Stand The Storm The Black Church And The Triumph Of The Black Spirit

Ebony, Dec, 1999 by Kelly Starling

To look back at the Black Church over the 20th century is to recall some of the most important moments in African-American history.

The fight for education.

The battle for civil rights.

The continuing quest for women's equality.

As in the preceding centuries, the Black Church of the 20th century was more than a place of worship. It was school, theater, community center, meeting ground, political engine, restorer of hope.

"The Church has always been the center of the Black community," says the Rev. Vashti M. McKenzie, pastor of Payne Memorial A.M.E. Church in Baltimore and one of the pioneer Black pastors of traditional Black Churches. "We have done more than preach the gospel, we have found ways of going beyond Sunday morning to ministering to people every day."

Like African-Americans, the Black Church has stood the storm of racism, sexism, economic and educational challenges by adjusting its mission to meet the needs of the times. Over these 100 years, the Black Church has emerged as a master innovator, building communities, stoking issues of social justice, shaping new musical traditions, resurrecting faith.

Perhaps the most enduring contribution of the 20th century Black Church was revitalizing Christianity. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Black and White ministers who followed him and the Freedom Movement changed the shape of worship, infusing new spirit and energy into religious thought, changing and renewing White ministers and laypeople who came within the range of its radiance.

The Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr., pastor of Cleveland's Olivet Institutional Baptist Church and former chairman of Operation Push, says, "One of the most remarkable and revolutionary contributions of the Black Church in the 20th century is to be found in the areas of transformation and liberation. The Church literally played a tranformational role in the whole of Christiandom in the 20th century, far beyond the borders of the United States of America, and the key figure in this transformation was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I boldly state that the liberation movement could not have been what it was, or achieved what it did without the dynamic leadership of the Black Church."

The Black Church also changed American democracy. The Rev. Dr. Robert Franklin, president of the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), says, "the Black Church led the movement to rehabilitate American democracy, which reached its height during the Civil Rights Movement and the leadership of Dr. King and Church leaders who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Without that Church-led movement, America might still be a nation marked by racial apartheid."

Thus, Dr. Franklin says, Dr. King and other Black clergy were internationally significant theologians and activists whose legacy is seen and felt every time a freedom fighter in Asia, Africa or South America sings `We Shall Overcome Someday'"

The ITC president points out that the Church has also helped form this century's political agenda through the emergence of Black ministers-political leaders, including Adam Clayton Powell, Andrew Young, Floyd Flake and Jesse Jackson. "They helped show that clergy could be political advocates and agents who could bring a moral analysis to American politics," he says.

Another contribution of the 20th century Black Church, religious experts say, is its work reviving and maintaining the spirit of African-American people. As in the days of slavery and segregation, the Black Church played a key role in maintaining the morale of Black Americans. In the Depression and during the days of World War I and II and in the White backlash following the Freedom Movement, the Black Church provided, as Dr. Franklin says, "the wherewithal for Black folk to face the tragedies and ambiguities of life on a weekly basis. The church gave us spiritual nourishment in the form of songs, prayers and sermons that we could feast on each day until we gathered on Sunday for corporate or collective worship. We received the spiritual vitamins of faith, hope and love that built out spirits to last another day, another week."

It is argued in fact, by some scholars, that Black people wouldn't have survived without the spiritual boost they received from the Black Church.

Along with stoking faith, the 20th century Black Church renewed and extended its role of helping Black people help themselves. The Church sponsored literacy programs, provided housing assistance, fostered employment. This mission became even more crucial in the reactionary years following the Freedom Movement. As government increasingly frowned on assistance programs, the Church picked up the load. In addition to offering traditional services, houses of worship began to think of ways to address growing plagues such as increased crime, teen pregnancy and rising incidents of drug abuse and AIDS.

"We have a long way to go before mastering the drug problem, but we would be much worse if the Church hadn't been involved in prevention efforts," says Dr. Clarence G. Newsome, dean of the Howard University Divinity School. "The Church has to be given credit for helping to prepare people for employment and raising literacy rates. The African-American churchgoing community is far more educated and middle-class than it was 100 years ago, and part of it is attributable to the work of the Church."