Postcards to Lady Alice, 628 Church Street, Evanston

a presentation by Reverend Dr. Michael C. R. Nabors

Tuesday, October 24, 2023 1 PM – 2PM  (Doors open at 12:45 pm)
In-person event
At the Evanston History Center
225 Greenwood St, Evanston, IL
Seating is limited. Registration is required.
See below for tickets and registration information.
Free and open to all!

Join us for a presentation by the Reverend Dr. Michael C. R. Nabors, Pastor, Second Baptist Church. Pastor Nabors will discuss his family history that centers around the life of his great grandmother, Alice Ampey Jones Easton Scruggs- affectionately called “Lady Alice” – and a group of postcards she received and collected from about 1902 to 1910. The postcards offer a remarkable glimpse into one Black family’s life and experiences.

Alice arrived in Evanston in 1892 after being born and raised on a farm in southwestern Michigan. She was self-assured, independent and a professional seamstress and corset maker.  In her early twenties, she was a rapidly, up-and-coming “dressmaker” with a growing reputation in the Chicago and Evanston area.  She would meet and marry her third husband and she worked to put him through Dr. Scholl’s School of Podiatry in Chicago. Together, they would become part of a small and successful group of African American Evanston residents who helped found the Emerson Street YMCA, played a significant role in the leadership of Ebenezer AME Church and were part of the social elites in the Black community.

This presentation is a snapshot of eight years of Lady Alice’s life, though she would spend 67 years of her life in Evanston. The postcards depict a much larger view of Black life beyond Evanston and Chicago. In fact, details show that Lady Alice had both knowledge and networking around the world.  Lady Alice died on May 5, 1959, and is buried at Somerset Memorial Cemetery.

Reverend Dr. Michael C. R. Nabors is senior pastor of the historic Second Baptist Church in Evanston, Illinois. The 139 year-old Church is one of the oldest African American congregations on the North Shore. Dr. Nabors teaches Homiletics and Qualitative Research and Theological Writing at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. He served as Director of the Master of Divinity and Student Life Programs at Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit where he was professor of Homiletics and African American Religious History. He has taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Calvin Theological Seminary, and Marygrove College.

Dr. Nabors earned an undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Systematic Theology and the Master of Theology with an emphasis in Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey and the Doctor of Ministry focusing on African American Preaching at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He also served as president of the Princeton and Trenton, New Jersey branches of the NAACP and is currently in his third term as president of the Evanston-North Shore Branch of the NAACP. Since 2019, Dr. Nabors has been part of reparations work in Evanston which established the first municipal reparations program in the United States.

Ticketing

Registration is required.

To register, please use the “RSVP” option to reserve your FREE ticket.

A registration confirmation email will be sent to the email you registered with.

If you do not receive a confirmation email, please email Erin Hughes at ehughes@evanstonhistorycenter.org.