The church always has played a pivotal role in the black community, especially during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, when it was seen as a place of hope, restoration and revitalization.

Church was a place for worship and a place where civil rights leaders such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy and Medgar Evers spoke.

However, there are some who believe that role has changed and that the church is becoming a place to be entertained rather than a place to worship.

Pastor H. Calvin Austin III, of Mount Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church in Shreveport, said the church always has been a central point in the black community.

"Back then, when you went to the church, people used to respect the church," he said. "If people would walk by the church with a bottle or can of beer, they would cross the street to not walk close to the church. It was just that embedded respect."

During the civil rights movement, the church also provided a place of security and sanctuary.

"The church was a place where you could carry the burdens of the weak to the house of God and leave with a sense that everything was going to be all right," Austin said. "That was the message I received by watching my mom and others."

In the '60s, the church was the only place blacks could assemble. And sometimes that was met with resistance.

Zion Baptist Church pastor Brady Blade Sr. said his first year at the church was right at the peak of the rights movement.

"People didn't go to church because they were afraid," he said. "They went to church because they had hope in something else beyond this present world."

It was really rough in Shreveport and throughout the South between 1961 and 1964, Blade said.

"During those years was when they [police] were riding the horses up and down Milam Street," he said. "That's when [pastor Harry] Blake was hit with a billy club at Little Union Church."