidly increasing membership among African-Americans in the 1920s and '30s, a chorus of voices began wiling for more effective ways to minister to a special population. A painful experience in early 1944 dramatically highlighted the church's de facto segregation.

Shortly before the 1944 Spring Council, in which the decision was made to establish regional conferences, Lucy Byard, a fair-skinned Black female who was a longtime member of the Brooklyn Seventh-day Adventist Church, was visiting relatives in the Washington, D.C., area. She became: seriously ill and was taken to the nearby Washington Adventist Hospital, then a segregated facility. When the staff realized that Lucy Byard was a Negro, they refused to treat her and discharged her from the hospital. Before she could receive treatment at the Freedmen's Hospital across town, her condition worsened, and she died. The effect of this incident was profoundly disturbing to Black Adventists. Numerous solutions were proposed—including total integration. But none were accepted as feasible by denominational leadership.

Grieving but resolute, Black ministers and laypersons pressed church leadership for immediate redress. Emotions were stirred. The mood was tense, resulting in an uneasy standoff. It was a dark and tenuous period in the history of Adventism. Resolution was badly needed!

The Creation of Black (Regional) Conferences. Although serious discussions had been going on since 1889 for the creation of separate Black conferences, [4] the spark that ignited the flame for immediate action to organize Regional conferences was an unfortunate racial incident at our Washington Adventist hospital in 1943. [5]

In October 1943, Bro. Byard took his wife, Lucy, to the Washington Adventist Sanitarium and Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland for medical treatment. Both Bro. Byard and his wife were Black, but of a very light complexion. They were also longtime Adventists from Brooklyn, New York. Because she was gravely ill, Lucy Byard was brought by an ambulance and was admitted without hesitation. But before treatment was begun, her admission slip was reviewed. When her racial identity was discovered, she was told a mistake had been made. Without examination or treatment, she was wheeled from her hospital room into a corridor as the hospital staff called around to other hospitals to transfer the patient. She was transferred by automobile–not even granted the use of an ambulance–across State line to the Freeman’s Hospital, where she later died of pneumonia. According to rumor, she contracted this pneumonia while waiting in the hallway of the hospital wearing only a hospital gown. This incident, along with similar cases of racial discrimination stirred the Black constituency immeasurably.

They demanded that the General conference act to ensure that such discriminatory and inhumane treatment of blacks would not occur again. The Black members were not only concerned about admittance to hospitals, but the whole questions of quotas in schools, lack of employment in church institutions, and a general absence of solicitude for them in the church were subjects of their protest. They employed the press and pulpit to whip up sentiment in their favor.

To quiet the brethren, Elder W. G. Turner, an Australian and President of the North American Division, went to the Ephesus church in Washington, D.C. (now the DuPont Park church), the next Sabbath, October 16, 1943. He chose as his text 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you.” He had hardly sat down after completing his message when brother James O. Montgomery (father of Alma Blackmon, for many years the director of Oakwood College’s choir) stepped to the front of the congregation and delivered his speech.

Montgomery, who was sitting near the front of the church, placed his violin in the seat he occupied near the organ, stepped up front and declared: “Think it not strange? Yes, I think it is very strange that there is an Adventist college (Washington Missionary, now Columbia Union) nearby to which I cannot send my children. Yes, I think it is strange! A denominational cafeteria [at the Review and Herald] in which I cannot be served, and now this incident. I think it mighty strange.” Among other things, he said in his speech: “I am not prepared to hear you say ‘servants obey your masters,’ meaning the General Conference is our master.” [6]

After the service, a group gathered around him and promptly formed a committee.[7] That Saturday night, October 16, 1943, this group of lay people met in the back room of Joseph Dodson’s bookstore and hastily organized the National Association for the Advancement of Worldwide Work Among Colored Seventh-day Adventists. Joseph Dodson was elected as chairman and Alma J. Scott as vice-chairman. To accomplish their objective of arousing Black members throughout the country, they made telephone calls and, after a quick printing of stationery, dispatched scores of letters. John H. Wagner, secretary of the Colored Department in the Columbia Union, acted as advisor. The meeting closed officially after the president of the General Conference, Elder J. Lamar McElhany, agreed to meet the committee at the General Conference office building the next day, Sunday, October 17, 1943. Because of Elder McElhany’s promise to report all the proceedings to the General Conference Committee and because of the very pointed discussion, a longer one was held on Sunday October 31, 1943.

It should be pointed out that the idea of forming a separate Black conference was not the stated goal of the group. It was the complete integration of Blacks into the church. This lay group was simply demanding the end of discriminatory practices in the church. [8] In response, the General Conference president voted to call in all of the Black Departmental men and pastors of the leading Black churches from all over America in order to discuss the race problem at a special meeting during Spring Council, April 8-19, 1944. The agenda called for the integration of White conferences. But during the meeting, the idea of Black conferences evolved as a new type of organization for the Black worker.

Separate Black and White Conferences, Part 1.