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Staff photo by Doug Koontz Carl Hutcherson, greeting young members of his congregation following a recent service, is a minister, a funeral home director and a Lynchburg city councilman. |
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By Mike Gangloff The News & Advance Carl Hutcherson Jr. likes to describe two early memories of his father’s public service — one pleasant and one not. The first is of a March of Dimes benefit concert the senior Hutcherson organized when Carl Jr. was 6 or 7 years old. Held at the City Armory, the event brought blacks and whites together in a way that was rare in the early 1950s. But Hutcherson’s father’s activism wasn’t welcomed by everyone. The second memory Hutcherson recounts is of the rocks thrown through the family’s windows as Carl Sr. — the first black member of the city School Board — helped lead Lynchburg into integration. “We practiced a drill of diving under the beds,” Hutcherson recalled recently. “... I remember my mother saying sometimes you have to pay a price to make things better.” No one was physically injured by the stones and Hutcherson’s father helped chart the course the schools eventually followed. And making things better has become a mission for the school board member’s son. “Carl carries on a family tradition and he carries on that tradition with, I think, a great deal of competency and a real contagious degree of cheerfulness. He’s really committed to it,” said the Rev. Haywood Robinson, the long-time minister of Diamond Hill Baptist Church and former head of the Lynchburg Community Action Group. “He’s followed in his father’s footsteps, working in this community to make it more united,” echoed Stewart Hobbs, whose father was the School Board attorney while Hutcherson Sr. was on the board. Hobbs now serves with Hutcherson on City Council. |
Carl B. Hutcherson
Who influenced you?
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Now 55, Hutcherson is
a councilman, first winning a special election in 1996, then
re-election in 1998 with the most votes of any candidate. He
is the founding minister of Trinity United Methodist Church and
is a past or present member of numerous boards and commissions.
He’s helping to create a new community bank, the Bank of
the James. And he runs the Fifth Street funeral home his father
began. It all makes for an unrelentingly hectic schedule. Hutcherson said for him, the cost of public service hasn’t been broken windows, but time to be with his family. Sitting down at the funeral home to be interviewed for this story, Hutcherson alternated answers with a steady stream of phone calls and visitors. He estimated he puts in 65 to 80 hours each week as a minister, councilman or funeral director. “It’s not easy,” Hutcherson admitted, adding that he relies on help at each of his jobs. At the funeral home, for example, “I can be comfortable being away ... and feel everything’s going to go maybe even better than when I’m around,” he said, smiling. “... I have always been surrounded by good people,” he continued. Hutcherson focuses on the links between his jobs, citing as an example a congregation member who might seek church assistance to pay a high water bill, but may really need city help to correct the leaking meter that’s causing the expense. “When you resolve situations and problems, no matter what they are, it’s a form of ministry,” Hutcherson said. His wife of 29 years, Glodelia, said Hutcherson’s work at the funeral home led him into his other occupations. “I think his business, the funeral home, put him in touch with agencies and people who were in need,” she said. “... I’ve always seen Carl to be the happiest person he can be when he’s dealing with people in need.” Hutcherson’s success can be measured in the tributes offered by people who have worked with him. Councilman Ed Barksdale noted Trinity United Methodist’s work with the White Rock Hill Neighborhood Council to create a health clinic and an after-school tutorial program. Police Chief Charles Bennett praised Hutcherson’s “holistic approach” to fighting crime and its underlying causes. Hutcherson was instrumental in Lynchburg receiving a second round of “Weed and Seed” grants last year, Bennett said. The grants go to a number of community programs. Aubrey Barbour, a neighborhood organizer and part-time employee at Hutcherson’s funeral home, said he appreciated the councilman’s support for projects in Tinbridge Hill, such as the recently constructed Centra Health clinic on Federal Street and the Legacy black history museum. While Hutcherson cites his mother, a school teacher, and father as the inspiration for his work, he recalled that Carl Sr. advised him not to go into politics. The family never knew who was throwing rocks through the windows — white segregationists or blacks who thought integration should move faster — and the elder Hutcherson warned that elected office could hold similar perils. “Fifty percent of the people hate you and 50 percent of the people love you and you can’t tell which is which,” he remembers his father telling him. “And that was the one time I didn’t heed him,” Hutcherson said. |