In Deming, a segregation-era church leads MLK Day celebration

DEMING — The Antioch Missionary Baptist Church sits close to the railroad tracks that cut through town. The plain white structure encompasses barracks from Camp Cody, a U.S. Army training camp active on Deming’s northwest side during World War I.

The church was founded in 1948, during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, as a space for Black residents to worship on the north side of town, away from other congregations. The church’s congregation today is diverse, yet small — numbering between two and three dozen. 

Yet this modest church from across the tracks was the driving force behind a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Luna County on Monday that drew several hundred people.

“The reason why we have Antioch Missionary Baptist Church is basically because of racism,” Price said in an interview. “During that time, after World War II, there were a lot of Blacks around and they were attending other churches. However, the powers that be felt that Blacks needed their own church.”

Price has led the church since the end of 2011. The U.S. Air Force veteran settled in Deming in 2006 and serves as executive director of the Deming Senior Center.

The church organized its first MLK Day celebration in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold, and revived it this year with support from local governments, businesses and nonprofits — and a vow to make it an annual event going forward.

Monday’s program brought together churches, musicians, a children’s choir, and several speakers addressing the theme of justice through the lenses of education, public health, the environment, religion and immigration, in an event that included a free catered lunch open to the public. Deming Mayor Micki Shillito and City Councilor Laura Parra were part of the organizing committee but did not speak during the event, which was held at the county-owned event center in the middle of town.

At the podium, Price said, “We are here to celebrate a legend,” yet the presentations did not linger on the story of Martin Luther King Jr., the iconic 20th century civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968, so much as how to implement his call for equality and justice in the next century.

Yet Father Tony Basso of Deming’s Saint Ann Catholic Church reiterated a central theme of King’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech, linking King’s call for justice and equality to Biblical teaching as well as the value of equality stated in America’s Declaration of Independence. He also made a bold defense of immigration with dignity and justice for migrants, hearkening back to the traditional story of Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt and the birth of Jesus.

“Today, yes, there are issues,” Basso said. “They are issues that have to be addressed, because if we are to make a better nation, a better way to lead people, we must make that and we must look upon the least of all of us.”

Algernon D’Ammassa is the Journal’s southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.