The History of the Negro Church

by Carter Godwin Woodson

DR. W. R. PETTIFORD
A business-like minister in Alabama.

CHAPTER XIII THE NEGRO CHURCH SOCIALIZED

THE Negro church as a social force in the life of the race is nothing new. Prior to emancipation the church was the only institution which the Negro, in a few places in the South and throughout the North, was permitted to maintain for his own peculiar needs. Offering the only avenue for the expressional activities of the race, the church answered many a social purpose for which this institution among other groups differently circumstanced had never before been required to serve. It was, in the first place, a center at which friend looked forward to meeting friend, contact with whom was denied by the rigorous demands of slavery. It was then a place of enlightenment through the information disseminating from the better informed or by actual teaching in the Sunday school. It served often as an outlet for expression of the Negro social mind, now for a renewed determination to break their chains through prayer, then to resort to concerted action on the basis that he who would be free must himself first strike the blow.

After the emancipation, moreover, the Negro church developed a social atmosphere which somewhat strengthened its hold on the youth about to go astray. Not only education found its basis in the church, but fraternal associations developed therefrom. Business enterprises accepted the church as an ally, and professional men to some extent often became dependent thereupon. Most movements among the Negroes, moreover, have owed their success to the leadership of Negroes prominent in the church. No better examples can be mentioned than W. W. Browne, a minister who organized the True Reformers fraternity; W. R. Pettiford, another preacher, who became one of the pioneer Negro bankers; John R. Hawkins, the Financial Secretary of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who in applying efficiency to the business of his office secured for his denomination an unusually large income, and Dr. W. F. Graham, who in addition to his significant achievements in the church, has well invaded various businesses, in which he has exhibited evidence of unusual ability.

Since the Civil War, the Negro church as a factor in general uplift has become what the oppressed Negro longed to make it prior to that conflict. In the first place, Negroes regularly attend church whether Christians or sinners. They have not yet accumulated wealth adequate to the construction of clubhouses, amusement parks, and theaters, although dance halls have attracted many. Whether they derive any particular joy therefrom or not, the Negroes must go to church, to see their friends, as they are barred from social centers open to whites. They must attend church, moreover, to find out what is going on; for the race has not sufficient interests to maintain in every locality a newspaper of its own, and the white dailies generally mention Negroes only when they happen to commit crimes against white persons. The young Negro must go to church to meet his sweetheart, to impress her with his worth and woo her in marriage, the Negro farmer to find out the developments in the business world, the Negro mechanic to learn the needs of his community and how he may supply them.

Attached to the church is the Sunday school. Many a Negro had in attending it learned clandestinely to read and write before the war. Now they without fear of punishment eagerly studied in the churches on Sunday, learned the alphabet, the spelling of words with one, two and three syllables, and finally to read the Bible, that they might know for themselves the truths hitherto kept from their fathers but now revealed to their children in freedom. Education here was decidedly easy, the motive actuating the student being the immediate results in the form of a better knowledge of one's Christian duty and the reward awaiting the faithful. Many of these Negroes often learned more on a single Sunday than the average student acquired in a day school during a week. In these Sunday schools, not a few Negroes laid the foundation for the more liberal education which they thereafter obtained in the schools established by the religious and philanthropic friends of the Negroes working in the South immediately after the Civil War.

The church not only promoted education through the pulpit and Sunday school, but through its emphasis on the Bible unconsciously stimulated the efforts toward self-education. Whether a Negro attended Sunday school or not, he heard read to him from the Bible two or three times a week dramatic history, philosophical essays, charming poetry, and beautiful oratory. Hearing these repeated again and again and under circumstances securing undivided attention, he had many of these precious passages sink into his heart like seed planted in fertile ground to bring forth fruit fourfold. Under the continuous instruction of the Negro preacher, who in expounding the Bible drew such striking figures and portrayed life, death, and the beyond in a dramatic fashion, the youth not only experienced the emotion so characteristic of the Negro communicant but had his intellectual appetite whetted with the desire to seek after the mysteries.

The majority of Negroes, therefore, became Bible readers. Reading the Bible, they not only found what a minister of limited education could point out, but facts drawn from the best thought of the ancient world. And it was not mere reading; for many of them committed to memory choice passages of the Scriptures. Hundreds of them could recite accurately chapter after chapter of the treasures of Holy Writ; almost as many could give a crude but logical exposition of these literary treasures. From the study of the Bible the Negro developed, moreover, a desire for Biblical literature. He heard the moral appeal and gladly accepted the message to those in quest of the higher life in Christ.

This influence of the Bible, moreover, did more than lead to the reading of literature of a kindred nature. Some read books on ancient and medieval history, and finally works on the history of modern Europe. Others more seriously concerned were by this mere exposition of the Scriptures led to study collaterally commentaries on the Bible and to take up theology. In this they exhibited the power of self-education which with a strong spirituality combined with unusual imagination made so many Negroes preach with success. They had no more formal education than to read, and that was often picked up in the Sunday school; but they had the experience of a seeker, the light of the Bible, and the guidance of men who eloquently expounded it to the waiting multitude. These they freely drew on and from them they obtained help abundantly. Crude sometimes as the language might be, the thought of this self-made philosopher was original and few heard one preach without wondering how men of limited opportunities could speak so fluently and wisely.