Late NMSU history professor Clarence H. Fielder. (Right) Phillips Chapel, Christian Methodist Episcopal church. Las Cruces volunteers, including students and faculty of New Mexico State University and Doña Ana Community College spent seven years restoring New Mexico’s oldest extant African American church. The structure needs additional restoration since the first restoration was completed in 2016. (Photos by Beth O’Leary)
Source: NMSU News Release
Sept. 9, 2024
WRITER: Minerva Baumann, mbauma46@nmsu.edu
WHAT: Celebration of Phillips Chapel, the oldest extant African American church in New Mexico, and the life of late NMSU history professor Clarence H. Fielder. Funds raised will continue restoration of the chapel and support Fielder scholarship.
WHO: Friends, community and parishioners of Phillips Chapel with music by Rio Grande Revelers Dixieland Jazz Band and the raffle of a Las Colcheras Guild quilt.
WHEN: 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14
WHERE: Phillips Chapel, CME, 638 N. Tornillo St. in Las Cruces
VISUALS: Music, speakers and a quilt raffle at the Phillips Chapel CME
Background: Las Cruces volunteers, including students and faculty of New Mexico State University and Doña Ana Community College spent seven years up to their elbows in mud, mortar and adobe bricks to restore the state’s oldest extant African American church. Now the group is hosting an event with the help of the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico to raise funds to continue restoration work on the more than a century-old church, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Volunteers dedicated thousands of hours to restore the one-room church built in 1911, completing the project in 2016. The church houses a small congregation and is located in the heart of the African American community in Las Cruces.
The late NMSU history professor Clarence Fielder, whose grandparents started the church, initiated efforts to restore Phillips Chapel but passed away in 2015 before the restoration was complete. The event will also raise funds toward a scholarship established in Fielder’s honor.
