Redemptive Role of the Black

¶ … Redemptive Role of the Black Church

How did African-Americans in the South and elsewhere develop their own places of worship before and after the Civil War? What was the African-American church like when the war ended and slavery was abolished? What were their experiences during the time they went about creating their own Christian culture apart from the influence of the Caucasian community of believers? And what part has the Christian Church played in the social and spiritual lives of African-Americans subsequent to Emancipation? Those questions and more will be addressed in this paper, along with scholarly research from credible, interesting sources.

Obie Clayton, Jr., professor of Sociology at Morehouse College, writes that the black churches "…throughout the periods of slavery, Reconstruction, and post-Reconstruction…acted as a buffer against the harshness of a segregated and prejudiced society, filling a basic social void" (Clayton, 1995, p. 101). Indeed the black churches served "all the basic needs of the Black community, providing an outlet for the arts, politics, and sports…seeking to make life more livable" (Clayton, p. 101). Clayton goes on to assert that "Historically, the Black churches conformed, for the most part, to the orthodoxy of separatism" -- perhaps because at the same time "many white religious leaders used their own churches as platforms to promote segregation and racism" (Clayton, p. 102). Southern society used religious institutions to "enforce tradition, to maintain orthodoxy… [and] those who spoke out for change risked a great deal," Clayton continued.

A different scholarly view of the origins of the Black church in the life and times of freed slaves is found in the writings of Teresa Green, who asserts that blacks were attracted to the Baptist church more by "emotion than rational inquiry" (Green, 2000, p. 411). By that Green means that slaves were "understandably drawn towards a type of worship in which they were active players rather than bystanders" (Green, p. 411). Green stresses that the freed slaves were of course lacking in education and hence they were drawn to the "emotional style and the unpolished preachers" who held court in early Baptist church services. Green may have an argument with other historians, but she claims that "it is commonly accepted" that the very first African-American churches were the "African Baptist or Bluestone Church" that was located on the William Byrd plantation in Virginia in 1758. Another church purportedly among the very first black churches was the Silver Bluff Baptist Church near Augusta, Georgia, founded by a slave named George Liele (Green, p. 412).

Prior to Emancipation many slaves were not permitted to attend churches that were pastured by blacks and instead were forced to attend church services that were conducted by the slave masters, usually involving "white pastors" (Green, p. 412). And after Emancipation many blacks became weary of the "restrictive and inequitable treatment" they received in white Baptist churches, which inspired them to create the Black Baptist Church. Green states that two forces brought about the Black Baptist Church: one, white refusal to extend to blacks "nondiscriminatory treatment"; and two, the ongoing search for self-determination (Green, p. 413). Another attractive aspect of the Black Baptist denomination was that, unlike the Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches, the Black Baptists had a decentralized, democratic system in place. There was at that time no "national hierarchies" with the Baptists; and moreover the African-American congregations were drawn to the "enthusiasm of their services," some of which were formed by slave preachers who had no obligation to a bishop in some distant office.

Speaking of the enthusiastic presentation of sermons by black pastors, Eileen Southern writes in the Black American Literature Forum that black "folk preachers" (who were sometimes illiterate" provided a spiritual experience for their congregations rather than a "learned" experience (Southern, 1990, p. 23). The late Ms. Southern, an African-American teacher, musicologist and author, wrote that "white writers" attempted to describe the "fiery sermons" that black folk pastors preached back in the day. But since the white writers couldn't really understand what was being said, they could not write down verbatim the substance on which the sermon was based. So they summarized what they believed they were hearing. And the first appearance of a summarized antebellum sermon in the historical literature is an article called, "Religious Intelligence: An Account of the Baptism of Nine Negroes in Boston, May 26, 1805" (Southern, p. 24). In that account the writer noted that at eight in the morning the congregation walked, "two by two" to a river where the service took place with prayers and singing. When the baptism was finished, the congregation walked, again two-by-two, back to the house that had been used as a church facility.

For white visitors to an African-American church service in the early 19th Century the experience was unique and memorable, Southern explains. The black (slave) congregation did indeed sing traditional Protestant hymns but they also sang, "improvised hymns" -- which were in fact "Negro Spirituals." Another "exotic feature" of the services held by blacks in antebellum America was the "African-style" "religious dance" that took place usually after the formal services (p. 24). The colonial literature described this dance as a "holy dance" and it became an "integral part of the religious ceremonies" of black folk congregations. Southern quotes from William Colbert, a Methodist pastor who observed a black folk service in 1801: "The Lord was praised in the song, in the shout, and in the dance" (p. 25).

On the topic of music in the black church, in his book Can I Get a Witness? Reverend Brian Blount asserts that the Negro Spiritual was "the music of slave resistance" and was based primarily on "Scriptural characters and themes" (Blount, 2005, p. 94). Because slaves identified with the Hebrew people (who were in bondage) in the Old Testament, Blount asserts, they were very impressed with the Hebrew's "exodus liberation" and put that energy into their singing. Like the hymns of Revelation, Blount continues, the music of the "spiritual-blues impulse is antiphonal" (features a rhythmically repeated refrain) and is not "an artistic creation for its own sake" but rather tells listeners about "the feeling and thinking of African-American people" (p. 107).

On the subject of black preachers who were slaves or who had been given the money to buy their freedom, the Reverend Doctor Henry J. Mitchell has researched the beginnings of the black church experience in America. In his book, Black Church Beginnings: The Long-Hidden Realities of the First Years, he writes about "Black Harry Hosier," who was the coach driver for Methodist Bishop Asbury in North Carolina. But Hosier was "widely reputed to be a far better preacher and orator" than the bishop was (Mitchell, 2004, p. 50). And Hosier drew large crowds for his sermons and "helped greatly in establishing churches" (p. 50). Another freed slave mentioned by Mitchell was "Uncle Jack," who was given the money to buy his freedom, was given a farm and handed a license to preach (p. 51). He wasn't exactly a pastor, Mitchell explains, but he did serve "effectively for forty years… [as] a roving revivalist under whose preaching many, both white and black, were saved" (p. 51).

Meanwhile the first known black female preacher went by the name "Elizabeth" (Collier-Thomas, 1998, p. 41). According to the book Daughters of Thunder, Elizabeth was born a slave in 1766 in Maryland; her parents were Methodists and her father read the Bible out loud each Sunday "instilling in them the fervent belief" of prayer and the Scriptures, Collier-Thomas writes. Because of the lashings she received, she learned from her mother that she had "none in the world to look to but God" (p. 41). Her faith deepened until, at the age of 12, she fell into a physically exhausted state for six months and had her "first vision"; in those six months she "felt the power of the Holy Ghost" (p. 42). Converted to Christianity at 12, Elizabeth began preparing for her life as a traveling preacher, which -- after being freed in 1796 -- she began in 1808.

Elizabeth was persecuted -- fiercely harassed rejected -- in many communities (no one had seen or heard a black female preacher); people were afraid that if they allowed her to hold meetings in their homes they would be expelled from the Church. And in spite of the possibility of "reenslavement" and risks to her physical well-being, Elizabeth preached in Virginia and in the South (p. 42). Once threatened with imprisonment during a service in Virginia, she was asked by what authority she spoke, and if indeed she was an ordained preacher. "She answered, 'Not by the commission of men's hands: if the Lord had ordained me, I needed nothing better" (p. 42). The "supreme confidence, conviction and apparent godliness" she displayed quieted the threat that day and in other days, Collier-Thomas explained. Elizabeth preached for nearly 50 years and retired with the Quakers in Philadelphia.

Collins-Thomas describes the "second black female preacher" -- Jarena Lee, who preached between 1818 and 1849 -- as having an encounter with the "Holy Ghost" who told her: "Go preach the Gospel!" (p. 44). She affiliated with the African Methodist Church (AME), preaching from New York State to Ohio and down South as well. She published her autobiography in 1849 and received "strong resistance and biting criticism," according to Frances Smith Foster (1993). "Lee used her alleged inferiority to emphasize the power of her message and in so doing, she…implies an authority superior to those whom she addresses" (Foster, p. 57). Indeed, Lee used the New Testament assertion that "the last shall be first" and in her autobiography she said she was an example of God's "ability to use even 'a poor coloured female instrument' to convert sinners…" (Foster, p. 57).

Another worthy source utilized for this paper is Dr. Edward R. Crowther, Professor of History at Adams State College in Colorado. Crowther published an article in the Journal of Negro History explaining how African-Americans got away from the white man's church after Emancipation. The former slaves took "decisive action" Crowther writes, to break the "ecclesiastical bonds that shackled them to the white man's church" (Crowther, 1995, p. 131). Blacks withdrew from the segregated Sabbath worship services in Alabama, and the story of the dynamics between whites and blacks in postbellum Alabama is a story of radical change and reluctant adjustment, Crowther explains.

By 1866 the white Baptists in Alabama were facing a "new and different world" because slaves were now free people, the Confederate armies had been beaten, and African-Americans "remained a vital part of the society." It was a struggle, Crowther explains, to balance the "dictates of scripture with the demands of society" as whites and blacks sought cooperation rather than antagonism. Many white Baptists however were reluctant to do anything to help the recently freed slaves, and when the black Baptists sought to form their own congregations and "sought to procure their own church buildings," and that upset some whites. Those whites had justified slavery as a "divinely ordered agency to civilize black" (Crowther, p. 131).