PUMPKINTOWN, SC – A historic Black Church in the Upstate has received a $250,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.
The Soapstone Preservation Endowment (SPE) was selected from among 622 applications nationwide to receive a 2025 grant that goes to “support growing a perpetual endowment to protect & promote Soapstone Baptist Church’s buildings & grounds.”
The story of Soapstone has spread throughout the Upstate because of the efforts of Mable Owens Clarke, the sixth-generation steward and matriarch of the church. In 1999, her mother, Lula Mae, made her promise never to let the historically Black church close. As part of her mission, Clarke began holding monthly fish fries for the community for the next 22 years. The preservation site today boasts the church, one-room school, a slave cemetery, and soapstone rock outcrops used by the Cherokee for centuries as the source material for cooking implements.
“I stand amazed by God’s blessings of this tiny church. We are deeply moved and humbled by the recognition granted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation,” said Clarke.
Carlton Owen, Chairman of SPE, said that the nonprofit was established in June 2022 to amass a perpetual fund to protect the history and legacy of the Liberia Community and its centerpiece, Soapstone Baptist Church.