The History of the Negro Church

by Carter Godwin Woodson

One service of which the race is in need, as the Negro minister is beginning to understand it, is the prevention of poverty. The poor you have with you always, and the poor will sometimes steal before they will starve. The masses must be elevated above dependence on another race for what they shall eat or drink or the wherewithal they shall be clothed. The saving of young men and women of the race from those pursuits in which they are unduly exposed to the temptations of the low and the contemptible of both races, is becoming a most important concern of many Negro churches. The Negro minister is now beginning to realize that every time he saves a youth from such undesirable conditions he himself becomes like unto Christ, a savior of man. If to do this it will be necessary to establish a business enterprise or make the church a fraternal insurance company, the new Negro minister will act accordingly. This is the way the race should go. The minister is the shepherd of the flock. The sheep know the voice of the shepherd and a stranger they will not follow.

Out of the exercise of these many privileges in the Negro church, moreover, has come unusually important results. Although the Negro learned in this way much that he had to forget, received many impressions which led to improper expression, the experiences in the end redounded to the good of the race. Misinformation when detected served but to emphasize the need of information; imposition accentuated the necessity for honest leadership; and the results of too much credulity led to conservatism in the masses. It was the school of experience for the Negro community. The church furnished the opportunity for this experience and the people learned their lesson well. They learned how to discriminate, how to think for themselves, how to take care of themselves in a critical situation, in short, how to be self-sufficient.

The most important of all lessons the Negro has learned through his church has been that of perseverance in coöperative effort. This is the most striking result of this social work. Negroes have not readily responded to the call of men in other fields, but the fact that these church groups, large and small, have held together for decades, and even generations, in the sacrificing effort to purchase houses of worship for which some of them have well paid two or three times because of thieves within and thieves without—that fact alone is evidence of the development of the power of consolidation among Negroes, an asset which in our day is being drawn upon for organization in education and in business and bids fair to have tremendous results when properly exploited by honest leaders enjoying the confidence of the masses.

DR. GEORGE W. LEE

CHAPTER XIV THE RECENT GROWTH OF THE NEGRO CHURCH

THE student of this phase of history will naturally inquire as to the actual results from all of these efforts to promote the progress of Christianity among these people. Here we are at a loss for facts as to the early period; but after 1890, when the first census of Negro churches was taken, we have some very informing statistics: and although the general census of 1900 took no account of such statistics, the United States Bureau of the Census took a special census of religious institutions in 1906, basing its report upon returns received from the local organizations themselves. The items of this report covered the membership, places of worship, seating capacity of the edifices, the value of church property, and the number of ministers. There were reported also the number and value of parsonages, the debt on church property, and later the statistics of Sunday schools.

Summarizing the details, the census showed that in 1906 there were 36,770 Negro church organizations with a membership of 3,685,097. They had 35,160 church edifices and 1,261 halls used as places of worship, affording a seating capacity of 10,481,738. There were 4,779 parsonages worth $3,727,884, whereas the church edifices were worth $56,636,159. The debt on such church property, however, was $5,005,905. These churches had 34,681 Sunday schools administered by 210,148 officers and teachers in charge of 1,740,009 scholars.

Comparing these statistics of 1906 with those of 1890, one sees the rapid growth of the Negro church. Although the Negro population increased only 26.1 per cent during these sixteen years, the number of church organizations increased 56.7 per cent; the number of communicants, 37.8 per cent; the number of edifices, 47.9; the seating capacity, 54.1 per cent; and the value of church property, 112.7 per cent. The proportionately smaller increase in the membership is accounted for by the discovery of an overstatement of this item through error by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1890, which in 1906 was corrected. It is worthy of note here that the number of halls decreased, showing that they gave place to permanent buildings for those who had been housed in temporary quarters.