THE CONSERVATIVE AND PROGRESSIVE
It is clear from the account set forth above that the Negro church as
such had some difficulty in finding itself. There was still a question
as to what its functions and ideals should be, and this very question
all but divided the church into conservative and progressive groups. The
conservative element in control became so dogmatic in its treatment of
the rising progressive minority that the institution for a number of
years lost ground among the talented tenth. For this reason the ministry
once became decidedly uninviting to young men. Young people so rapidly
lost interest in the church that the Sunday sermon denouncing the
waywardness of the wicked generation was generally expected; and, if a
special discourse of this vitriolic nature did not periodically follow,
pastors availed themselves of the opportunity to digress from the
discussion of the hardships of slavery, hell, and the grave to express
their deep regret that the intellectual youth were disinclined to walk
in the footsteps of their fathers. Such sermons frightened some into
repentance, but drove as many away from contact with the Christian
element of the community.
The waywardness of the youth, however, was not so much a wickedness as
it was a divergence in the Negro social mind. The ex-slaves had remained
conservative. The old-time religion was good enough for them. They
rejoiced to be able to sing in freedom the songs of their fathers, and
deemed it a privilege to testify in "their experience or class meetings"
and to offer at their Sunday services long drawn out invocations which
afforded them the once forbidden exercise of the outpouring of a pent-up
soul. Preachers who came down from that well-fought age appreciated, of
course, the unique position which they then occupied. For all a new
world had been created, so to speak, and what they needed then was only
to enjoy the new boon vouchsafed to the lowly. The Negroes should thank
God for their freedom, and the only way to express that gratitude was
through vociferous praise and stentorian thanksgiving within the courts
of the Lord. God had brought the Negro up out of Egypt through Sodom and
Gomorrah, and to show his gratitude the chief concern of the Negro
should then be "to be ready to walk into Jerusalem just like John."
The Negroes then under the instruction of well-enlightened missionaries
from the North could not long remain in this backward state. Although
not taught radical doctrines but, on the contrary, influenced by
conservative religious teachers, the educational process itself had to
work some changes in the young Negro's point of view, inasmuch as he was
taught not what to think but how to think. The young Negroes, therefore,
had not attended school very long or moved very much among persons
mentally developed before they found themselves far removed from the
members of their race less favorably circumstanced. They developed an
inquiring disposition which leveled shafts at the strongholds of
churchmen whose chief protection lay in their unfortunate plight of
being embalmed in their ignorance along with a majority constituency
hopelessly lost to the "eternal truths" coming into the mind of the
Negro youth by "natural light."
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, therefore, the
conservative and progressive elements in the church unconsciously
drifted far apart. In the course of time it was no longer a struggle
between the old and young. The difference in age ceased to be the line
of cleavage. It was rather a difference of ideas. These groups were
widely differing in their interpretation of religion, in their ideas as
to the importance of the church in the life of the community, in their
attitudes as to the relation of the church to the individual, and in
their standards of public conduct. On the whole, there was an effort to
stand together; but in spite of themselves the line of cleavage had to
be recognized and dealt with as a fact. As poverty is jealous of
opulence, so is ignorance jealous of intelligence; and in this case the
jealousy all but developed into caste hate.
The progressive element commonly dubbed by the conservatives as the
educated Negroes could not accept the crude notions of Biblical
interpretation nor the grotesque vision of the hereafter as portrayed by
the illiterate ministers of the church. This developed mind found itself
unwillingly at war with such extravagant claims and seeking a hearing
for a new idea. Religion to the progressives became a Christian
experience rather than the wild notions of revelation, which among some
of the uninformed too often bordered on superstition and voodooism of
the middle age, after the restraint of slavery had been removed and the
Negroes as groups exercising religious freedom could indulge their fancy
at will.
The educated Negro, moreover, no longer thought of religion as the
panacea for all the ills of the race. Along with religion he would
insist that education should go as its handmaiden, inasmuch as there can
be little revelation of God where there is arrested mental development.
The very example of Christ himself, as understood by the progressive
Negro, furnished no evidence as to the virtue of unrestrained emotion
resulting from a lack of understanding and from an unwillingness to
search the Scriptures for the real revelation of God.
Being weak on the intellectual side, the conservative Negro churchman
could not fail to decry the educated communicants as a growing menace to
the church. The church militant was ordered forward to attack the
strongholds of this unbelief lest the institution might be shaken from
its very foundation. The toleration of such views might bring upon this
generation the wrath of God, who would visit the race with condign
affliction. The educated class had information, not judgment; and the
principles of religion, moreover, must be accepted as they are without
question. The effort here was to crush the scion because it was
producing a more vigorous species than the root from which it sprang, to
destroy life because in the new generation it meant living too
abundantly.
The churchmen of the conservative order observed with regret, moreover,
that the talented Negro had a differing conception as to the relation of
the church to the individual. Among the conservatives, the church, the
only institution in which they could participate in the days of slavery,
engaged their undivided attention with the exception of politics in
self-defense during the Reconstruction period. The conservatives
believed that the individual should sacrifice all for the church. On
Sunday, they would come from afar to swell the chorus of the faithful,
and there they would remain during the day, leaving their net earnings
in the hands of the management, given at the cost of a sacrifice placed
on a common altar. The educated Negro, on the other hand, thought of
the church as existing for the good of the individual. It was to him a
means for making the bad good, and if the institution were defective it
might be so reshaped and reorganized as to serve the useful purposes of
man.
The church, moreover, as the progressive Negro saw it, was not
necessarily Christlike unless the persons composing it were of such
character themselves. As there were too often found here and there
impostors serving as important functionaries in churches in which they
masqueraded as Christians, the educated Negro insisted upon a new
interpretation of Christian doctrine, boldly asserting new principles as
to the relation of man to his fellowman and man to God. Religion, the
progressive element insisted, is a social virtue not an individual boon.
Man cannot by his professed periodical baring of his soul to God set
himself aright when his conduct has not been in conformity with the
teachings of Jesus. Since an individual is what he does, an institution
composed of individuals, too often shamed with ignorance and vice, could
not be the ideal Christian organization to which Christ looked as his
representative following here on earth.
The Negro in freedom, moreover, when given an opportunity for mental
development, gradually became assimilated to the white man's standard of
conduct. The educated Negro began to see little harm in dancing and card
playing when representative white churches abrogated such prohibitions
or suffered them to fall into desuetude. Taunted as to the evil desire
for the ways of the world, the talented man usually retorted that while
his conduct was questioned by his own people it was in keeping with the
ethics of the most enlightened of the land, whereas the conservatives
tended to follow the policy of practicing almost any sort of vice
clandestinely and to masquerade as Christians until exposed.
This argument was of little worth; for many of the so-called vices of
the Negro members of the church could be reduced largely to unconfirmed
reports and indulgences of the imagination of persons having foul minds.
While the writer offers no brief for the religious workers of long ago,
he must insist that we have no evidence to justify the sweeping
generalization that the Negro Christians of the conservative order were,
as a rule, morally corrupt or that they generally harbored unclean
persons in their group. Their record rather shows a most healthy
attitude toward maintaining a high standard of morality. The adulterer,
the gambler, the thief, and the like, were usually summarily expelled
from the church as undesirables, who should not sit in the congregation
of the righteous. In fact, had it not been for the hold of Christianity
on these freedmen, their standards of morality would have been so much
lower; for they saw for emulation little of the righteous in the white
people with whom they came into contact when these generally imposed
upon the blacks by lying and stealing and openly sought Negro women
with whom the flower of southern families lived in open adultery. The
conservatives stood for the right, although they were often too narrow
to overlook the so-called vices which supplied to those of talent the
harmless pleasures of this world.
The progressive element seriously objected to church management. Negro
ministers and the governing bodies of the churches often manifested more
zeal than tact in the conduct of church affairs. They too frequently
built rather costly edifices, paid their pastors disproportionately
large salaries, and lavished unduly upon them and their families gifts
which the poor of their congregations could ill afford. The Negroes
wanted a well-groomed leader in a heaven on earth to lead them to the
heaven beyond. The management then incurred debts of such magnitude that
the church too often developed into a money raising machine dominated
from without by white speculators who profited by this folly. The
progressive element militantly arrayed itself against this outlay made
at the expense of the moral and religious life of the community. In
their zeal they too often denounced the conservatives in control as
tricksters and grafters, when, as a matter of fact, the management lost
more by inefficient administration than it acquired by so-called
corruption.
The progressive Negroes boldly advocated a change in the worship.
From the more advanced white churches they had learned to appreciate the
value of serious and classical music, of intelligent sermonizing, and of
collecting offerings in the pews. The old-time plaintive plantation
hymns, they insisted, should give place to music of a refined order,
supported by the piano, organ, or other instruments; the tiresome
minister, covering all things in creation in his discourse, should yield
to a man prepared to preach to the point at issue; and instead of the
dress-parade lifting of collections the raising of funds to support the
church should be reduced to a business transaction conducted without
ostentation. The conservatives, however, would not have in their
churches the musical instruments used in theaters and dance halls, would
not even listen to an attack on their backward ministry, and scoffed at
the proposal to supplant time-honored customs by innovations taken from
the practices of their former cruel oppressors.
The general result was that in many communities a much larger number of
intelligent people were driven from the church or rendered inefficient
therein than were saved to it. There was little chance for cooperation
so long as the conservatives were unyielding; and the progressives,
unable to treat the conservatives diplomatically, failed to put aside
complaint to begin with the masses where they were that they might carry
them where they should be. Some of the progressive element left their
names on the church books only to forfeit membership by non-attendance
or the failure to pay required dues. Others saw themselves excluded for
violation of the sacred rules of the congregation proscribing
participation in the worldly joys. A few who felt compunction of
conscience on realizing how disgraceful in the eyes of the community it
seemed to put one's hand to the plow and then turn back, had their
backsliding healed and returned to the fold.
Those who left the conservative churches were often received by the
Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, and the
Catholics, who, having a more flexible attitude toward the pleasures of
the world, offered asylum to the outcasts driven from the former
sanctuaries. This separation included not only laymen but in some cases
ministers, who, on connecting themselves with some other denominations,
served their people in churches differing widely from those which were
so handicapped by unprogressive elements that they had no hope to toil
upward therein. The large majority of the members of these smaller
denominations were once members of Baptist or Methodist churches or were
the children of persons who were once thus connected.
It was not necessary, however, for a large number of Baptists thus to be
lost to that denomination. Unlike the Methodists, who are restrained by
episcopal government, the Baptists needed only to exercise the
privileges of democracy guaranteed in that church. A dissatisfied
group of the "upper crust" in a Baptist Church could at any time
organize another Baptist Church without any restraint except that of the
fear of the failure of the enterprise from the economic point of view.
Schismatic churches or exclusively aristocratic congregations,
therefore, followed in large cities where a sufficient number of the
malcontents in the various denominations could unite for this common
purpose.
This schismatic movement was followed by both good and bad results. The
separation of the progressive and the conservative elements in the
church made it impossible for the unprogressive to learn by example from
those with whom they came into contact. Each remained happier in the new
state so long as the results of this divergence were not strikingly
apparent. The conservatives could better remain what they were and the
progressives could more easily become what they wanted to be. The
cessation of hostilities, however, did not always follow; for both
churches representing different points of view made their appeals to the
same community, endeavoring to secure financial and moral support. In
small communities what was done for the one could not be done for the
other for the reason that the community had so much and no more to
spare. The success or failure of the one or the other, therefore, too
often meant grudge or ill will.
This contest between the progressive and conservative, however, has
been more than local. There have arisen serious situations, some of
which have been handled so diplomatically as to avoid outbreaks in the
ranks, and others which have led to radical changes. For example, the
progressive Negro in the Methodist Episcopal Church for a number of
years bore it grievously that, although the members of the race
constituted an important element in this denomination, they were not
allowed freely to participate in its management. The objective was to
make a Negro one of the regular bishops, but conservative whites
insisted that the time had not come for such a radical step.
During this long struggle in the Methodist Church the progressive group
became very impatient. It was in favor of separation from the white
connection either to establish an independent church or to join one of
the African Methodist churches already in the making. The conservative
element frowned down upon any such proposal as a suicidal scheme,
believing that in cooperating with the whites the Negroes had much more
to gain than to lose. The advocacy of continued union with the whites
under the prevailing circumstances, however, was dubbed by the
progressive Negroes a manifestation of the spirit of servility resulting
from a slavish attachment to their former masters. The counsel of the
conservative prevailed, however, and although the Negro membership
does not enjoy exactly the same privileges as the white, it has steadily
gained ground.
The best example of a situation which could not be thus handled is that
of the repudiation of the white Baptists by the progressive Negro
element of this church. The white Baptists, of course, had no actual
control of the Negro communicants, but had some very strong moral claims
on them. White missionaries of this denomination had distributed
literature, organized churches, constructed edifices, and established
schools among Negroes; and the boards supporting the missionaries had
supplied some of the funds by which most of these institutions were
maintained. To say anything derogatory to the policies of the management
directing this beneficent work, therefore, seemed to the conservative
Negroes all but blasphemous.
The progressive Baptist element, however, had a different attitude.
Thousands of Negro teachers and preachers whom these Baptist schools had
trained had entered upon their life's work with the hope that they would
figure conspicuously in the life of their people. When they faced the
stern realities of the situation they too often found their way was
blocked. White men, to be sure, did not aspire to the pastorate of Negro
churches; but they undertook to dictate the policy of associations and
conventions to retain their hold on the Negro Baptists. The conflict
came when Negroes after being refused the privilege of participating in
the management of the American Baptist Home Mission Society began to
question the motives of its official staff. More fuel was furnished for
the flames when, after having all but agreed to accept contributions of
Negroes to its Sunday school literature, the American Baptist
Publication Society, upon protest from Southern churchmen, receded from
that position. The issue was then joined. The National Baptist
Convention, a union of the Negro Baptists, was effected in 1886, and as
the struggle grew more intense every effort was made so to extend it as
to destroy the influence of white national bodies among Negroes.
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, cooperating 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.