February 2, 1988

By Cliff Lewis, Associate Pastor of Worship and Music, Clayton Baptist Church

Most people reading this article will wonder to themselves, “What is so special about February 2, 1988?” Others will probably think it may have something to do with Groundhog Day. For me, and my elementary school friends, and the whole town in which I grew up, this day was an incredibly tense and terrifying day.

It may be difficult for some to remember the days before school hostage situations and mass shootings like Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, and this year’s tragedy in Nashville at the Covenant School, but there was a time when most schools didn’t have lock-down plans or metal detectors. It’s not that there were no incidents of violence in schools before that time, but it had not yet become a “normal” part of life.

For a 10-year-old 5th-grade student at West End Christian School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that rainy Tuesday morning seemed like just another day of school. The small elementary school annex building where my classroom was located was across the street from the main buildings of the K-12th grade private school. Soon after we had arrived in our classrooms, two men in ski masks, armed with pistols, a hunting rifle, and an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle, along with 2,000 rounds of ammunition, came to the front doors of the building. After forcing their way in, they quickly headed into the 3rd-grade classroom. That room was directly beside my 5th-grade room, and when the 3rd-grade teacher, Mary Alice Blanton, saw the men with rifles and pistols, she let out a blood-curdling scream. That scream caused our substitute teacher to run to the front of our classroom and lock the door. She then had me and my classmates move to the back of the classroom behind her desk. That was around 8:30am.

James Harvey, the main hostage taker, was a Vietnam-era veteran who had been dealing with mental illness for many years. He had spent countless hours watching national news sources like CNN and C-SPAN and had worked himself into a frenzy about the problems he believed were plaguing the country. Harvey had convinced himself that in order to make his case to a national audience about things that needed to change in America, his best option was to take us hostage to give himself that platform. The morning of the event, Harvey had gone to the unemployment office early and had spoken to another man, who he essentially forced to help him breach the school. Shortly after the two men had gotten inside, our school headmaster, Dan Carden, and a couple of other men from the school office came over to confront the intruders. They were immediately met by Harvey, as he pointed a gun at them and instructed them to leave. Dr. Carden quickly contacted the police, and when they arrived, it became clear that Harvey had taken over 70 people hostage, most of us were children.

Cliff Lewis is the Associate Pastor of Worship & Music at Clayton Baptist Church, located at 87 South Church Street in Clayton, Georgia. He leads God-centered music each week, preaches on occasion and is an all-around great guy. Cliff loves his wife and kids, is a fan of the Crimson Tide and Narnia is his favorite movie.

Over the course of the next 12 hours, local police, reporters, national media, and other first responders all descended on the area around the tiny school building to assist with the increasingly tense situation. Several key people, like then Assistant Police Chief Ken Swindle and local television reporter Dan Cates, all spent time talking to Harvey and seeking to gain his trust through the negotiation process. Without their calm and careful conversations with Harvey, the hostage situation could easily have turned into a horrific mass shooting like the ones we are so terribly familiar with these days.

During the course of the day-long stand-off with police, James Harvey showed Assistant Chief Swindle that he was receptive to some forms of negotiation. Most often, if Harvey was led to believe that his demands to speak to national news organizations or to do sit down interviews on programs like “Late Night with David Letterman” would soon become a reality, then Harvey would grant a request from negotiators, like the release of some of the hostages. This was the circumstance that led to me and my 5th-grade classmates being released at around 2:30pm, after a few of the younger classes had already been released earlier that afternoon. Finally, at 8:30pm, after further negotiations and after Harvey was presented with a video-taped pardon from the governor of Alabama (which was under duress, making it null and void), Harvey exited the front of the building. He expected his exit would lead him to a microphone where he could begin addressing the American people and expound on his lists of cultural and governmental problems. Instead, Ken Swindle and several other law enforcement officers quickly wrestled him to the ground, put him in handcuffs, and ushered him away. Harvey has been imprisoned ever since that day and is now serving out a life sentence on multiple counts of kidnapping.

So, that’s the end of the story, right? This possible tragedy had a happy ending. Well, yes, but there was much more going on behind-the-scenes than what these simple facts communicate. The part of this harrowing day that was not seen on national news and has not been revealed in most of the articles I have been able to access is what was happening in the gymnasium on the other side of campus. I want to shine a spotlight on what God was doing through His people on their knees in prayer that day.

Before I tell you what was happening on that day in 1988, let me quickly take you to a day about a year ago here in Rabun County. John and Alice Taylor are members of Clayton Baptist Church where I serve as the worship pastor. They were actually living in Tuscaloosa during some of the same years I was there, but we had never met while in Alabama. Last year, as I was leading a prayer group that John and Alice are consistent- continued on page 12