Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Des Moines, Iowa has been through various different leaders in their time, but there’s one pioneering pastor who sparked hope through his sermons. And, according to a clipping from The Des Moines Register, he was given $1 and a chicken to preach on Sundays, but that’s not all he did.
Reverend Fields was the pastor of Mount Olive Baptist for 40 years and an active leader in the Civil Rights Movement during the 50s and 60s. When he was still a young minister, Reverend Fields traveled along Iowa and Missouri highways carrying a sack of sandwiches because white restaurants didn’t let him in; he frequently slept in his car because white hotels didn’t allow him to stay.
Reverend Fields was present at the inception of the Iowa Missionary and Educational Baptist State Convention, and according to Reverend Sherman Brown of Shiloh Baptist Church, was a man full of rich history and information that “have gone to the grave with him.” Reverend Fields was a very resilient man whose optimism prevailed in the midst of civil injustice, unrest, and even in health when he got his leg amputated for diabetes and walked right out of the hospital when his doctors said he’d never walk again. He passed away from a heart ailment in 1991 at the age of 91, but his legacy remains as one of the few Black pastors in Des Moines who brought his wisdom, honesty, and prolific perspective to the city at large.
