Montgomery Community Media Spotlights "Finding Fellowship"

Originally published by Montgomery Community Media

Deirdre Byrne

February 23, 2021

FILMMAKER, FATHER REFLECT ON QUINCE ORCHARD BLACK HISTORY IN ‘FINDING FELLOWSHIP’

Jason Green, director of the “Finding Fellowship” documentary—available on BlackRock Center for the Arts’ website—spoke to MyMCM about the three things he hopes viewers will take away from the film. Here’s what he said:

Rev. Gerard Green, the father of Jason Green, is featured in the film, which examines how three segregated churches united after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

Rev. Green—who is now chairman of the Pleasant View Historic Association—is working to continue preserving the legacy of Quince Orchard, which used to be an all-Black town in Montgomery County. Green reflects on what it was like to live through the experience of seeing the three churches merging:

Through the making of the film, the Green family learned that one of their ancestors, Gary Green, was a slave. In 1868, after the Civil War, Gary Green, and two other Black men, purchased the 3-acre Pleasant View land for $54.

This land used to be the center of the Black community of Quince Orchard. It included Pleasant View Methodist Episcopal Church, the Pleasant View Cemetery, and a small schoolhouse called Quince Orchard Colored School to educate Black children.

Rev. Green spoke to MyMCM about what it was like to attend a segregated school in Montgomery County—Rock Terrace Elementary. Here’s what he had to say.