Tag Archives: praise house

-Georgia, Black History, Churches and Temples

Charmaine Minniefield’s “The Praise House Project”

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Charmaine Minniefield is an artist-activist whose mission is to save Black stories “as a radical action of social justice.” Minniefield’s “The Praise House Project” celebrates the history of praise houses and ring shouts. It is a multimedia experience. When the Praise House Project is open, the inside of the house is an in-depth visual and sound experience.

Initially built on plantations, praise houses, or pray’s houses, were small one-room structures where enslaved people would gather to worship. Praise houses used to be found all along the coast, but only a few remain.

Ring shouting involves moving in a circle, shuffling and stamping feet, and clapping hands while in prayer. The earliest known example of ring shouting in the United States was in the 1840s. This practice is believed to be tied back to West African traditions. Ring shouting is a ritual celebrated when a person accepts Christianity. It is still practiced today, and the evolution of the practice can still be seen in Black congregations today, especially among the surviving Gullah Geechee communities. The McIntosh County Shouters out of the Briar Patch community in Georgia keep the practice alive today. They still use a praise house today.

So far, the Praise House Project has been displayed at Oakland Cemetery, Emory University, and downtown Decatur, Georgia. The Oakland Cemetery installation was the first exhibition. It commemorated the lives of over 800 enslaved people who were buried in the cemetery. The Emory exhibition was on the grounds of the Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church in 2023. Currently, the Praise House is located at the corner of Trinity Place and Commerce Drive to honor and remember the historic Black community of Beacon Hill. This community was settled after the Civil War and began to be erased in the 1930s as Decatur expanded. The next exhibit will be at South-view Cemetery.

To read more about The Praise Project, please visit the website.

-Georgia, Black History, Churches and Temples

Bolden Home Lodge-A Praise House in McIntosh County, Georgia

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Halfway between Eulonia and Crescent, Georgia, is the Briar Patch Community. You will find one of the few remaining praise houses left along the coast.

Praise houses were small structures on plantations where enslaved people worshipped. They are associated with the Gullah-Geechee culture. Ty Moody (2023) writes on the South Carolina ETV website, “Praise houses were erected as a place of worship on the plantation, but the real intentions were to keep enslaved Africans from mingling with others on different plantations. Despite the controlled measures, the praise house become the center of the community for enslaved Africans and where freedom was most experienced.”

Praise houses were erected as a place of worship on the plantation, but the real intentions were to keep enslaved Africans from mingling with others on different plantations. Despite the controlled measures, the praise house become the center of the community for enslaved Africans and where freedom was most experienced.-Ty Moody

Worshippers often participated in “ring shouts,” a shuffling or stomping movement in a circle while praying and clapping hands. The McIntosh Ring Shouters was founded by community members in Briar Patch. It was believed that the practice of ring shouting was lost until the group was discovered in 1980.

Tied to the Mt Calvary Baptist Church, the Bolden Home Lodge was built in the 1920s. When my friends and I arrived to photograph the praise hoise, we met someone who shared that his great grandfather, Reverend Nathan Palmer, helped build it. Reverend Palmer was an integral member of creating the community of Briar Patch.

Library of Congress video of a 2010 performance

Recommended reading:

The McIntosh Shouters’ website

A write-up by the Smithsonian Institute with photos of the Bolden Home Lodge

-South Carolina, Black History, Churches and Temples

Mary Jenkins Praise House-St. Helena, South Carolina

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Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, here is info from the application which gives a good history of this praise house and the overall purpose of praise houses.

“The Mary Jenkins Community Praise House, built ca. 1900, is one of four known extant praise houses on St. Helena Island [one has since been removed – today there are only three praise houses on St. Helena Island]. Praise houses were first established on St. Helena plantations in the antebellum period, as slaves used small frame houses or other buildings as places to meet and worship. After they became freedmen, they built praise houses on or near the old plantation, in most instances calling their community by the name of the former plantation or plantation owner. Although the extant praise houses date from ca. 1900, their function has persisted since before emancipation and the basic architectural form has been retained. Since there were, and are, few formal church buildings on St. Helena, most islanders could only walk or ride to the main church on Sunday morning. For other community meetings or services, praise houses were built in each of the communities created by the former plantations, and services were held on Sunday, Tuesday, And Thursday nights, as well as the Watch Night Service each New Year’s. A typical service might consist of singing, prayer, perhaps a member’s testimony of a religious experience, and almost always ending with a “shout.” Kit Chaplin built this praise house ca. 1900; Paris Capers, born in 1863, was one of the early elders. Members of Ebenezer Baptist Church still attend services here today; a cow bell, which is still in the praise house, has been rung for many years to alert the members to a service or meeting.”

-South Carolina, Black History, Churches and Temples

Coffin Point Community Praise House-St. Helena Island, South Carolina

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Coffin Point Community Praise House. The roots of praise or “prays” houses are tied to enslaved people building small places of worship on or near the plantation where they labored. They were kept small because enslavers feared large gatherings. (If you look at police response towards Black Lives Matter protests and the insurrectionists, then you know that fear continues today.) This praise house was built in 1900 and rebuilt in 1950. It is still used occasionally by the Coffin Point community.

A view through the front window