The History of the Negro Church

by Carter Godwin Woodson

DR. E. K. LOVE
A popular minister in Savannah, Georgia.

The Negroes had a just cause for complaint. If under the leadership of the white Baptists their way to promotion would be blocked and their literary aspirations crushed, what hope was there for the race to rise and of what benefit would education be to the Negro, if it did not equip him to do for himself what the white man at first had to do for him? How could the motives of the white Baptists be lofty, moreover, if they did not believe that Negroes should rise in the church and school? To this the whites replied that they looked forward with the most pleasant anticipation to the day when the Negroes would be prepared to enjoy the good things for which they clamored, but that the time for the Negroes to dispense with the leadership of the whites had not then come. Many years of education and social uplift were still necessary before the Negroes could successfully set out to do for themselves.

This argument had little weight with the progressive Negroes and they were not wanting in logical speakers to place their case before the world. There was that courageous leader, Dr. Harvey Johnson, of Baltimore, who belabored his former friends as enemies of the race. Equally effective, too, was the eloquent Dr. Walter H. Brooks of Washington, who fearlessly took up the cudgel and dealt the white Baptists many a blow from which they never recovered. With the National Baptist Convention emerging as a common concern of Negroes under the organizing hand of Dr. E. C. Morris, and the National Baptist Publishing House extending the circulation of elementary literature throughout the country under the direction of the efficient Dr. R. H. Boyd, this self-assertion of the Negro Baptists became a factor to be reckoned with.

All problems, however, were not immediately solved. The progressive Negroes had the right spirit, but did not every time have adequate understanding. They had had no experience in editing literature and practically none in raising sums of money necessary for the maintenance of educational establishments and missionary enterprise. The majority of the Negro Baptist ministry trained in the schools of the American Baptist Home Mission Society at first adhered to this organization and persisted in using the Sunday school literature of the American Baptist Publication Society, deriding the publication efforts of the Negro Baptists as the greatest travesty on Biblical literature. This criticism was most uncharitable, but nevertheless effective, for the reason that some who at first wished the movement well made the mistake of despising the day of small things.

The struggle was most intense in the Southeast. The influence of Shaw University in North Carolina and Virginia Union University in Richmond had given the white Baptists an all but firm hold on the Negroes in these and adjacent States. The presidents of these institutions and the white agents of the denomination attended the Negro associations and conventions, hoping to dictate their policies; but this interference only widened the breach. Under the leadership of that forceful orator and successful leader, Gregory W. Hayes, a large number at first and finally a majority of the Baptists of Virginia disclaimed connection with these white friends and concentrated their efforts on supporting the Virginia Theological Seminary and College through the Baptist State Convention of that commonwealth. The leading Baptists of North Carolina, however, still adhered in large numbers to the American Baptist Home Mission Society, coöperating therewith through the local associations, their State conventions, and the conservative national body known as the Lott Cary Convention, which had also many adherents in Virginia and scattered followers throughout adjacent States. In other parts, the factions about equally divided, except in the southwestern section of the country, where the Negroes have tended to break away from the white Baptists.

As to which faction was right, history alone will tell. Even at the present, however, one can see a decided advantage in the independent Negro movement. Every one will admit that the Negro must eventually rely solely upon himself, and that not until he emerges from a state of dependency can he hope to secure the recognition of the other groups. The white man is rapidly tiring of carrying the so-called burdens of the Negro. The Negro home, church, and school must, as fast as possible, become sufficient unto themselves. The sooner they attain this stage in their development, the better will it be for the race. The Negro institutions which during the turbulent period have, in separating from the whites, learned to supply their own needs, have made a step far in advance of those dependent on the whites. In this day, when the northern philanthropists are either withholding their donations to Negro schools or restricting them to Hampton and Tuskegee, it is difficult for some of these establishments to eke out a subsistence, while the independent Negro schools, having had years of experience in developing a following, find their prospects growing brighter from year to year. The National Training School for Girls, founded and successfully directed by the noted Nannie H. Burroughs, obtains practically all of its funds from Negroes. The Virginia Theological Seminary and College, under the direction of the efficient Dr. R. C. Woods, depends for its support altogether upon Negroes, who contribute to it annually about $60,000.00. There is not in this country a Negro institution dominated by whites that can raise half of this sum in this way. A few years ago when Wilberforce University was heavily indebted and it seemed that it needed some one to rescue it, the State of Ohio proposed to buy the church portion of the institution; but the trustees, with the spirit of the progressive Negro, emphatically replied that the whole State of Ohio did not have enough money to buy Wilberforce. Rallying under the leadership of Bishop Joshua H. Jones, the African Methodists raised $50,000 in one year and cleared the institution of debt.

In this changing order, moreover, when the white administrators of Negro schools find themselves deprived of the former financial support received from the North, they veer around to the position of southern white people, accepting and sometimes enforcing in Negro institutions themselves the unwritten laws of caste that the white management may curry favor with the prejudiced community. As these administrators must under such circumstances lose the support of the Negroes and experience has not yet shown that many southern white men will make sacrifices for Negro education, the institutions in the hands of such misguided white friends of the Negro will probably suffer.