What’s in it for me? Learn how the Black church shaped African American history.
Here’s something interesting: even though more and more Americans are stepping away from organized religion, many African Americans still describe religion as a crucial part of their lives.
In fact, surveys indicate that about 80 percent of African Americans consider religion important to them.
This is surprising at first, but when we consider how much the Black church has contributed to the African American community in the last four centuries, the reasons become clear.
These blinks chronicle how the Black church grew from strictly controlled religious practices to an institution that’s shaped and influenced the social and political lives of African American people.
In these blinks, you’ll learn how enslaved people adapted Christianity; why speaking in tongues was controversial; and what gospel singers did for the civil rights movement.
Missionaries in the 17th century taught a version of Christianity that justified the enslavement of Black people.
When Anglican missionaries arrived in New World colonies such as South Carolina in the 1670s, they had a clear goal: to introduce Christianity to the multitudes of enslaved Black people on plantations.
But this wasn’t going to be an easy task.
The masters of the enslaved resisted the idea because they felt Christianity was reserved for white people.
They were also afraid that introducing the religion would encourage notions of equality, and, eventually, rebellion.
And they needed the enslaved to believe they were less than human, to keep them submissive.
So, to accomplish their goal of converting Black people, missionaries tailored their message to appease the masters.
The key message here is: Missionaries in the 17th century taught a version of Christianity that justified the enslavement of Black people.
To ensure that enslaved people remained docile, the missionaries taught that freedom was a matter of race, not of religion.
This implied that Black people were meant to be enslaved, and white people were supposed to be their masters.
The missionaries highlighted messages from the Bible that encouraged submissiveness, such as, “Servants, obey your earthly masters.
” And stories of social equality or rebellions were intentionally left out.
A number of laws also restricted how, where, and when enslaved people could worship and practice Christianity.
These laws made it illegal for enslaved people to read and write – preventing them from reading the Bible themselves.
And they also prohibited gatherings of Black people if there were no white person present.
This made sure that no rebellious ideas were shared.
But the laws didn’t completely suppress religious expression amongst enslaved people.
They found ways to worship in secret, establishing what became known as the invisible institution.
This consisted of church services held at night in cabins or anywhere hidden from the masters.
In these services, Black people also shared messages from the Bible that were kept away from them.
Not only did the enslaved practice Christianity away from their masters, they also made it their own.
They did this by incorporating elements of tradition and religion brought with them from Africa.
Drumming and a circular dance called the ring shout, for example, became part of how Black people worshipped.
The First and Second Great Awakenings democratized religion and led to the founding of Black denominations.
The 1730s and 40s saw a religious revival sweep across North America – it was known as the First Great Awakening.
Methodists and Baptists of all races gathered to worship through ecstatic dancing, shouting, and preaching.
These revivals resonated with Black people, who saw similarities with African religious practices.
They also allowed free and enslaved Black people to publicly worship, and even give testimonies.
As a result, masses of Black people converted to Christianity.
The key message here is: The First and Second Great Awakenings democratized religion and led to the founding of Black denominations.
When the Second Great Awakening started in the late 1700s, it brought ideas of moral reform, including women’s rights and abolition.
This led to significant changes amongst Black Christians.
The Methodist Church, for instance, took a stand against slavery, and, consequently, attracted many Black congregants.
By 1817, the Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, had over 5000 Black members, and only 350 white members.
A number of Black preachers emerged from both Great Awakenings.
Amongst them was the formerly enslaved Harry Hosier, who delivered sermons to mixed crowds.
Although he was illiterate, Hosier was considered one of the best speakers of the time.
Another noted preacher was Richard Allen, who converted to the Methodist faith while enslaved, and later bought his freedom.
In the late 1780s, Allen began preaching about freedom and justice for Black people.
Black churches also began to form.
In fact, churches were the first institutions to be created as the number of free Black people grew.
One of these early churches was First Colored Church in Savannah, Georgia, known today as First African Baptist Church.
This church was born in 1773 when George Liele, an enslaved Baptist, was allowed to preach.
The congregation was later taken over by Andrew Bryan, who officially established the church in 1788.
But even as Black people became increasingly active within the Baptist and Methodist denominations, they still faced discrimination.
And this motivated the founding of independent Black denominations.
One instance occurred around 1792.
Black congregants at St.
George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia were humiliated and told to sit in the “[N-word] pews.
” The congregants left, led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, another Black preacher.
Allen then founded the African Episcopal Church of St.
Thomas.
And in 1816, he completely broke away from the Methodist church and established African Methodist Episcopal Church, or, AME – the first independent Black denomination.
The Pentecostal church had its beginnings in southern revivals and the Holiness movement.
Religious revivals continued well after the Great Awakenings.
And not only did they encourage Black people to join existing denominations, they also inspired a new religious movement.
The late 1800s saw the rise of the Holiness movement through revivals in the south.
One of the defining characteristics of this movement was baptism by the holy spirit, which included speaking in tongues.
W.
E.
B Du Bois, the African American sociologist, historian, and author, famously wrote about witnessing speaking in tongues.
He described it as “The Frenzy of ‘Shouting,’ when the Spirit of the Lord passed by, and, seizing the devotee, made him mad with supernatural joy.
” The Holiness movement, and, particularly, baptism by the holy spirit, paved the way for a new religious denomination.
The key message here is: The Pentecostal church had its beginnings in southern revivals and the Holiness movement.
These Holiness revivals, and the movement as a whole, were led by Sanctified churches.
In addition to celebratory gatherings and baptism by the Holy Spirit, these churches also stressed morality.
Their music, which was central to gatherings, would later develop into what we now know as gospel music.
However, not everyone agreed with the idea of baptism by the Holy Spirit and, particularly, speaking in tongues.
Even though the Bible describes speaking in tongues as a gift for believers, many leaders of traditional denominations looked down on it.
One reason was the belief that speaking in tongues was similar to African practices.
And many in the Black middle class felt that such practices had to be repressed.
In 1906, William Joseph Seymour, one of the holiness preachers, was actually locked out of a church in California after preaching about speaking in tongues.
But despite being cast out, Seymour attracted a large following.
So large, in fact, that a house they worshipped in collapsed during “the frenzy.
” Seymour’s congregation then moved to a building on Azusa Street in Los Angeles.
In April of 1906, the building became the venue of the Azusa Street Revival, a three-year-long event that attracted all races, and the attention of the media.
People worshipped ecstatically, experienced miraculous healings, and spoke in tongues.
This event kicked off the Pentecostal movement.
Black churches and their leaders were instrumental in the run-up to emancipation, and in the years after.
The churches established by Black people were more than houses of worship.
From the early, hidden gatherings, to the brick-and-mortar churches built by free Black people, these religious spaces also served as political centers for their congregants.
The church was so central that, in August of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln invited five Black religious leaders to discuss an emancipation plan that would see Black people deported from America.
For the clergymen and their congregations, this was out of the question.
America was their home, and they’d contributed enormously to building it.
In the weeks after the meeting, the clergymen worked with abolitionists and Black journalists to convince Lincoln to reconsider.
And their efforts paid off.
The key message here is: Black churches and their leaders were instrumental in the run-up to emancipation, and in the years after.
On January 1st, 1863, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all enslaved people in the Confederate states.
This momentous event wouldn’t be the last time that the church helped determine the fate of Black people in America.
In January 1865, as the Civil War was coming to an end, a key concern was how tens of thousands of formerly enslaved Black people in the south would adjust to their new freedom.
To develop a plan, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman met with 20 Black ministers from the Baptist and Methodist churches.
The ministers convinced Sherman that Black people needed to own land in order to support themselves.
This meeting resulted in Special Field Order No.
15, which declared that land abandoned during the Civil War would be redistributed to formerly enslaved people.
But a few months later, President Andrew Johnson took over after Lincoln’s assassination and reversed the order.
One thing Black people in the south did get, along with their freedom, was the opportunity to openly practice their faith.
Thousands of churches belonging to Black denominations sprung up in the years that followed.
And they were concerned with more than worship.
The Black churches set out to meet all the needs of the Black community.
For instance, almost 95 percent of newly freed Black people were illiterate, making education critical to their development and success.
Schools were established within Black churches to teach children and adults alike, and a number of these grew to become today’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Black people entering political spaces prompted violent reactions.
Less than a decade after the Emancipation Proclamation, another door opened for Black Americans.
The Fifteenth Amendment, signed in 1870, gave Black men voting rights.
This event created a new purpose for the Black church.
Church buildings hosted political debates and meetings, and congregations were encouraged to vote.
The result?
Around 2000 Black men were voted into public office, and almost 250 were church ministers.
One of them was Richard Harvey Cain, who, in 1872, became the first Black clergyman elected to the House of Representatives.
Unfortunately, these strides weren’t supported by everyone.
The key message here is: Black people entering political spaces prompted violent reactions.
Southern states created strict laws, known as Jim Crow laws.
Amongst other things, these laws prevented Black people from voting.
And since Black churches and leaders played such an important role in mobilizing the community, they were targets of violence.
Church burnings and lynchings were common, and there was little to no justice for the victims.
Black men, and women, would have to wait nearly 100 years for the Civil Rights Movement to guarantee their right to vote.
This movement was also steered by religious figures, the most prominent being Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
As Jim Crow laws suppressed Black votes, many saw an urgent need to empower Black people.
One response to this need was the founding of the National Baptist Convention in 1895.
This convention aimed to consolidate the Baptist church’s efforts in supporting Black people socially, politically, and economically.
During the convention’s first meeting, bishop Henry McNeal Turner introduced a radical idea.
He preached that Black people should envision a God that resembled them.
As we’ll soon learn, this idea reemerged a few decades later.
While church leaders discussed the racial oppression outside their walls, Black women were becoming increasingly vocal about sexism within the church.
About 90 percent of the church were women, yet church leadership predominantly consisted of men.
Women also couldn’t become ministers, or have a say in the use of church funds.
Nannie Helen Burroughs was among those demanding equality within the church.
In 1900, she gave a speech titled “How the Sisters are Hindered from Helping” at the National Baptist Convention.
And a year later, she co-founded the Woman’s Convention, which campaigned for women’s voting rights and equal treatment for Black people.
In just over five years, the Woman’s Convention had 1.
5 million members.
Gospel music evolved from spirituals, influenced secular music, and contributed to political movements.
We’ve learned how enslaved Black people adopted Christianity and added elements of African practices.
One of the most prominent examples of this fusion is the music of the Black church.
During enslavement, Black people created spirituals – songs that combined Christian hymns, aspects of African music, and stories of their suffering and hopes for freedom.
Black people sang spirituals whilst working or praying, and key features included repetition, call-and-response, and musical notes inspired by African sounds.
These spirituals were the foundations for gospel music.
The key message here is: Gospel music evolved from spirituals, influenced secular music, and contributed to political movements.
The early 1900s saw the beginning of the Great Migration.
Millions of Black people in the south moved to northern cities to escape violent segregation and find better economic opportunities.
Along with their hopes for a better life, they also brought their churches and religious music.
This was key in the development of gospel.
Pentecostal, Apostolic, and Deliverance churches were opened in commercial buildings in northern urban areas.
The congregations in these storefront churches added clapping, chanting, and instruments like drums and guitars to traditional spirituals.
In fact, Kenneth Morris, the choir director at Chicago’s First Church of Deliverance, revolutionized Black church music in 1939 when he bought a Hammond organ.
Morris later established one of the first gospel publishing houses.
As Black church music developed, its influence extended beyond church walls.
Jazz and blues musicians who’d grown up in the church borrowed from the music.
And church musicians also experimented with elements of secular genres.
Although many religious leaders felt that secular music didn’t belong in the church, this back and forth ultimately shaped gospel music.
Just look at Thomas A.
Dorsey, the “father of gospel music” – he was formerly the bandleader for blues musician Ma Rainey.
Like its home – the Black church – gospel music also played a key role in political movements.
For example, during the Civil Rights Movement, popular musicians like Mahalia Jackson held performances to raise funds for activists.
The Freedom Singers, a quartet from Albany, Georgia, not only raised money, they also spread awareness about the racial and political tensions in the south.
And their songs, which combined gospel with lyrics about freedom, comforted and empowered activists as they marched.
After the civil rights movement, the Black Church contended with new ideologies and internal tensions.
The end of the 1960s marked a new chapter for the Black Church.
The civil rights movement, led largely by the church, had put an end to segregation, outlawed discrimination, and helped ensure Black people’s right to vote.
But despite the success of the movement and the non-violent approach it advocated for, young people were increasingly gravitating towards militant organizations, like the Black Panther Party.
Formed by Huey P.
Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966, the Black Panthers called for Black racial pride, self-defense, and economic empowerment.
The popularity of the Black Panthers left churches with a difficult choice.
They could either lose their prominence, or integrate similar ideas in order to stay relevant.
The key message here is: After the civil rights movement, the Black Church contended with new ideologies and internal tensions.
Just three years after the Black Panther Party formed, James Hal Cone, an AME minister and theologian, created Black theology.
This was a radical approach to Christianity that centered around Black pride.
It argued that, because Jesus identified with oppressed people, he, too, was Black.
Additionally, if, as the Bible stated, God made people in his own image, then there was something positive about being Black.
Black theology resonated with many clergy and scholars, who were finally able to see themselves reflected in Christianity.
But in the decades after the civil rights movement, the questions of Black pride and Black theology weren’t all that the church had to grapple with.
Sexuality and gender inequality had long been issues within the church.
Even in the present day, some religious leaders don’t support gay marriage or women’s right to choose.
For women battling sexism in the church, womanist theology, a term coined by writer Alice Walker, emerged as a way to highlight and explore the experiences and contributions of Black women in the church.
When HIV/AIDS arrived in the early 1980s and affected the Black community, many religious groups dismissed it as the result of sin, or as a disease for gay, white men.
This, despite the fact that Black people were more affected by the disease.
Fortunately, there were denominations that practiced acceptance, raised awareness, and educated communities.
One of them was the City of Refuge, a church founded in 1991 by Bishop Yvette Flunder.
In recent years, more churches like City of Refuge have been created by the Black community.
In 2020 and beyond, the Black church continues to provide much-needed support to the Black community.
With the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, the year 2020 brought unprecedented challenges for the world at large.
In the United States, the pandemic highlighted deep flaws in the public health system that disproportionately affected people of color.
For instance, the rate and severity of infections were higher in people of color, and the death rate amongst Black people was twice that of their white counterparts.
The response from the government left a lot to be desired.
And, like they have done many times before, Black churches stepped in to fill the gaps.
The key message here is: In 2020 and beyond, the Black church continues to provide much-needed support to the Black community.
As with all institutions in the United States, Black churches were affected by calls to limit social contact and gatherings.
But despite being cut off from their congregations, they found ways to help meet the needs of their communities during the pandemic.
For instance, the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Texas set up COVID-19 testing in its parking lot.
Other churches, like Indiana’s Light of the World and Central Baptist in Pennsylvania, delivered meals to people.
Unfortunately, while churches do what they can for communities, they’re also in need.
This is because Black churches rely on financial donations from their congregants, many of whom are struggling financially.
As churches and congregants battled with the pandemic, 2020 pushed another issue to the fore.
The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd served as brutal reminders of a long-held disregard for African American lives.
These violent events sparked thousands of Black Lives Matter protests attended by an estimated 26 million people.
This, unfortunately, wasn’t the first time that Black Lives Matter activists had taken to the streets.
The movement began in 2013, in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman.
Founded and led by women, Black Lives Matter presents a new approach to Black protests in America.
One that doesn’t center religion, the church, or its patriarchal traditions.
But this doesn’t mean that the church no longer has a place in social justice movements.
The author believes that the Black church and its leaders have to evolve in order to continue playing a strong role in the lives and fates of Black Americans.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks: Although enslaved people were converted to Christianity as a means of controlling them, they soon learned the truth of the gospel, and secretly shared and celebrated it amongst themselves.
As the number of free Black people grew, they created denominations of their own in order to worship without restriction, complete with a unique style of music.
The leaders of these denominations went on to spearhead social and political movements, while the churches supported various aspects of Black life.
Although Black people have made significant progress, there are still many challenges inside and outside the church.
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