A cryptologist and a pioneering opera star both hailed from Hopewell Presbyterian Church in South Carolina
November 4, 2024
In it 134 years, Hopewell Presbyterian Church has produced
an opera star and a cryptologist. (Photo by Gerald Jackson)
Travelers on Highway 5, the 50-mile stretch between Blacksburg and Rock Hill, South Carolina, often stop on the roadside to admire and take pictures of the small church perched off the highway. Hopewell Presbyterian Church, with its distinctive rock exterior, seems to glow when the afternoon sun hits at the right angle, highlighting its unique architectural charm that symbolizes strength and fortitude.
The church, however, serves more just than a place of worship, members say. Throughout its 134-year history, the church has been a rock-solid icon of cultural pride and the literal and figurative cornerstone for this small African American community called Hopewell, located 45 miles southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The church’s founders — most of whom have passed away — taught their children honesty, the value of hard work, the importance of giving back, helping others and trusting in God. The elders adopted the African Proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
And like the unsung heroes in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” about four Black women mathematicians who helped launch NASA astronauts into space in spite of systemic racism, the Hopewell community also had its unsung trailblazers it raised, who quietly impacted the nation and the world. Here are profiles of these unsung heroes from Hopewell.
Chineta Smith Gamble’s 1949 yearbook photo from Howard
University
(Photo courtesy of Howard University)
Chineta Smith Gamble was born in 1925 in Blacksburg and attended Hopewell church, where her father, Amzi Anderson Smith, was also a member and church leader. A Howard University graduate, Gamble became one of the first Black women cryptologists at the National Security Agency, during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Few people knew of her covert work. She decoded Soviet Union intelligence while the United States and the Soviet Union faced off at the brink of nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Due to the nature of her work, much of her life remained a mystery, family members recalled.
Gamble continued her spy work through the Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations. She died in 2009 in Columbia, Maryland, leaving behind a legacy of quiet excellence that reflects the resilient spirit of her community.
Lawrence Whisonant (stage name Lawrence Winters) was a pioneering African American opera star who broke racial barriers both nationally and internationally. Whisonant was born in Kings Creek in 1915 — it later became part of the town of Blacksburg. His remarkable career took him across the globe, and he performed until his death in 1965 in Germany.
Lawrence Winters (Photo courtesy of WDAV-FM)
His voice instructor at Howard University was Todd Duncan, the famous African American baritone that composer George Gershwin selected to play Porgy in his 1935 opera “Porgy and Bess.” He became Duncan’s understudy during a 1942 revival of “Porgy and Bess.” Winters also sang at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birthday ball in 1943.
Gamble and Winters, like many others from the community, left Hopewell in the 1940s and ’50s to pursue opportunities up North. Their paths aligned with the broader movement known as The Great Migration, in which an estimated 6 million Blacks moved to northern and western cities between 1910 and 1970 to escape racism, segregation, Jim Crow laws and lynchings occurring in the South. They also didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives farming and picking cotton.
In her 2011 masterpiece, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson described the migration as the greatest untold story of the 20th century.
As Hopewellians migrated to Washington, D.C., New York City and points farther north, they reaped higher-paying jobs, better housing and culturally enriching experiences. Their dignity was restored. But something drew them back to Hopewell, like ships to a lighthouse.
They returned in droves in August of every year to visit relatives and friends, sometimes bearing gifts that reflected their new, prosperous lifestyles and freedom from an unjust South.
Gamble’s top-secret work with the NSA helped shape United States foreign policy and the trajectory of global politics. Winters, with his powerful voice, broke racial barriers and opened doors for Black opera singers.
Hopewell was their starting point, a place that nurtured them and laid a human foundation just as strong and enduring as the stones that form this rock church off Highway 5.
Dr. Kim Smith is an Associate Professor at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Today’s Focus: A cryptologist and a pioneering opera star both hailed from Hopewell Presbyterian Church in South Carolina
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Beth Waltemath, Communication Associate, Communications Ministry, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Judy Walton, Vice President, Lending Services, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program
Let us pray
God of all our lives, inspire us by your Spirit to grow in mission and understanding as we work as partners with brothers and sisters to bring your compassion, vision and shalom to those places in your world where the need is great. In your name we pray. Amen.
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