{"id":1219650,"date":"2023-04-20T10:36:35","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T15:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1219650"},"modified":"2023-04-21T10:58:38","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:58:38","slug":"first-historically-black-church-in-tyler-demolished-after-102-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1219650","title":{"rendered":"First historically Black church in Tyler demolished after 102 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-1219658\" src=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2023\/04\/STJAMESCME-e1682004986766-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/>TYLER &#8212; A bittersweet Wednesday for the St. James CME church community. The church has been a pillar in the Black community for 102 years was demolished. Many people lined up to see the 1920s structure one last time, according to our news partner KETK. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s becoming more and more real as you see it come down and the walls fall down,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Pastor Brian Lightner. Thanks to the generosity from the East Texas community, the church received the money that they needed to take down the building. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Due to the report from this TV station and going out into the community and the community responded in kind,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Lightner.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Church member Malcolm Jackson said the demolition has been a long time coming. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also kind of sad because this would be my granddaughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great-grandmother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s church and she won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know the history of it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Jackson. Although it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult to see it gone, Jackson says it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best for the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hopefully it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a burden on my granddaughter and she will get to see something rebuilt in her generation maybe,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Jackson. Pastor Lightner hopes to build an outreach center in its place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TYLER &#8212; A bittersweet Wednesday for the St. James CME church community. The church has been a pillar in the Black community for 102 years was demolished. Many people lined up to see the 1920s structure one last time, according to our news partner KETK. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s becoming more and more real as you see it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1219650\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">First historically Black church in Tyler demolished after 102 years<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":1219660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2023\/04\/STJAMESCME-e1682004986766-150x150.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"First historically Black church in Tyler demolished after 102 years","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1219650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 01:33:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2023\/04\/STJAMESCME-e1682004986766-150x150.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"First historically Black church in Tyler demolished after 102 years","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1219650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1219659,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219650\/revisions\/1219659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1219660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1219650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1219650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1219650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}