COVER STORY | HOPE IN AN ENVELOPE (FROM SCRATCH) The Assignment: Teach Our People to Read. Empower Them to Lead.

BLACK TEXANS, INC. | COVER STORY | SUMMER 2025 EDITION

HOPE IN AN ENVELOPE (FROM SCRATCH)

The Assignment: Teach Our People to Read. Empower Them to Lead. How New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church of Fort Worth, under the leadership of Pastor Kyev Tatum, is leading a faith-fueled formula for freedom—

To Learn, Lead, and Lift the Next Generation to Know How to Read

“And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities…”

— Isaiah 61:4 (KJV)

By Black Texans, Inc.

“Without education, there can be no freedom.” — Chaplain Allen Allensworth

“If it’s not fun, it’s not fundamental.” — Pastor Kyev Tatum

A Prophetic Promise in the Forgotten Place of Morningside 76104, the Zip Code with the Lowest Life Expectancy in Texas.

FROM FORT SUPPLY TO FORT WORTH: In the soul of Fort Worth’s 76104—Texas’ most underserved community—New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church is doing more than praying for change. Under the visionary and fearless leadership of Pastor Kyev Tatum, they’re working it. Building it. Becoming it.

Where statistics predict failure, this church dares to deliver faith, freedom, and literacy straight to the doorsteps of forgotten families.

This is hope in an envelope—delivered from heaven, mailed by the church, and stamped with purpose.

It’s not a program.

It’s a prophetic assignment:

Teach our people to read. Empower them to lead.

From Chaplain to Chaplain: A Legacy of Liberation

More than a century ago, Chaplain Allen Allensworth, born into slavery, became the first Black chaplain in the U.S. Army. At lonely outposts, he built schools for Buffalo Soldiers who were told books weren’t for them.

He paid for supplies with his own salary.

He taught reading as an act of rebellion.

He saw the Bible as both Holy Word and liberation curriculum.

Today, Pastor Kyev Tatum continues that assignment in a new battlefield: the zip codes where systems have failed. His tools? Songs. Scripture. Digital animation. Sacred joy.

The classroom is now the sanctuary.

The blackboard is now the Bible.

The method is now movement.

Camp Buffalo Soldiers: Scripture that Sings, Literacy that Lifts

At Camp Buffalo Soldiers, the signature literacy program birthed from New Mount Rose, children learn to:

• Read using the books of the Bible

• Chant and sing their way through Scripture

• Watch Bible stories come alive through animation

• Be mentored by real Buffalo Soldier re-enactors.

“We’re not handing out worksheets,” Pastor Tatum says.

“We’re handing out identity, dignity, and destiny.”

This is not remedial education.

This is resurrection education.

The Bible and the Beat: Joy Is the Curriculum

In every joyful session, you’ll find students chanting, clapping, and conquering their fears—one syllable at a time.

What you hear sounds like music.

What you’re witnessing is miracles in motion.

This literacy model is built on:

• Joy

• Scripture

• Confidence

• Cultural pride

They leave knowing how to read—and knowing they matter.

Skills City, USA: When Church Is the Launchpad

Camp Buffalo Soldiers is the heartbeat of a larger, bolder mission: Skills City, USA—a church-anchored workforce development engine built right inside New Mount Rose.

Through this initiative, underserved children, teens, and adults receive:

• Faith-based literacy training

• Hands-on job preparation.

• Leadership rooted in purpose.

From specialty coffee to filmmaking to ministry, Skills City proves that the church can still launch destinies—and that scripture is still the most effective textbook on earth.

Two Chaplains. One God. One Assignment.

• One taught soldiers by lantern light.

• The other teaches students with digital delight.

• One lit the path in military forts.

• The other lights up classrooms in underserved communities.

Both accepted the call.

Both fulfilled the assignment:

Teach our people to read. Empower them to lead.

Black to the Basic: Faith. Family. Reading. Work. Joy.

In a world overrun with noise, New Mount Rose is returning to what works:

• Faith still frees

• Family still forms

• Reading still liberates

• Work still restores

• Joy still heals

“The church is the new classroom.

The Bible is the new curriculum.

And the Black child is the new frontier.”

Final Word: From Chains to Chapters

From dusty forts to sacred sanctuaries…

From enslaved minds to reading miracles…

From forgotten youth to fearless leaders…

New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church of Fort Worth, under the divine leadership of Pastor Kyev Tatum, is fulfilling Isaiah 61:4—not by theory, but by testimony.

They are rebuilding.

They are restoring.

They are raising up a new generation.

This is not just about Black history.

This is about Black destiny.

This is not education.

This is emancipation.

BLACK TO THE BASIC. FORWARD TO THE FUTURE.

Read. Work. Lead. Sing. Soar. Serve.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Pastor Kyev Tatum

New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church, Fort Worth, TX

817-966-7525

kptatum1@gmail.com

newmountrose.com | www.skillscity.org

Feature Photos: Literacy circle at Camp Buffalo Soldiers • Pastor Tatum in action • Historic Buffalo Soldier reenactors mentoring youth • Faith-based digital literacy in the sanctuary • Skills City vocational lab

Published by Black Texans, Inc.

“Telling the stories that build, bless, and boldly shape our future.”