Among the exclusive social clubs, perhaps the most important is the Appomattox Club. Its membership includes the leading business and professional men, and it has a well-appointed club building. Its membership is limited and it carries civic and social prestige.
The Phalanx Club is an organization of government employees. Its membership is large, though limited by occupational restriction. Its interests are largely social. The Forty Club and Half Century Club are purely social and still more exclusive.
Negro professional societies, sometimes formed because of the objections of whites to the participation of Negroes in white societies of a similar nature, include the Lincoln Dental Association, Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists' Association, a Bar Association, and a Medical Association.
3. RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS
Negro churches.—The church is one of the first and probably one of the strongest institutions among Negroes. The importance of churches in the Negro community lies not only in their large membership and religious influence, but in their provision of a medium of social control for great numbers of Chicago Negroes, and in their great value in promoting the adjustment of newcomers.
In the South the churches are the principal centers for face-to-face relations. They serve as a medium for the exchange of ideas, making and maintaining friendships, community co-operation, collective striving, group competition, as well as for the dissemination of information, assistance and advice on practical problems, and the upholding of religious ideals. The pastors know the members personally, and the church exercises a definite control over individual behavior.
The church is often the only Negro social institution with an unhampered opportunity for development. In most southern cities, Negroes have no Y.M.C.A., public playground, welfare organizations, public library, gymnasium, orderly dance halls, public parks, or theaters. The church in a large degree takes the place of these and fills a vacancy created by the lack of the public facilities ordinarily found in white communities. In many instances it determines the social standing of the individual Negro. No one can escape the opprobrium attached to the term "sinner" if he is not a member of the church, however successful otherwise.
The minister is the recognized leader of the Negroes, and often their legal adviser and school teacher. He is responsible for the social good behavior of his people. No movement can get the support of the people unless it has his sanction.
In the North the function of both Negro church and pastor is different. Negroes can find other places than the church for their leisure time; numerous urban and civic organizations with trained workers look after their interests, probably better than the church. In the Y.M.C.A. they find religion related to the development of their bodies and minds. In northern cities enterprises and movements thrive without the good-will or sanction of the clergy, and even against their protest.
The field wholly occupied in the South by the church is shared in the North by the labor union, the social club, lectures, and political and other organizations. Some of the northern churches, realizing this, have established employment agencies and other activities of a more social nature in response to this new demand.