End of Mortgage Payments Prompts Church Celebration

Accompanied by the congregation’s 300-voice choir singing “Happy Days,” Rev. Cecil Murray set fire Sunday to documents representing a $2-million mortgage paid off by the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.

Church spokeswoman Neomi Pollack said 45 members of the Los Angeles Pops orchestra opened the ceremony at the church with a Mozart serenade and swung into more traditional fare in honor of the event.

The 3,000-member congregation is the largest local branch of the AME church. The First AME Church was founded in 1856 by former slave Biddy Mason as the first all-black church west of the Mississippi.