A Brief History of West Helena, Arkansas
West Helena Bethel Church Organized
In the summer of 1926, Elder W. S. North, the conference evangelist for work among black people, and a group of workers went to West Helena to hold tent meetings for the black people there. As a result, a mission school was opened and by the end of the school year, there were thirty students. The school kept the Adventist message alive in that area and on September 17, 1927, the Bethel Seventh-day Adventist church in West Helena was organized by Elder North and Elder James G. Dasent, with seventeen members (Dasent, 1927). This was the first Seventh-day Adventist church in that area (Montgomery, 1927). Plans were also made to open a church school with Miss Bertha Cade, a graduate from Oakwood, as the teacher (Dasent, 1927).
Citations
Dasent, J. Gershom. (1927, Sep. 27). Southwestern Union Record, p. 2.
Montgomery, R. P. (1927, Oct. 3). Ibid., p. 2.
How it all Began 