THE REV. HARVEY LARABEE CARNES
Died Feb. 17, 2015
The Rev. Harvey Larabee Carnes, who served for 29 years as pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Dudley, N.C., died at the University of North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C., Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015, at the age of 89 after many years of debilitating lung disease.
First Congregational United Church of Christ was founded in Dudley by American abolitionists after the United States Civil War to benefit African-American freedmen. (Dudley, N.C., is mentioned by African-American lawyer/author/Episcopal priest Pauli Murray in her family biography, "Proud Shoes," as a village with a school where her grandfather, Robert Fitzgerald, came to teach freedmen after the Civil War.)
The Rev. Carnes was part of that cohort of white clergy in Chapel Hill who lost their church jobs, or nearly lost them, for supporting civil rights during the tumultuous era of protests recently highlighted by the film "Selma" and the book "Blood Done Sign My Name" by professor (at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill universities) Tim Tyson.
In the period 1956 through the 1970s, the Rev. Carnes joined the Rev. Vernon Tyson, the Rev. Charlie Jones and other clergy in Chapel Hill in supporting elimination of racial segregation, including in churches.
In 1959, an African-American medical student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Balaam Thalfonso Elliott, attended a Sunday worship service of United Church of Chapel Hill at its former location on Cameron Avenue at the invitation of its pastor, the Rev. Carnes. Not long after, the Rev. Carnes was released from the church by its membership. (After receiving his medical degree, Dr. Thal Elliott went on to become a pediatrician.)
In the last decade of his life, the Rev. Carnes, by then retired in Chapel Hill, returned to participate in the congregation of United Church of Chapel Hill at its current location on MLK Junior Boulevard, where the Rev. Carnes admired its current pastors, the Rev. Rick and the Rev. Jill Edens, and the church's community involvement.
In 1960, the Rev. Carnes returned to graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and then North Carolina State University to obtain his Master of Arts degree and to complete all of the coursework for a doctorate in sociology.
He taught at Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University) and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, all the while continuing to serve in various United Church of Christ churches.
The Rev. Carnes was born in 1925 in Wilmore, Ky., to evangelist Benis Gordon Carnes and Willie Graves Carnes, the fifth of their nine children.
As did his father and all of his eight siblings, the Rev. Carnes attended Asbury College (now Asbury University), located in Wilmore.
In 1946, the Rev. Carnes married a fellow student at Asbury, Rebecca Lois Bingham, with whom he eventually had five children, who survive him, Deborah (George Christie), Larry, Emily (Chuck Fields), Timothy (Elizabeth) and Nathan (Kelly).
In 1948, the Rev. Carnes graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary, and Rebecca graduated from Asbury College with a major in music.
Rebecca Carnes, still remembered in the Triangle area by her many elementary and high school music students, predeceased the Rev. Carnes in 2001.
In 2005, the Rev. Carnes married Phyllis Webb, whom he had known since she had been one of his parishioners in Franklin, Va., from 1953 to 1956.
In addition to his five children and his second wife, the Rev. Carnes is survived by nine beloved grandchildren, Rebecca Sophia, Nicholas, Drew, Seth, Marie Christine, Eldon, Philip, Jason and Haley.
A memorial service of Christian music and remembrance for the Rev. Carnes will be held Saturday, June 13, at 4 p.m. at Damascus Congregational Christian Church located at 522 Damascus Church Road in Chapel Hill, N.C., 27516, followed by supper on the grounds, offered by the family of the Rev. Carnes, who remember with great fondness their attendance at Damascus Church during the period (1959 to 1961) when they lived on Damascus Church Road, and where twin brothers, Timothy and Nathan, were baptized.
Condolences may be sent to the family c/o Mrs. Deborah Carnes Christie, 5212 Twin Pines Lane, Durham, N.C., 27705-8599.
(Pd)
Published in Obituaries on May 31, 2015 10:20 AM