FAITH, FRUSTRATION AT THE HEART OF 13 STREETS

It's going to take a lot more than flowers, paint and public assistance to
make the 13 Streets work again.

At least one group of Hall Community residents wants to make that clear. To
resurrect the community, the members of the community must be provided the
means to help themselves.

That means, first and foremost, jobs.

"I'd buy my own flowers if I had a job,'' said Freda Dean, a native of the
13 Streets who recently moved back to the family home on West Watt Street.
"The only money out here is drug money.''

The last jobs within the community left with the demolition of the
Commercial Building, a historic structure on Hall Road that held a barber
shop, meat market, clothing store and drug store, Dean laments, and ALCOA
no longer hires from within the community.

And yes, said Dean's father, Phillip, ALCOA, despite published claims to
the contrary, still has an obligation to the community.

Without the influx of black labor from the Deep South, the "aluminum
company would not be here today,'' Phillip Dean said. His grandfather, in
fact, was one of the storied "recruiters'' who traveled Georgia, Alabama
and Mississippi with promises of indoor plumbing, education and a steady
paycheck just up north.

The company originally recruited men who "can take orders and won't rebel,
and that's what they got. The payback for that has been pathetic,'' said
Phillip Dean, who worked for ALCOA for 36 years.

The city, too, bears some responsibility to improve the neighborhood, the
Deans say. Instead, they claim, the city hires few African-Americans, and
fails to fully maintain the neighborhood infrastructure. There is also a
lack of information available for home improvement grants and other
renovation and weatherization programs, Freda said.

And its policing of the neighborhood leaves much to be desired, said Wanda
Dean, Freda's mother. She once found a loaded 9 mm pistol in her yard, and
has reached the point she rarely stays around the home she bought in the 1970s.

"I had to leave my home because of the place,'' she said. ``I come and go
because I can't stand it.''

Drugs and prostitution are examples of the illegal activity that takes
place with abandon within the community, the Deans say, and despite claims
to the contrary, they say the problems are getting worse.

But there is one topic that lights up the face of all the Deans: Freda's
daughter, Daveda, who, Freda claims, was the only black female from Alcoa
High School to go on to college this year.

But that wasn't easy, as the child that was "born and bred'' to run,
"struggled and struggled and struggled'' up to graduation. Now she's
attending Alabama A&M University on a track scholarship, but that wasn't
easy, either. Freda, who helped coach track, dance and cheerleading at the
high school until last year, said the school system treats blacks and white
students differently, and administrators tried to dissuade Daveda from
attending an all-black college.

"What I want you to let all parents know is they need to break their neck
to be at that school every chance they get. I hope the parents of the
community can help save the rest of the diamonds in the rough, because
there are a lot of them.''

None of the Deans seemed to think the churches of the 13 Streets were doing
all they could to address the problems of the 13 Streets.

"Churches do nothing,'' Freda said.

But there is a hint of her own faith on the front door to her home.

"Bless this house and all who enter,'' reads a small sign.

'Love on somebody!'

When the Rev. R.J. Miller retires once and for all from the Alcoa school
system, he wants to minister full-time at Bethel Missionary Baptist Church.

``The community needs what the church has to offer,'' he said.

And what, exactly, does the church have to offer?

"Hope,'' he said. "People need to feel a sense of belonging. People need to
know that there are great possibilities within themselves.''

And that is the source for all change, Miller said, as parishioners living
in the 13 Streets grapple with crime, fatherless families and poverty.

One role of the church, Miller said, "is getting people to understand this
is our community. It won't be the police, it'll be us that makes a
difference. It won't be the (city) commission. It will be us.

"If we don't do anything as a community, no one else will.''

To impart this value, Bethel hosts youth meetings every night to remind
young congregation members that the devil lurks in various guises.

"I want to be on the cutting edge,'' of churches throughout the city, he
said, and to this end, Miller is flirting with the idea of melding tae kwon
do with Bible study.

The discipline and focus the ancient Korean martial art can impart "is
needed,'' Miller said. "Youngsters need discipline.''

But the church also tends to the needs of its dwindling number of elderly
parishioners, Miller said, six of whom died within the past year.

The church coordinates senior citizen trips to the Great Smokies, hosts a
senior Christmas dinner and constantly reminds the congregation of its debt
to older generations.

"I want someone to be available here to put together a program for senior
citizens,'' he said.

"We're steadily trying to put things together,'' and expand community
outreach, he said.

"Loneliness is a problem'' among the elderly of the 13 Streets, Miller
said, and he said he often admonishes: "For heaven's sake, love on somebody!''

The 'Presence Of People'

Across Hall Road, deeper into the 13 Streets, is Rest Haven Missionary
Baptist Church, which had its roots in a split from Bethel some 50 years ago.

The Rev. Richard Turney, who has pastored at the church for 10 years,
recently started talking to people in the neighborhood that might be prone
to drug and alcohol abuse.

"Every Saturday for one hour I talk to people in the community,'' he said.

The response: "They're looked on as outcasts,'' Turney said. ``I try to
encourage them, to talk to them where they are, and give them some insight
from a biblical perspective.''

Those efforts, plus an open invitation to chat with Turney at the church
every 5 p.m., "are going to bear a lot of fruit,'' he said.

But while the church is ``accepting, we can't go along with everything. If
they come in an honest, straight way, that's a beginning, and I can help
them from there.''

In addition to this individualized outreach, the church has a program to
feed the hungry, operates a women's ministry and provides a "brotherhood
fellowship'' with a number of other area churches. There are about nine
churches in the 13 Streets.

Of course, the independent nature of Rest Haven and most other
Congregationalist churches in the area mean a chronic lack of funds to
tackle all the problems parishioners might desire.

But, Turney said, "I like it that way. It can get where (outside funding
sources) force-feed the body.''

Do churches in the 13 Streets do all they can to help the poor and wayward
among them?

"Not necessarily,'' Turney said. "Sometimes churches move away from their
identity,'' and he regrets the "lost kinship'' that seems to have occurred
between some members of the community and its churches.

"We probably could come together better and be more united,'' he said, to
aggressively address the myriad problems of the 13 Streets. Not just the
churches of Alcoa. The churches of Maryville and Blount County, too.

"We need to tackle the issue as a problem for all of us,'' he said, "and do
what we can together to address the problems in order of priority.

"It doesn't always take money. Sometimes it just takes the presence of
people.''

That, in time, coupled with outside investment such as that made in the
Alcoa City Center, can allow people throughout the 13 Streets to ``see it
become the fruitful community it can become,'' he said.

'If I Do Not Try'

While some churches in the 13 Streets are decades old -- in the case of
Bethel, 100 years old -- a new church is forming in the middle of the 13
Streets, in a section that is, by reputation, considered one of the
roughest blocks around.

Robison Presbyterian Chapel on Howe Street has opened its doors to a local
affiliate of The Church of God in Christ, the New Vision Church of God in
Christ.

Alcoa City Commissioner George Williams began convening meetings of the
Memphis-based church -- headed by television evangelist Bishop G.E.
Patterson -- in his home. The church now boasts some 27 members that meet
at Robison Presbyterian Chapel.

Now New Vision has plans to find its own home in the Hall Community.

"We wanted to work in that neighborhood to help mend some people's lives
and tend to the needs of people in spiritual ways,'' Williams said. "We are
there because that's where we want to minister.''

The ministry will mainly focus on children through after-school programs
and theater productions, said Audrey Richardson, assistant pastor and
church mother.

Phil Littlejohn, recently transplanted from California, will serve as the
youth minister.

While the church will minister "throughout the county,'' Richardson said,
the "initial emphasis will be on the Hall Community.''

Those ministry efforts have already included"Fish for Jesus'' outreach
programs, prayer breakfasts and the initial formation of the Young Women's
Christian Council and Christian Women's Council, Richardson said. A
ministry called "Men on Guard'', headed by Pastor Joel E. Walker, is also
available to parishioners and other interested individuals.

A mission department has also provided clothing and other assistance to
three families whose homes were destroyed by fire.

The church, Richardson said, plans to address "whatever the needs are.

"I don't look at my community as being a bad community,'' Richardson said,
though she acknowledges problems with "drug use, alcoholism and violence.

"I can't put myself in a position to talk bad about the community,''
Richardson said. "That's not going to help the community at all.''

Such sentiments go back a long way in the Hall Community.

In "75 Years: The Story of Alcoa,'' published by the city's 75th
Anniversary Committee, a man named Leroy Redding reflected on a ``virtue''
he learned from teachers at Hall School: Don't ever give up.

"I try to pass on the rich heritage and tradition of service to the
community,'' Redding wrote. "I try to help our community be the place I
want it to be, remembering that if I try and fail, I can find solace in
having tried. But if I do not try, I have already failed.''