![]() ![]() The Pearl Street AME Church has been a part of the Jackson community for more than 152 years. “All I can do is just give all the praises under God to lead me to putting the right people in the path (and) putting the right people together.” ‘A Pretty Big Asset’ “It’s the prayer and work of this membership and the community buying into that (vision), and it is nobody but God moving onto the hearts of people to see what you don’t see,” Boyd said. The community will have 76 one- and two-bedroom apartments reserved for residents aged 55 or older and a health clinic-operated in partnership with the Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center-that will be open to the public. Sixteen years later, that vision is finally coming to fruition with The Pearl, a 72,000-square-foot affordable-housing complex for the elderly and disabled. “Scripture tells us to write down the vision, make it plain and run with it. “God gave me a vision to deal with possibly converting that place, if I could get it, into a home for seniors,” Pastor Boyd said. But on the seventh day of the seventh month in 2007, at around 2 a.m., he received a message from God, he said. Initially, Pastor Boyd wanted to turn the old property off Highway 80 into a headquarters for the southern region of the AME organization, but that plan did not pan out. Photo courtesy Gulf Coast Housing Partnership The building will soon be transformed into an affordable-housing complex called The Pearl. This postcard from 1966 shows the Holiday Inn off Highway 80 in Jackson, Miss. It was bad for the church members coming in, driving in the church … and across the street, prostitution and everything would go on in there.”īy 1994, the church completed a $5-million renovation on the property, converting it into a 38-unit complex called St. James AME) Church,” Boyd described to the Mississippi Free Press. “In the ’90s, there were a lot of abandoned properties across the street from the (Historic St. The move, however, opened up an opportunity for the AME church organization to begin doing work that they had already started in the Crescent City. assigned Boyd to become the new pastor of Pearl Street AME Church in West Jackson, though the latter was not initially excited about returning to the metro. In 2000, the late Bishop Cornal Garnett Henning Sr. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans. This dilapidated building sparked an idea that stemmed from his time serving as a pastor at Historic St. Glancing outside the window by his seat, he noticed an old Holiday Inn rotting away. JACKSON, Miss.-Pastor Samuel Boyd sat inside the Western Sizzlin off Highway 80 for lunch. ![]()
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