PLATTSBURGH — The Rev. Leonard A. Oates was a child when his stepfather and mother, Willie and Evator Felder, left his roots in Lumberton, North Carolina.
The 73-year-old pastor of the Faith Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Glens Falls remembers his early years in the segregated South and will share his insights as the keynote speaker for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration.
The event at 1:30 p.m. Monday at the St. John XXIII Newman Center, 92 Broad St., Plattsburgh, is free.
BLACK & WHITE
“I remember separate drinking fountains. I remember signs that said ‘white only.’ I remember having to go around to the back of the cafes, which would be like diners or on the order of fast food places now, but at that time, they were called cafes. You had to go around back to get served. There were places you couldn’t go, and I was a kid,” Oates said.
“I came to New York when I was 7, but I still have memories of the segregated South. I remember coming to New York. All through the South, we couldn’t hardly stop anywhere to go, even to use the bathroom. You had to be careful because that wasn’t open to us. Not that we had the money, but if we did have the money, we certainly couldn’t have slept in any hotels or motels. I remember thinking, as a child, my parents having to pull aside the road and stoop by the car to use the bathroom, and I wondered why. I had some memories, but I didn’t quite understand everything, you know.”
DIFFERENT WORLD
His step-father was a chef at West Point. His mother birthed nine children, Oates being number seven.
“My family journeyed to Newburgh, New York, where I grew up and attended the Newburgh school system and graduated from Newburgh Free Academy,” he said. “I worked for a contractor right out of high school, and there was a discrepancy with the owner, and the contractor was let go. But the owner would talk to me everyday.
“After the contractor was let go, a few days later, the owner came and asked me could he hire me to do the work. I started doing some smaller jobs and gradually got to bigger jobs until I began to do community development work for the City of Newburgh and then commercial and private work.
“I did work in the Carpenters Local for a couple of years in between being self-employed, but I didn’t like it. I left the union.”
From his start at 20 to his retirement at 52, he was his own boss. Carpentry was in his DNA, and so was ministry.
“I was brought up in the church. My grandfather was a preacher. My grandmother was a school teacher — she taught me the Bible. My mother was a missionary. She didn’t go to foreign lands, but she was a missionary in our church,” Oates said.
“We had what we called the missionary circle. The missionaries would go from house to house and would tend to the sick. People were sick, and maybe they couldn’t clean their house and do things like that. They made sure that they had food. There were missionary meetings where scriptures were read and songs were sang and prayers went forth. I always attended part of the missionary circle.”
As a grown person, Oates had strayed away from the straight and narrow and was on his way to a club when he heard gospel music coming out of a little storefront church and went inside the revival meeting.
“When the invitation to accept Christ was given by the preacher, I found myself up front, and I had a genuine experience with Jesus Christ as my savior. From that point, I began to go,” he said.
“At the time, I was married. My wife and I became members of this Ebenezer Church that I had left from being a child and came back. After attending and rejoining the church for about three years or so, the Lord called me to into the preaching ministry.”
Oates attended the Newburgh Bible Institute for three years, and in 2002, he attended the New York Theological Seminary Christian Ministry Program for two years. He was an associate minister at the Newburgh church.
“I did do ministry. I did preaching. I did Sunday school teaching,” he said. “I sang. I guess one of the highlights of my ministry there: I was part of organizing a city-wide street ministry. For three years, we did it. So I preached on the streets of Newburgh on a flat-bed truck.”
Then, Oates was called to pastor the Faith Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Glens Falls in 2006, where he remains. Under the direction of the NAACP, he has chaired the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee for 15 years.
“I remember the March on Washington. I remember being very bitter seeing the television coverage of the marches and the dogs being sicced on children,” Oates said.
“I remember the bombings — when his house got bombed. I remember the churches being bombed. I remember being very angry, so angry, so much so.”
When Oates graduated with honors from Newburgh Free Academy High School, the U.S. Naval Academy was very interested in him. He refused.
“But I was so angry about what was going on in our country that I didn’t want any part of the military,” he said. “I really thought there wasn’t much hope for this nation.
“I couldn’t believe that people could sic dogs and beat women and children. I remember seeing that on television. I remember being very discouraged. There were only two churches in Newburgh when the March on Washington took place that was in support of it, and members organized for members to go. My church was one of them.
“Following Dr. King was not as popular with everyone when I was a kid. Of course, I remember the assassination and how angry I was.”
On Monday, his keynote will encompass the national theme selected by the King Center: “Mission Possible II: Building Community, Uniting a Nation the Nonviolent Way.”
“I will be talking on the subject around the need to continue the fight for social justice,” Oates said. “I will touch on some current issues.”