Rev. Anne Barton
Sunday, February 25, is a special day. That is when 103-year-old Reverend Anne Barton will preach at New Beginnings Full Gospel Church at 1448 Lexington Ave., in Ford Heights, Illinois. The church is headed by Dr. Constance A. Shorter.
Born July 31, 1920, in Dooley County, Georgia, the oldest of 11 children, Rev. Barton’s family first moved from Georgia to Cincinnati, Ohio, when she was six years old because of racism against Blacks.
“My mother didn’t want us to go through that,” said Barton in an interview with the Chicago Crusader.
“We have made advances, but racism is still with us,” Barton said. “I worked on many jobs along with my ministry, and I faced racism many times. I once worked for the Christian Children’s Foundation as a mailroom receiver, and this woman who came from Germany asked me how I got jobs” being a Black woman.
Upon arriving in Ohio, Barton said, “There was nothing to do. We didn’t have food. One of my mother’s church friends said we should go to Chicago, and we did, in 1940.”
This was during the Great Migration, where from 1910 to 1970, six million Blacks moved from the South to the North with more than 500,000 coming to Chicago.
When she arrived in Chicago, Barton said she went directly to the Evangelist Temple C.O.G.I.C. (Church of God in Christ) located on the South Side where she began teaching Sunday School and doing other “church work.”
Barton said she is from a religious family where the church is the center of their lives. Her mother was of the C.O.G.I.C. religion. “As a child, I went to the C.O.G.I.C. churches. I went from St. Paul A.M.E. Church and my mother’s C.O.G.I.C.”
Barton said when she came to Chicago, she first went to the C.O.G.I.C. then to the A.M.E. Church where she was ordained a minister and where she served as an evangelist for many years.
In Chicago, she also took pride in being a maid but made it clear she did not “stay on the premises” of those homes. She was even more proud to be able to send her money back home to her family.
A woman of faith, Barton takes pride in being independent. Barton prepares her own dinners and freezes them, so she doesn’t have to cook every day. She doesn’t have any special food but prides herself in cooking her own meals, having once allowed others to cook for her. She prefers her own cooking.
While her home church is St. James A.M.E., she said of the invitation to speak at Life Center C.O.G. I.C., “I think it is a wonderful opportunity to speak at Reverend Barrett’s church. He is such a marvelous man, and his church and work are so amazing. I was honored to be asked to speak.”
Last October, Barton was guest speaker at the Life Center C.O.G.I.C., 5500 S. Indiana Ave. She preached on Psalm’s 21, “My Life Belongs to Him.”
An ordained minister since 1948, Barton, a mother of two, said she was called and anointed to enter the ministry. “There were no women ordained preachers at that time I went into the ministry.
“It was a difficult time, but the Lord was with me, and people responded. I have pastored five African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) churches,” she revealed.
Reverend Dr. Wynetta Frazier, assistant pastor of the Life Center Church of God in Christ, is amazed at the agility of Rev. Barton. “When she gets up in the morning, she puts on her makeup, walks around her house like she’s going somewhere,” Frazier said.
“That’s different than the most of us because when we get up, we look like we just woke up until we have to go somewhere, but not her. She still wears her heels and that is amazing to me,” Frazier said.
“I am amazed at what she can do,” Frazier said of Barton. “I just hope when I get 103, I can get around half as well as she can and express and control myself as much as she does. She has the cognitive skills to know what’s going on around her and is able to comment on it. She does it all and that is amazing to me. It’s a blessing.
“I pray that all of us have that type of blessing,” Frazier said.
“I am 81. I walk with a walking cane and that is not even enough. I have to just get somewhere and sit down because I am not able to do it. I can no longer wear heels. When I go shopping for shoes, I’m looking for a beautiful flat shoe.” She said reaching age 103 is “something to look forward to.”
“I ate my oatmeal, and I drank milk. I did everything I was supposed to, but one thing is for sure, I can’t preach no whole sermon, and I certainly can’t go skydiving,” she said, referring to 104-year-old Dorothy Hoffner who recently skydived from a plane.
Barton said she wears two-inch heels but had to give up wearing stiletto heels. Barton said she does walk with a cane. “I can’t stand to minister. I sit down. God has blessed me to retain my voice and my memory. I owe him all that I can do and to bless his people. I owe the Lord all that I can give him.”
Asked her opinion about the violence among young people in particular, Barton said, “I think it is so sad. I don’t know when it will end. I don’t understand the why of it. I think all of the confusion in the world is the result of America needing to turn back to God, and that goes for the violence youth are doing against each other.”
Barton finished high school in Cincinnati and took seminary courses in Chicago at Moody Bible Institute. Referring to Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who sued the Baltimore public schools for its mandatory prayer, Barton said, “One woman took prayer out of schools, and this violence is the result of our turning away from God.”
