hursday, October 24, 1991
The Battalion
Page 9
for Hope
Jr ■
A former Texas
A&M. journalism
student captures
the spirit and
hope of inner-city
hack street
churches that
have become
a way of life for
neighborhoods
the Green Cross, Photographer Sunny Nash shoots one of the many churches in the Houston area.
By Polly Sandford
The Battalion
S unny Nash, a 1977 journalism graduate
of Texas A&M, has explored non-tradi-
tional churches in Houston in a black-
and-white, 70-piece photographic study that
she titled "Shopping for Hope."
Everyone knows about churches, but no
one notices the back-street churches and what
they mean for some people, Nash said.
Nash began her self-assigned study in
1989 while working as medical writer in
Houston. She began noticing small churches
as she drove around the city.
She parked her car one day, got out,
walked around and discovered that on one
block there were six churches next door to
each other.
"Houston has about 4,000 churches in all,
but these are just the ones in the phone book.
Many of the churches I studied didn't even
have phones, " she said.
They are small churches, not affiliated
with any national, religious group. They are
independent and most people don't even re
alize they are churches, she said.
The churches are often crooked, paint-
peeled buildings with wood crosses nailed to
the doors.
Nash found some churches located in
shopping centers, night clubs and abandoned
theaters. She found one congregation that
met in the back of a truck.
"Life is hard for these people. They live
in poor areas with high unemployment and
crime rates," Nash said.
In one area of Houston known as the
Fourth Ward, "there isn't even a movie the
ater - no recreation at all. All they have is
their church," she said.
Nash said this theme prevailed through
out Houston.
"It's not a case of hopelessness, it's really
a case of hopefulness. There are people who
are looking for a place to go. They need a
place that they can go and feel safe."
Ironically, most of the churches Nash
found had burglar bars on the windows.
"One community, Settegas, actually
looked like a prison. They have a 10-foot
chain-link fence around the grounds of their
church with barbed wire at the top.
"It's not a case of
hopelessness, it's really a case
of hopefulness. There are
people who are looking for a
place to go. They need a place
that they can go and feel safe/
-Sunny Nash
"They had been robbed during worship.
People now pull their cars into the compound
and lock the gates to keep out unwanted peo
ple. They are prisoners of their homes and
churches," she said.
Nash titled the study "Shopping for
Hope" because of the "store-front" religion.
"They sh^p - they're looking for ^ place to
plant their hopes and dreams because life is
so hard for them," she said.
Nash's study has attracted regional and
national attention. Texas A&M's Library
Week Committee debuted 20 photos at Ster
ling C. Evans Library in April. The Houston
Chronicle has expressed interest in featuring
some photos in one of its issues.
The Hampton University Museum in Vir
ginia is arranging a 1992 national tour and
Hollywood film producer, Rommell Foster-
Owens, has bought rights to use Nash's work
as the basis for a documentary.
The Schomburg Museum in New York
has purchased exhibit and publication rights
to 23 prints to be included in its national
study. Religion in America.
The Schomburg Museum recently asked
Nash to help with a study of back-street
churches in Harlem. She agreed and spent
the weekend taking photos.
"There are about 3,000 churches in
Harlem," Nash said, " but even the back-
street churches are main-street churches.
"It's a different scene on Sunday morning
than it is on Saturday night," she said. "In
the ghetto streets, there are always deals be
ing made. They are cautious of me and my
camera - they have a reason to fear that I
might document something. The streets are
dangerous, I do have to be careful, but I al
most felt more frightened in Houston."
Harlem is a well-documented city, she
said, and there are people coming and going
all the time. The people of Houston are not
used to photographers taking a look at their
streets.
"In Houston, I was threatened and escort
ed away a few times. In Harlem, most people
that approached me wanted me to take their
picture for them," she said.
Nash views her study as a literary project
because of her research and writing. She
compiled a document on the origins of Hous
ton's back-street churches based on oral his
tories and conversations with residents. It
will be released when the Hampton Universi
ty Museum opens its national tour in 1992.
"If there is one thing that I have learned is
that no matter what the make-up of the area,
whether it be African- American, Asian or
Mexican-American, there seems to be an
abundance of churches searching for hope,"
Nash said.
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