47+ Years of Service in Des Moines

Reverend George Parrish was born in Boone, Iowa in 1914. He was primarily raised by his grandmother—who was a traveling midwife—leading him to finish high school outside of Iowa and pursue higher education at a Bible college in Nashville, Tennessee and the Western Bible School in Kansas City, Missouri. He returned to Iowa in 1936, settling down in Des Moines. Before becoming the pastor of Maple Street Baptist Church, he was the assistant to previous pastor Reverend C. Lopez McAllister, his friend and mentor. A few years later, Reverend Parrish took over his mentor’s role for 47 years—from 1944 to 1991—making him the longest serving pastor of the congregation. 

His frequent presence as a trusted source in Des Moines’ newspapers implies that he was well-respected in the community. For example, Reverend Parrish’s letter to the editor “Confrontation” was published, detailing his son’s experience with police brutality, advocating for improved police conduct in 1978. Other articles cite his opinion, like “Racial Imbalance Shown in Schools” in 1967, “A perspective on race relations” in 1985, and “Residents hear effects of cuts” in 1986. His comment from the latter article is particularly intriguing given recent relentless U.S. involvement in foreign affairs: ‘’it’s immoral for this government to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars way off somewhere when there are children here without enough bread and without shoes on their feet.”’

From a theoretical stance, when Reverend Parrish was interviewed about ‘race relations’ in The Des Moines Register, he shared a unique framework to understand key shifts in Des Moines’ 20th century Black history, based within the changes he’s seen in his lifetime:

• Before 1936: Few Black people “could do and go pretty much where they wished.”
• 1936-1954: Several state mines closed, and many Black laborers came to Des Moines. This period is characterized by “bigotry and segregation;” Busy Bee and May’s were the only two restaurants that would serve Black people.
• 1954-Onward: The U.S. Supreme Court reached a decision on the Brown v. Board of Education case, “ushering in a period of ‘tolerance’ toward” Black people and the integration of schools. 

This framework in conjunction with other Black Iowan elders’ understandings of local Black history would be useful in preserving knowledge and recontextualizing how life was experienced, rather than centering a detached perspective that respects precedence. I hope to see their knowledge uplifted in this manner in future projects.

Reverend Parrish was directly involved in his city’s interracial affairs, but he left Des Moines’ interracial ministerial association in 1954 after one of his white ex-colleague’s spoke about tolerance in one breath, and then hypocritically in the next said, ”When I get to heaven, I’m going to ask the Lord to let me go into the colored section to hear the colored folks sing.” 

Reverend Parrish’s tenure as a public figure far surpassed his congregation, as he served as the president of the Iowa Missionary and Educational Convention, vice president of the National Baptist Convention, and the president of the Des Moines Ministerial Alliance. For his extensive dedication to the community in Des Moines, he was honored for his Christian Leadership in 1982, and he was notably a member of the Iowa Commission on the Status of Blacks, the Des Moines Area Religious Council, and the NAACP. 

Sources

• “Racial Imbalance Shown in Schools,” Des Moines Tribune November 22, 1967 p 15
• “Letters to the Editor: Confrontation,” Des Moines Tribune September 8, 1978 p 18
• “15 D.M. residents honored for community service,” Des Moines Register November 18, 1982 p 107
• “A perspective on race relations,” Des Moines Register May 8, 1985 p 64
• “Residents hear effects of cuts.” Des Moines Register March 19, 1986 p 55
• “George H. Parrish — Obituary,” Des Moines Register January 25, 1991 p 31