Allan Appel Photo
Dr. Darden offers praise to those praising her.
Her congregants honored her as a true woman of God, a founder of their church, and a pioneering female pastor for 30 years. Since it was Dr. Mattie Atkinson Darden’s 87th birthday, the City of New Haven put some frosting on her cake: a corner named in honor.
The festive renaming of the southwest corner of Sperry and Goffe drew more than 100 congregants and friends Saturday afternoon after an hour’s service of ceremony and praise for Dr. Darden at the nearby Agape Christian Center, which she founded in 1983 and has led since.
On Saturday she let her congregants “drive the bus,” as Mae Gibson Brown put it. That meant testimonials from family and friends about Darden’s unique role as an early female pastor in town.
She took the road of her father Dr. Austin Atkinson. He co-founded and served as pastor for Pitts Chapel. The corner near that church, Dixwell at Brewster, is named in honor of him.
Now his daughter has a corner too.
A deeply humble woman, Darden sat in a chair of honor stationed far to the side of the dais as she listened to congregants, family, and friends praise her. The spoke of a woman who was a store owner, longtime employee at Winchester Firearms, and a hair dresser while growing as a musical and preaching leader in father’s and then her own church.
“It never came to my mind that a corner was to be named after me. It never occurred to me. It was Mae Brown’s dream,” Darden said.
Two and a half years ago Brown began organizing to get the 250 required names to file with the city, the minimum to request a corner or street naming. Brown and her cadre of six younger women with stronger legs ended up collecting more than 400 names.
Brown cited Darden not only as an influential trainer of other women as preachers, but as a community-involved leader. Under Darden’s leadership, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, Agape Christian Center worked with Elsie Cofield and the AIDS Interfaith Project.
“We were the first church in the city to adopt a family,” Brown said. There were four members suffering with the virus, Brown wrote in remarks that she distributed to the congregation. “Agape was able to take care of the final arrangements for three of them.”
In addition to a soup kitchen and a clothes closet, Dr. Darden organized a night for all kids in the city to come into the church and feel safe, one Friday every month.
Sunday was Dr. Darden’s birthday. She decided to do what she has always done: preach. “I gave my life to Jesus when I was 20 years old. I’m going to preach until the Lord says enough.”
Dr. Darden and event coordinator Gibson Brown.
She said she founded her own church in 1983 because she had gained through study and prayer a “deeper, increased knowledge. I wanted to help other people [attain it]. People need to exercise their faith. You can’t stay a baby all the time.”
One of Dr. Darden’s “spiritual child ren,” Shawn Hardy, said she preached her first sermon in 1958 in her dad’s chapel. The subject: “Fear not.”
“Jesus has vessels on planet earth to get the job done,” Hardy said, and Dr. Darden is one of them. He called her “a pioneer of the gospel trail for women.”
Then he called for “some church” in her honor even though it was Saturday. By “church” he meant hand-clapping, rollicking songs and rhythms of praise. Click on the arrow for a sampling.
When she was wheeled out into the brisk weather down the bumpy sidewalk to the corner and witnessed the paper covering dropped over the newly named corner, Dr. Darden said simply, “I’m happy.”