REV. NORMAN MCCALL
A MIGHTY PREACHER MAN
This is the story a mighty preacher man. Gigantic in stature, Herculean in strength, and devoted in discipleship, he was first and foremost a man of God. During the latter half of the 19th Century, he was one of the most popular ministers of the Gospel in Laurens County. He was certainly the largest pastor. With his great size, he was the epitome of Oscar Hammerstein’s Ol’ Man River. He could tote that bale, sometimes one in each arm. He could lift that barge right off a snag in the Oconee River.
The Rev. Norman G. McCall served as pastor of the First African Baptist Church of Dublin for nineteen years. McCall was said to have been nearly seven feet tall and weighed in excess of 300 pounds. He could easily lift a five hundred - pound bale of cotton and throw it on his shoulder.
Norman G. McCall, a son of Hamlet McCall and Patsy McCall, was born in Dublin, Georgia as a slave in September 1859. On July 19, 1877, Norman married Celia Hughes, born in November 1860, on September 19, 1879 in Laurens County. His children were Roberta McCall Johnson, Robert McCall, Thomas McCall, Willliam McCall, Arthur McCall, James McCall, James McCall, Lucile McCall, Emanuel McCall, Naomi McCall and Rowe (Roe) McCall.
Norman grew up on the family farm along the northern side of the current Academy Avenue Extension in southwestern Dublin. His father was born in 1822 and his mother in 1823. Hamlet may have been a slave of the prominent McCall of early Dublin in the first half of the 19th Century.
Rev. McCall worked on the riverboats and it was said that he could swim across the river with two sacks of fertilizer under his arms. In his early years, Rev. McCall worked aboard the riverboat of Capt. R.C. Henry. In the late summer of 1887, Henry’s steamer, “The Laurens,” caught a snag and began to sink. Captain Henry and John Graham, the engineer. escaped through the top of the boat.
A news report stated that “the Negro crew ran through the swamp like a frightened flock of sheep.” Left all alone as the boat was almost totally submerged, Rev. McCall put his faith in his strength and the strength of the Lord Almighty. McCall, Capt. Henry’s trusted pilot, went into action to save most of the several hundred barrels of the cargo of rosin as he could. McCall erected a pole which he fastened to the side of boat. McCall descended under the water and one by one, he brought 150 of the 185 barrels aboard to safety.
Rev. McCall, one of the most well known and admired African-American Baptist ministers in the state, was active in the organization of the schools in the black community in the 1880s. His family lived in the southwestern portion of Dublin between Marcus and Marion Streets, most likely on or near West Avenue. Rev. McCall founded and served on the Executive Board of Central City College in Macon in 1900. In the summer of 1903, Rev. McCall was elected President of the Colored Georgia Baptist Sunday School Association. He was a member of the Masons, the Odd Fellows, and the Laboring Friends.
On June 15, 1904, after suffering for several months with dropsy, Rev. McCall fell dead in his field. He was only forty-four years old. His funeral procession was one of the longest in Dublin's history, nearly one mile long.
Reverend McCall is buried in Scottsville Cemetery. His grave and many others have been obliterated when the cemetery was cleared in the 1970s or 1980s. Mrs. Celia McCall died in 1936. According to her obituary (Dublin Courier Herald April 28, 1936, page 5.) hundreds of Dublin’s oldest and best colored citizens are buried there.
Today, you can visit First African Baptist Church on Telfair Street in Downtown Dublin. A beautiful, ornate, stained glass window with a likeness of Rev. McCall adorns the front of the sanctuary.
The church is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places of the United States, primarily because the church was the location of the first public speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1944. It was in that same pulpit where Rev. McCall faithfully praisded the Lord that Dr. King stood and spoke on the Negro of the Constitution.
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