ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 28, 1996 TAG: 9603280060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: THOMASVILLE, GA.
SOURCE: KRISTEN SVINGEN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
THE DEACONS had voted to remove the infant's body after learning she had a black father. But Wednesday, they agreed to leave her in the cemetery.
When Pastor Leon VanLandingham gave the eulogy for Whitney Elaine Johnson at Thomasville's Barnetts Creek Baptist Church on Friday, he groped for something that might mitigate the tragedy of her short life. At least the infant, laid to rest next to her maternal grandfather, would escape drugs, racism and other social plagues now that the Lord had taken her home.
But Whitney's short stay on Earth - she died 19 hours after being born without a completely formed skull - was not brief enough to escape the sins of which VanLandingham spoke.
The crisis began Sunday, when the church's seven deacons voted unanimously to remove the infant's body after learning the baby had a black father.
But on Wednesday, church leaders reluctantly agreed to leave Whitney's body in the cemetery, where no blacks are buried.
``For the record, we are not going to exhume the baby,'' VanLandingham said. VanLandingham wouldn't answer further questions about the racial policies of the church, whose 200 members are white. Sylvia Leverett, the child's grandmother, said church deacon Logan Lewis asked her Monday to disinter Whitney and move her to a different cemetery.
At first Leverett agreed, instructing her mother, the child's great-grandmother, to sign a paper approving the move. But when other family members got wind of the plan, they opposed it, sparking a feud that is dividing a church, a community - and a family.
``You just don't believe that somebody would do a child that way,'' Whitney's mother, Jamie Wireman, said. ``They just won't let her soul rest.''
After Leverett told church officials they wanted the child, born March 18, to stay put, Lewis took a hard line, she said. At first offering to pay to bury the child elsewhere, he then told Leverett he would have his way: Church policy since the 1800s had kept the cemetery off-limits to minorities.
``He had this signed piece of paper,'' said Leverett. ``He didn't care what we said: They didn't allow half-breeds.
``I told him that she wasn't a half-breed,'' she continued. ``She was a child of God.''
Reached by phone at his Thomasville home, Lewis declined to comment. Efforts to reach other church deacons and VanLandingham on Tuesday were unsuccessful. Wireman's sister, Kathy Smith, and a neighbor who overheard some of Leverett's and Smith's conversations with Lewis, confirmed that Lewis demanded the child's remains be removed.
Racism is nothing new to Wireman, 18, and Jeffrey Johnson, 25, the child's father. The couple, who have dated for more than two years and live together in a trailer outside Thomasville, have been the target of rock and bottle throwers who disapprove of their relationship. They have had problems finding jobs and a home to rent, and stay home rather than going to the movies and causing a stir. Once a man waved a gun at them outside a drug store, calling Wireman a ``nigger lover.''
But she never imagined, Wireman said, that the church would ask them to disinter their daughter. The pastor regularly preached against racism and hatred, said Leverett, a church member for two years.
``They just didn't seem like that,'' she said.
At the funeral, according to relatives, VanLandingham preached that Whitney had a ``free ticket to heaven,'' because the day-old child knew no sin.
``It was like an act,'' said Johnson, noting that no one appeared to have a problem with his daughter at the funeral. ``They have to make themselves look good.''
``Hypocrites,'' added Wireman.
``And bigots,'' Smith said.
Most shocking of all, Leverett said, was learning that her own mother, the baby's great-grandmother, was siding with the church.
``We told her that blood was going to be thicker than water,'' Leverett said. ``She said she would not go against the church.''
Leverett's mother, Lila Wireman, declined to comment.
Whitney Johnson weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces when she was born by Caesarean section at Archbold Memorial Hospital in Thomasville, her brain pushing out of the back of her head. She was transferred to Tallahassee Memorial Regional Medical Center, where she lingered 19 hours before dying the next day.
``To think such a small person could cause such an uproar,'' said Leverett, clutching two Polaroids of her grandchild.
``Maybe that's the reason that God took her from me,'' suggested Wireman. ``To let people know what's going on now.''
Church member Susan Cooper said she was unaware of any whites-only policy for the cemetery. ``I wouldn't have any problem with anybody being buried, as long as they're from a Christian family,'' she said.
Gary Cooper, a bail bondsman who teaches Sunday school at the church, said church members had no idea what was going on.
``I can assure you on behalf of the congregation that the whole church didn't know about this situation,'' he said Wednesday. ``God is no respecter of persons. Man looks on the outside but God looks on the inside.''
- The Associated Press contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Jamie Wireman, 18, and Jeffrey Johnson, 25, standby CNBover the grave of their daughter, Whitney Elaine Johnson, at the
cemetery at Barnetts Creek Baptist Church. color.