THE CHRISTIAN DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA
In approaching the evangelization of the Negro in America it is
necessary to go back to the primitive days of the colonists in order
to picture the scene at the beginning.
Whether in the villages or on the plantations, the large majority
of slave-holders felt a genuine compassion and an honorable
responsibility for the helpless human beings brought under their
care. They felt also an equal helplessness in the higher realms of
guidance of the people who must yet learn the language of common
intercourse. The constantly increasing importations introduced a
mass of unacclimated humanity which, as constantly, postponed the
day of this common language and common intercourse. The America of
today knows something of the difficulties attending a too rapid
immigration. But this modern problem pales before that of the
primitive era of the colonies, which, beset by the new problems of
new surroundings, must yet meet those of their composite social life
within. The slave-master looked out upon the negro race, after a few
years, in its varying stages from the newly-arrived slave to the
domesticated servant, and saw manifest racial inferiority in every
capacity through which he habitually measured worth.
The white settlers of America were distinctly Christian, though their
religion was of widely differing brands. What were they to do as
they faced the new problem of composite life? They did exactly that
which was natural and normal to their varied religious principles.
Those who were enough of Christians to realize religion as a
paramount duty, at once began to associate the heathen Negro with
their own Christian faith. At first, this was through the family or
neighborhood services, prayer meetings, Sunday schools and the like.
By and by, as life became more organized, churches were built, and
the slave worshipped in his master’s church, and was taught by his
master’s pastor. In many cases, the mistress and her daughters were
his Sunday school teachers. In time, plantation churches were erected
primarily for the Negroes, though generally attended by the Whites.
In this natural way, the Whites sought to maintain and perpetuate
their own Christian culture, and to impart it to their negro families
in such measure as the latter could receive it. It was difficult
enough at best, where preachers and teachers were few, and where the
struggle for a firm foothold, in a new land, was apt to develop the
selfish and the sordid in human nature. It was increasingly difficult
as the age of the deists and agnostics grew older and more aggressive
under foreign and American leadership. It had its baneful effect
upon the Christianizing of the Negro in producing that inexcusable
variety of agnosticism which declines to see God’s image in His black
children.
Thus naturally, yet under great difficulties, did the Christianizing
of the Negro proceed until the last years of the seventeenth century,
when recorded efforts become more frequent.
Prior to 1700, the Bishop of London, in charge of the Church of
England in the Colonies, had attempted to supply the people with
pastors, sending one or more commissaries; but these efforts had been
only very partially successful.
Miss Helm, in _The Upward Path_, writes: “The first organized effort
to give Gospel instruction to the Negroes in the American Colonies,
was made in 1701 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts, a Church of England society, incorporated under
William III. The first missionary, the Rev. Samuel Thomas, began
work in South Carolina, where he and his successors met with ‘the
ready good will of the masters, though much discouragement was felt
because of the difficulties of the task, not many of the Negroes
understanding the English tongue.’ The zeal of the Society and its
missionaries increased, and in less than forty years the report was
made of a ‘great multitude of Indians and Negroes brought over to the
Christian Faith’ in different parts of the country; and, later, of a
flourishing school at Charleston sending out annually about twenty
young Negroes well instructed in English and the Christian Faith.”
Thus the work of the Church among the Negroes in America owes its
organization to the S. P. G.
Before entering upon the missions of our own Church, a general view
of the Christian efforts made will be helpful.
The reports made in 1724 to the English Bishops by the Virginia
parish ministers, are evidence that a few free Negroes in the
parishes were permitted to be baptized, and were received into the
Church when they had been taught the Catechism. This statement is
equally true of the slaves. And what is true of the Episcopal Church
is equally true of the Presbyterian. In all cases, the earlier
converts were members of the white Churches. Indeed, in the early
days, separate churches for Negroes were never contemplated.
The Presbyterian mission was begun about 1747 at Hanover, Va., with
immediate success. Other missions were established, and many godly
men devoted their time to work among the slaves both in the towns
and on the plantations. In the Carolina colonies the same zeal was
manifested, though for the most part the members of this Church
dwelt in the upper counties where slaves were not so numerous. This,
however, presented the occasion of even closer religious relations.
There are no accurate statistics of converts at hand.
A little later came the activities of the Baptists and the
Methodists, which ultimately swept into their various folds the vast
bulk of the race. The Baptists, under their policy in which each
congregation is a Church in itself, established negro churches in
Georgia and Virginia as early as 1775. In 1793, the denomination,
in its several branches, numbered about 18,000, and grew rapidly
during the succeeding years. In 1860, there were about 400,000 negro
Baptists, not including children and adherents under instruction
which would probably run the total to more than a million.
The Methodists began work with characteristic fervor about 1770,
and some twenty years later counted more than 12,000 negro members,
all connected with the white congregations. In 1860 this number was
increased to 207,776 or, including adherents, about a half million
souls. The anti-slavery movements, which more and more estranged the
Methodists, North and South, during the years 1820 to 1844, retarded
for a time their work among the Negroes, but with the division, in
1844, into Northern and Southern denominations, renewed activity was
attended with great success.
Dr. Phillips in his _American Slavery_ says: “The Churches which
had the greatest influence upon the Negroes were those which relied
least upon ritual and most upon exhilaration.” It is true that the
straightness and suppression of form rigidly applied to a people
whose chief mode of expressing both social and religious emotions had
for centuries, been through dancing and folk songs, was a transition
too radical and rapid to be widely accepted and absorbed; but
certainly the forms of worship had their lessons. A wise use of both
liturgical and extemporaneous services would probably have produced
better results. The Methodists would probably have made _better_
Christians, and the Episcopalians _more_, had each combined the
methods of both.
When education in the South was prescribed, the free, unliturgical
services undoubtedly influenced a far greater number than could be
reached by any other means.
The moral training of the people was a matter of the most vital
importance. Infractions there were unquestionably, many of them, and
worse than no help from some of the Whites; but the Church’s steady
voice and practice were powerful aids to the Negroes, and no less
powerful restraints to the Whites. Admixtures were common enough,
and would doubtless have increased had the old régime held; but the
vaster commingling which took place during the four years of war in
the slave territory, was one of the tragedies of the war.
On plantations belonging to earnest Christians, the sanctity of
the marriage and of family relations was emphasized. It was not
the exception but the rule, in such families, that all marriages
were properly solemnized; and, in the case of domestic servants,
the mistress or her daughters arrayed the bride, and the pastor or
plantation preacher officiated at the wedding in the church or in the
“Big House” parlor.
Every law of Church and State was conformed to, and repeated efforts
were made by the Church to have everybody thus conform.[3]
Pastoral relations were attended with their difficulties in the city
missions. The Rev. Paul Trapier writes in 1850: “The minister has
still to lament that he can come so little in contact, pastorally,
with his people, owing to the peculiar nature of their employment in
the week and on Sunday. He fain would urge upon owners the obligation
of so arranging their domestic affairs as to afford to their servants
more opportunity for attendance in the Lord’s House and on the Lord’s
Day. He can seldom see them during the week unless they are sick, nor
then except in cases where he feels at liberty to go into the yards
of their owners for that purpose. It gives him pleasure, however,
to say that, wherever he has so presumed, his reception has been
respectful and kind, encouraging him to ask the same liberty more
generally.”
When one considers the conditions under which the missions among
the Negroes had to grow, the results were far more due to the grace
and mercy of God than to the wisdom of men. This is said, not in
detraction of the devotion of the men and women of all denominations
who, conforming to the conditions which perforce robbed them of their
full half-share, wrought their best under them as co-partners with
God.
There was the ever-recurring repression by suspicious politicians,
who feared that religious freedom might break down the barriers which
secured the abnormal social conditions of slavery, often resulting in
suppression of the gathering of Negroes for any purpose. There was
the bar of illiteracy, where knowledge without book-learning, in an
era of books, was sought. There was the exaction of moral standards,
with home conditions conducive to none but low ideals. There was
the spiritual culture of the racial tree, with no expectation, for
that era certainly, of its full fruit-bearing in racial pastors and
leaders. There was the agnostic scientists and their satellites with
the infallible dictum, “the Negro has no soul,” to be grasped at
by the selfish materialist as excuse both for declining religious
culture and for abusive treatment of defenseless slaves. These, and
more besides, made the conditions under which evangelization in
the South was prosecuted. And in the North, for reasons both like
and unlike these, there were the same repressions and far more of
prejudice, driving the Negroes into independent organizations so soon
as law and popular approval would permit.
Under these conditions, it would have been surprising indeed if a
host of notable examples of godly leaders had arisen. Nevertheless,
God did raise up examples, in every degree of advancement possible to
them, as illustrations of what the Negro would be capable of under
less fettered conditions.[4]
It is not easy to follow the growth of the work of the Episcopal
Church, for it is amazing to see how indifferent our forefathers
were, and we are, to the accuracy of record of activities. In the
beginning of the eighteenth century, there seem to have been no
records at all in many of the communities, beyond such a general
statement as this: “I have continued to instruct the Negroes of two
plantations, and from the good evidently derived from such labors I
am induced to wish that I may be enabled to extend my efforts to a
much larger number of the same people.”
Mr. Bishop, late Secretary of the American Church Institute for
Negroes, mentions seeing, in the register of the old Bruton Parish,
thirty-three pages consecutively devoted to the entry of the baptisms
of negro servants and children, extending from 1746 to 1797, and
containing 1122 names. Numerous were the reports made to the Bishop
of London by the missionaries from the mother Church, of the careful
instruction of the servants, and of the care of the owners to bring
them to baptism. There being no Bishops, of course confirmation
was not in view. Both white and colored were admitted to the Holy
Communion at the discretion of their rectors. What was true of Bruton
Parish is more or less true of the parishes of the Colonies from
Maryland to the Carolinas and Georgia.
Naturally the first separate congregations were formed in the
northern Colonies. Dr. Bragg of Baltimore gives an interesting
account of the organization, in 1791, of the first congregation
of Negroes—St. Thomas’ Parish, Philadelphia—and of other parishes
elsewhere. The white Methodists of that city, objecting to the
intermingling of the races in their Church of St. George’s, set the
Negroes apart. The latter withdrew in 1787, and formed a Benevolent
Society of Negroes, which prospered. In 1791, the Society desiring
to become a Church, bought a lot, erected a building which they
called after St. Thomas, and, by an almost unanimous ballot, voted
itself into the Episcopal Church upon three conditions named in their
petition to Bishop White. These were: first, that they should be
received as a body; secondly, that they should forever have local
self-control; and thirdly, that one of their number should be chosen
as lay-reader and, if found worthy, be regularly ordained as their
minister. Bishop White accepted the conditions, and on July 17, 1794,
St. Thomas’ Church was formally opened for Services. Absalom Jones
was chosen for ordination, and ordained a deacon in 1795, and priest
shortly after—the first Negro ordained in the Episcopal Church in
America. Of Jones, Bishop White wrote upon the occasion of his death,
“I do not record the event without a tender recollection of his
eminent virtues, and of his pastoral fidelity.”
In 1819, the negro members of Trinity Parish, New York, under the
leadership of Peter Williams and others, and with the consent of
Bishop Hobart, united themselves in the new negro Church of St.
Philip. The following year, Williams was ordained, and became the
first negro rector in the Diocese. “There was a great educational
need, and he was the man who led the successful movement for a
Colored High School in those early days. When the parish was denied
representation in the Diocesan Convention (the members) quietly
elected as their representative to that body the Hon. John Jay of the
white race who was their real and sympathetic representative until he
had succeeded in reversing the policy.”
In June, 1824, St. James’ First African Church, Baltimore, was
organized by the Rev. William Levington. On October 10, 1826, the
corner-stone was laid, and on March 31, 1827, the congregation
occupied their new church which was that day consecrated by Bishop
Kemp. “It was a day of peculiar significance to the descendants of
the African race for all times to come,” writes Dr. Bragg, “for it
was the first occasion anywhere in the South, where a local branch
of any of the existing white Churches had been initiated among the
people of the African race, with all the powers of self-government,
as well as with an educated pastor, of the same race as the
congregation.” The young rector was ordained priest in Philadelphia
in 1828 by Bishop White, and the parish was incorporated the
following year.
That the association of free and slave Negroes did not move always
in the paths of pleasantness, is illustrated by the opening of
St. James’ to both classes, over the objection of the free. The
earnest young rector seems to have been amply strong to compose the
objectors, and to inspire them with a sense of duty to their less
fortunate fellow-members. Among the fruits of his short ministry
were the Rev. William Douglass, and the Rev. Eli Worthington Stokes,
the former the first Negro to be ordained in Maryland (1836) and the
latter the first to be ordained in St. James’ Church (1843).
In 1843 Christ Church for Negroes—the first colored church in New
England—was organized in Providence, R. I., by the Rev. Mr. Crummell;
and, in the following year, St. Luke’s, New Haven, Conn., by the
Rev. Mr. Stokes. It will be recalled that both of these devoted negro
priests later gave their lives as leaders of the Church in Liberia.
Chronologically, Calvary Church, Charleston, S. C., organized in 1849
by the Rev. Paul Trapier, was the next to be built especially for
the Negroes, as also to relieve the congestion in the white churches
of the city. Because of the law against the assemblage of Negroes
alone, a few white members were enrolled and always in attendance.
The building of the church was at once begun. An unsuccessful attempt
was made to destroy the church under construction, Mr. Trapier
calmly announcing to the mob, “You will tear it down only over my
dead body.” After a public meeting at which the full purpose was
explained, the building progressed peacefully, and the good work
has continued to this time. Calvary Church bore the relation to the
churches in Charleston that would now be defined by the term, a City
Mission.
About 1850, St. Matthews, Detroit, Mich., was established under the
leadership of the Rev. William C. Munro. The anti-Negro sentiment
soon operated to the closing of its doors. The wave passing, it
was again revived; but lived only a few years. Yet during its
brief career, it served one purpose of supreme worth, for here the
Rev. Theodore Holley, later Bishop of Haiti, received part of his
training, and here he was ordained.
These parochial establishments—probably the only ones in America
founded on so ambitious a scale—together with St. Stephen’s,
Savannah, in 1856, represented the beginnings of the purely racial
churches before the Civil War; the initiation, in most cases, of
local self-government; and the models of those to come later.[5]
It would not be profitable to describe in detail the work of every
Colony and Diocese in the period before Emancipation, where the
sameness of method and result so inevitably blends with monotony. The
work in South Carolina, completely illustrative of all, will serve as
a sample, and others may be briefly summarized.
South Carolina illustrates, more completely than any other, the
features of work employed by all the Southern States.[6] Happily,
there is almost a continuous record from which to draw. The
_Chronicles of St. Mark’s Parish_ is especially valuable as a
source-book. From it we learn that from the beginning, so soon as the
Negroes were taught the language, Christian instruction and Baptism
followed, wherever agreeable to the Negroes. This was provided for by
Article 107 of The Code of Laws. No question was raised during the
Proprietary Government. When the Royal Government was established,
the question was raised as to the propriety of such instructions of
the slaves, but the law stood as reaffirmed by the Legislature of
1712.[7]
In 1764, the Rev. Levi Durand of St. John’s Parish, baptized the
first child recorded as born of negro Christian parents. This
marks the beginning of a new era for the race; for until Christian
faith, the instinct of prayer, and the habit of belief, come to be
the heritage of a people, making the atmosphere of life, it is not
possible to begin to build the generations into the great Temple as
true and tried living stones. True, such habit, such atmosphere,
may become in time but the empty shell of life that is dead; this
is the danger against which Christians have had always to guard.
Where Christian faith is surrounded by heathen superstition, it is
thrown upon guard, if the faith be true. Its guard is apt to become
increasingly relaxed as the atmosphere which surrounds it is of its
own making. But this latter is, none the less, the very condition
of progress, where faith is truly alive. Hence it was only when the
Christian Negroes could make the Christian conditions in which to
rear their children, that the conversion of the race could be said
to have begun. From that year, 1764, the Christians of a second
generation increased with their numbers, and vastly contributed to
the better and more wholesome conditions to which their new brethren
came.[8]
That the disposition to evangelize the Negroes gained complete
ascendency with the success of efforts, is attested by the report
of the “Committee of the Religious Instruction of Colored Persons,”
published in _The Gospel Messenger_ of May, 1838.[9]
“St. John’s, Colleton. The preaching upon the plantations has been
continued, with increasing evidence of the benefit resulting, both
to master and servant, from this branch of duty. The interest of the
master in the religious instruction of his slaves, may be known from
the fact that, on most, if not all, of the plantations visited, but
half the usual task is given on the days on which Divine Service
is appointed to be held. During the summer, a class of 44 colored
children was regularly taught (orally) for an hour every day, by
members of the Rector’s family.”
By the middle of the century such reports are the rule; there were
fewer rectors of distinctly white parishes than of distinctly negro
missions.
In 1849, Bishop Gadsden, after noting in his address to the
Convention, thirteen visitations “having more especial reference
to the class of servants,” adds this comment: “In my visitations,
nothing was more gratifying to behold than the chapels which have
been erected on plantations at central points for the more especial
accommodation of the blacks. There are now at least ten such chapels.
May they be greatly multiplied, and the day not distant when each
large plantation, or two or more smaller ones, united, shall have a
Chaplain and daily services!”
In that year, of the 430 communicants in St. Philip’s, Charleston,
138 were colored; in St. John’s, Colleton, of the 456, the colored
numbered 401. These relative proportions of numbers represent
fairly two types of mixed congregations. In 1850, the proportion
of communicants in the Diocese was 2751 white and 3168 negro. In
1857, as though in answer to the fervent prayer of his predecessor,
Bishop Davis reports to the Convention, “The whole number of persons
confirmed since the last Convention is: white 245, colored 628. I
have been endeavoring to collect statistics of our operations among
the colored people, but they are yet imperfect. There are, in the
Diocese, 45 Chapels and places of worship for the slaves. There
are about 150 lay persons, male and female, engaged in giving to
them catechetical instruction. There must be 150 congregations, and
catechumens in proportion to these congregations and to the number of
teachers. This is as near as I can now ascertain.” What an answer, in
seven years, to Bishop Gadsden’s prayers!
* * * * *
But the increase in baptisms far surpassed other growth, and more and
more Christian parents were bringing their children to the front.
In 1858, here are some figures: In old St. Philip’s, Charleston, 1
colored adult baptized, 18 colored children, 27 white,—manifestly
proportionate to the Christians of the two races. In St. Stephen’s,
where the Church is not as long established and Services are less
frequent, adults baptized, 119 colored; children, 11 white, 13
colored. In All Saints, Waccamaw, Mr. Glennie, the pastor of the
Negroes for so many years, reports 52 colored adults baptized;
children, white 10, colored 186. In his postscript, Mr. Glennie
wrote, “Divine services for the Negroes on 19 plantations, 614 times;
largest class of negro children 70, smallest 6.”
Among the postscripts to the report of St. Philip’s, Charleston, is
this one: “In the amount of missionary contributions is included $150
from the colored members of St. Philip’s (and a few of St. Michael’s)
for the support of an African teacher; also $75 from the Bible Class
of the assistant Minister, for St. Philip’s Scholarship in the Cape
Palmas Orphan Asylum.” This is not an isolated instance of the
contributions of both slave and free for Missions.
* * * * *
The Rev. Dr. Taylor, missionary to the Negroes of Bluffton, about
the same time, furnishes this testimony to the eagerness of the
little Sunday School scholars, which is very characteristic: “In the
discharge of my duties, I found much to interest me; the children
were for the most part attentive and disposed to learn. I was
recently quite gratified in meeting with a gentleman who owned one of
the plantations under my care; he informed me that the children were
very anxious, when he went among them, to repeat hymns, etc., which I
had taught them, and for this purpose would often follow him.”
By 1860, Bishop Davis was practically blind, though he continued to
discharge his duties almost until his death in 1871. His journal for
1860, read by his son, contains a succession of confirmations of
White and Colored, more of the latter than the former. And then came
frightful war and its aftermath, with results in church life much
like those in the industrial life of the Negro.[10]
A typical picture of the religious work of this period is given in
the words of Mrs. Essie Collins Mathews.
“High above the Waccamaw river, stands the Weston Chapel, beautifully
located. Through the years, I see the picture. It is built of
cypress, has fine stained-glass windows, and in every way is a house
well suited to the worship of the Lord. Adjoining, are a thousand
acres of rice, the rice-mill, and other buildings needed by the
planter. Hundreds of slaves are at work in the fields. When the
clock in the Chapel tower strikes the hour for Evening Prayer, the
many slaves start for the Chapel, and it is soon well-filled. The
master is a lay-reader, and appears in his snowy vestments, and
begins the Service we all love so dearly—‘The Lord is in His holy
temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.’ Then comes the
General Confession, and the people drop on their knees. Do you not
see them? Many are devoutly kneeling, the women with bright-colored
kerchiefs on their heads and the men with their heads bared. The
soft sunlight shines through the stained-glass windows and fills the
Chapel with beautiful colors. The mocking-birds are singing softly in
the live-oak trees just outside. The air is filled with the fragrance
of the yellow jasmine, while the master joins with his black people
in the prayer, ‘Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and
strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep.’ At the close of the Service
they sing, as only Negroes can sing, and with that quality of tone
none others have:
‘Through the day Thy love has spared us;
Hear us ere the hour of rest;
Through the silent watches guard us,
Let no foe our peace molest.
Jesus, Thou our guardian be.
Sweet it is to trust in Thee.’
They pass out of the Chapel silently, with a smile and a kind word
for each from the master who is at the door to say ‘Good night.’”
“The picture passes from our sight, and the words of the hymn can no
longer be heard. We turn to the Chapel as it is today. Most of those
old slaves now lie in the graves near by; and the good master, in the
parish church-yard not far away.”[11]
With this example in detail, it may suffice to say that, before
the war, a like activity characterized every Diocese of the South
Atlantic and Gulf States, including Tennessee and Arkansas, and to a
less extent Kentucky and Texas where slavery was not prevalent. There
were none without plantation churches, and few parishes without negro
members, and Sunday Schools for the children.
Such were some of the results of the labors of the early white
missionaries. It is needless to add that no such results could have
accrued had not the Negro himself possessed qualities out of which
character may be built.
At the close of the Civil War, with one consent, the Dioceses of
the South set themselves the task of building upon the reduced
foundations. No one dreamed of a _laissez faire_ policy. The leader
spoke, and the Church, with reduced resources, responded. Some of
the Bishops thought the old machinery sufficient for the new day;
but most people recognized that the birth of the new era meant the
change of the old order. The Negroes themselves had spoken by their
actions, in refusing any longer to attend the white man’s Services.
Plainly this indicated a desire for churches of their own, with local
self-government such as had already been found palatable in political
life. More or less of separation for the races in church had to be
made, and more and more as time passed.
Gradually, as means could be provided, separate parishes were
organized in the larger cities, beginning with St. Mark’s Parish,
Charleston, in 1866. At first, white rectors were the rule south of
Baltimore. Occasionally, as was true of the pre-war period in South
Carolina, negro lay-readers were licensed; but plainly, and quite
naturally, the Negroes wanted their own pastors from their own people.
From the establishment of the first negro church in Philadelphia,
in 1791, among the free Negroes, the consistently prevailing demand
of the freedmen has been for churches and pastors of their own.
They first demanded this, and themselves suggested it to their
white Bishops. Practically all of the Bishops met this desire with
sympathy, Bishops Atkinson and Howe being foremost in meeting this
natural ambition of the Negroes.
In 1873, Bishop Howe thus addressed his Convention: “Let a
Missionary jurisdiction be erected by the General Convention with
express reference to these people, and let a Missionary Bishop be
consecrated, who shall give his whole time and thought to this work;
who, as the executive, not of a single Diocese but of the entire
Church, shall organize congregations, provide them with Church
schools and pastors, and in due time raise up from among the colored
people themselves, and to minister to themselves, deacons and priests
who shall be educated men, and competent to the work of the ministry,
and I cannot but think good would result.”
The germ of this suggestion had been already discussed. The Methodist
and Baptist Churches had been divided on racial lines, negro churches
being provided; but the Episcopal Church had no such easy solution.
The question was, rather, how to secure, without a division, what
the Negroes manifestly desired. The General Convention of 1874,
in its capacity as the Board of Missions, rejected the proposal
of Bishop Howe. Its acceptance might have saved long years of
controversy and vacillation—controversy over negro suffrage in its
Councils—vacillation of opinions, Negroes first asking separation
for greater freedom in self-government, then demanding equal
representation in Council; Whites first fearful of separation, then
demanding separation in Council.
Meanwhile, the separate organization of Methodist and Baptist
Churches, with freer worship and complete self-government, attracted
and held most of the Episcopalians who had wandered from the fold,
while others conformed to the Reformed Episcopal Church about 1874
to 1875. To this day, the pride of the Negroes in the “Great Negro
Churches” with their own Bishops in the case of the Methodists, and,
in the case of both Methodists and Baptists, their own strong leaders
utterly independent of a responsibility shared by the white race,
is a powerful motive in holding them to these Churches. This very
great achievement which they have accomplished for themselves through
sacrifices that white people of the same age know only faintly, is
a source of unending satisfaction to them, and an evidence of their
ability to inaugurate and maintain great enterprises. They feel this
profoundly, and are drawn, with the cords of loyalty, to that which
is their very own, unshared by others.
The modern era of Church activity in the South follows the
reconstruction era, beginning about 1880. It is, however, about this
same date that the larger activities in the North also began.
In the North, where the Negroes were comparatively few, some became
members of white parishes. Perhaps an equal number were gathered in
the six churches built especially for them prior to the Civil War. Of
these six, however, two became extinct very quickly—Christ Church,
Providence, R. I., and St. Matthew’s, Detroit, Mich. And this was the
condition up to 1880, save that the negro members of white and negro
parishes increased somewhat in the larger cities.
In the South, before the war, from Maryland downward and westward,
only three parishes were established for the Negroes—St. James’,
Baltimore; Calvary, Charleston; St. Stephen’s, Savannah—all with
unbroken history to this day. There were innumerable parishes in
rural communities, about fifty in South Carolina alone. Nearly every
parish also had negro members who numbered many thousands. After the
war, the work was a wreck, and the members of the whole South were
counted only in hundreds.
And here, in parentheses, we of the Episcopal Church should recall
our lasting gratitude to the American Missionary Society of the
Congregational Church. During the era of reconstruction, when our
Church could do well-nigh nothing with and for the Negro, that
Society, with holy purpose and with only the natural mistakes of a
people feeling their way toward a new problem, and at indescribable
personal sacrifice of the workers, established schools, preached
the Gospel, and held high the lantern of the Good Shepherd before
the bewildered eyes of a hopelessly confused race. Through their
work chiefly, were the leaders of the era raised up. Hampton was
founded mainly under their auspices, and, until now, has been
administered under their able and devoted missionaries in complete
Christian courtesy to other Churches. Schools were established by
them from Hampton around to Fiske, and though the South was, from the
first, suspicious of their influence, they have long since won the
confidence and regard of every soul who knows them by their fruits.
If we should follow the unhappy controversies of the ten years
beginning about 1873, there would be disclosed ample reason for the
continued estrangement of the Negro from the Church. His membership
in the Church was never questioned. This, with all of spiritual
privilege, was always his right. But the vexed question of the
franchise was an ecclesiastical as well as a political matter;
and, as always, each side had its advocates and its opponents. To
the Negro, the question of representation in Conventions became
important, as affecting the standing of his membership in the
Church. Until that question was settled, he stood aloof. Generally,
save in South Carolina and Arkansas, his right to representation
was accorded, though there was some little variety in practical
adjustment. South Carolina established, in 1888, a separate
Archdeaconry where voice and vote, and conference with the Bishop
would be free.
There was also the question of the fitness of the Negro, so new from
slavery, for the office of priest. Prior to 1865, only fourteen
Negroes had been ordained to our ministry, and a large proportion of
these had Liberia or Haiti as an objective. None had been ordained
in any Diocese south of Maryland. It would have been a totally new
thing, and the South looked upon it with skepticism. Here, again,
however, there were two sides, with constant controversy, resulting
in reluctance on the part of Negroes to apply for Holy Orders.
True, the conviction that only negro clergy could shepherd the
thousands of stray sheep back to the fold, and the consequent
necessity of providing such clergy, early overcame the hesitation of
the Bishops; but, even so, Standing Committees felt neither pressure
as did their Bishops. Nevertheless, of the 27 clergy ordained from
1866 to 1880, there were seventeen ordained in the South, eight in
the North, and two in the West. This small number, while serving to
reassure the Negroes of their welcome to the ordained ministry, did
not bring back the wanderers to the fold in large numbers.
It was through the earnest devotion of men like Jos. S. Atwell
of Virginia, William H. Wilson of Nebraska, Henry L. Phillips of
Pennsylvania, J. H. M. Pollard of Virginia, Thomas W. Cain of Texas,
Cassius M. Mason of Missouri, William Cheshire of Tennessee, that the
seeds of a later harvest were sown in this widely scattered vineyard.
With perhaps one exception, these early ordinants were the direct
fruits of our postwar schools described in another chapter. Through
these schools, White and Black together set themselves the common
task of supplying the native pastors for whom our people yearned.
Ever since, the ministry has been recruited almost exclusively from
St. Augustine’s, Raleigh—sole survivor of the old training schools;
and from St. Paul’s, Lawrenceville, and later ones.
The decade from 1880 to 1890 yielded the largest proportionate
increase of clergy in the history of the Church, most of whom were
prepared by those older schools. Many of these became the founders
of parishes or schools or both.[12] With the access of the strong,
earnest men of the ’80s, there came new life into the Church’s
ministry to the Negroes.
The Church Commission for Work among Colored People was created by
General Convention in 1886. The next year, a report was published
of the work in all the Southern Dioceses, as well as in those of
Springfield, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, where first beginnings
had been made. In most of them, the Bishops were those who had seen
the well-nigh complete collapse of the work of the former period.
The tone of their reports is in marked contrast with those of ten
or twelve years before; nearly all of them describe plans that only
buoyant hope could contemplate. The display is pitiful in view of the
great number of missions thirty years earlier.
Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and West Virginia report one
mission each, a new beginning in each case on the ruined foundations
of the past. Bishop Wilmer of Alabama wrote with new hope of the
revived Good Shepherd, Mobile: “This is a work of good promise....
The school in connection with the Church, and taught by one of my
deaconesses, is a success. We are beginning to connect with it an
Industrial School; also an Orphanage and Sisterhood.” The latter were
never realized, but the Church has persisted and two others added.
The congregations in Texas had increased to four, and in Mississippi
to five. Florida and North Carolina had been rather behind the
South Atlantic Dioceses in the old days, with many members in white
Churches, but with few separate chapels. Their reports showed a
strong foundation for the new times.
Florida had established churches in the upper and older half of the
State, and missions at strategic points all the way to Key West.
There were more congregations in each of the two Florida Dioceses, in
1922, than there were in the whole State in 1887.
North Carolina had been divided in 1884. St. Augustine’s School had
done great work. The old Diocese reported thirteen organized churches
with “several admirable openings if we could feel secure of the means
for inaugurating and carrying on the work in these new fields.” In
East Carolina there were five colored congregations, which were
sufficiently organized to have regular buildings of their own. In
both Dioceses, a plan of work, including parochial schools, is
clearly before the Bishops and their workers. In 1895, the District
of Asheville was set off. In 1922, there were, in the whole State, 39
congregations—more than double the number in 1887.
Maryland had not yet been divided. There were eight churches
reported. And now there are quite as many in each of the Dioceses,
with great growth of numbers, especially in Baltimore and Washington
City.
Kentucky, then undivided, had three churches, with schools at
Louisville and at Henderson. Now Kentucky and Lexington have three
each.
South Carolina is beginning to overcome the earlier overwhelming
losses. There were eleven congregations, with parochial schools
for three of them. These had grown, in 1922, to twenty-five, with
thirteen schools.
Tennessee had five missions, with a school for the members of
Emmanuel, Memphis. These have doubled.
Virginia, reporting also for Southern Virginia, numbers six
congregations and fourteen schools. Since then, the churches of the
Virginia Dioceses have grown to forty-three, and the members almost
proportionately.
In Georgia, the mission work was receiving wonderful impetus from
the Rev. A. J. P. Dodge, the benefactor of the negro work, recently
come to the coast region.[13] In 1887, there were six congregations,
the remnants of once flourishing missions. Mr. Dodge pushed his work
out to county after county, ably seconded by the Rev. D. Watson
Winn. Ruined churches were restored, and new ones built; existing
schools were strengthened, and new ones founded. In many cases,
they discovered old members of the Church upon whom to build the
younger generation. Georgia has been divided since then, and the six
churches of the old Diocese have expanded into seven in the Diocese
of Atlanta, and fifteen in the Diocese of Georgia of today. Into all
of them, the devoted spirit of Dodge is built.
* * * * *
Another region which is quite typical of the growth during this
modern period, deserves our study in short detail, i. e., North
Carolina, with its several Dioceses. Here, as everywhere, the new
life grew out of the members of the old dormant fire which still
smouldered. Nearly every church of today began with a few Negroes who
clung faithfully, in spite of destruction all around them, to the
white parishes, refusing to join the purely racial Churches as the
vast majority of their fellows did.
“St. Cyprian’s, New Bern, and St. Mark’s, Wilmington, were the result
of the consecrated vision of Bishop Atkinson who sought to preserve
to the Church the fruit of her anti-bellum labors.” The former was
established in 1866, and was ministered to, for many years, by the
rectors of the parish Church, in which the first members of St.
Cyprian’s were reared. I quote from a manuscript story of the Church
among the Negroes kindly furnished by Bishop Darst and the Executive
Secretary of East Carolina. “It is impossible to estimate the value
of the influence this school has had upon the life of the colored
people of New Bern. It would be hard to find a native New Bernian
above 35 years of age who did not at some time attend this school.”
The old landmark did its work, and its site is now the Parish
Playground, still serving usefully. The character of the parish
has grown in grace, all its present members having been trained in
the Church and in the old “Red School.” Its contributions to the
Nation-Wide Campaign were $1000 in 1921.
* * * * *
St. Mark’s, Wilmington, was founded by the Rev. C. O. Brady about
1872. The parish is distinguished as the mother of clergy. The
Parish School, with domestic science, has been a perennial garden of
Church growth.
The banner parish of the Eastern Diocese is St. Joseph’s,
Fayetteville, founded by the Rev. Dr. Huske and the colored members
of the old parish. It also led the negro churches of the South in the
Nation-Wide Campaign to which it gave $1300 in 1920.
St. Luke’s, Tarboro, was organized in 1872 by Dr. Cheshire, rector of
the old parish of Calvary and father of the present Bishop of North
Carolina. In 1881, the Rev. John W. Perry became rector. The parish
grew, and a school was opened which has trained many good Churchmen
and some teachers.
St. Michael’s, Charlotte, owes its birth and early nurture to Bishop
Cheshire who, when rector of St. Peter’s, opened the Mission for
colored people. A school was opened, children were trained, parents
followed them, the church was completed, and an excellent plant
provided equipment for a working congregation. Four men were sent
forth into the ministry.
Another parish—the combined work of white and colored priests—is
St. John’s, Edenton. Founded by the Rev. Dr. Drane, about 1880, the
Mission was able to build its church in 1886. The parish school has
sent out many successful pupils who have taken high stand in their
vocations. Direct fruits of Edenton, the mother of the district,
are the negro parishes of St. Philip’s, Elizabeth City; St. Paul’s,
Washington; and St. Mary’s, Belhaven.
The story of these years of re-establishment in North Carolina is one
of beautiful sympathy between white and negro workers, each ready
to build upon the foundation of the other. Since then, the same
sympathetic co-operation has attended the extension of the missions.
Bishop Delany has been the founder of more than half of the existing
churches in what is now, under Bishop Cheshire, his Diocese. He was
consecrated Bishop Suffragan of North Carolina on October 18th, 1918,
and enjoys the complete confidence of his brethren of the South.
Arkansas had no report for the Commission in 1887. She had not yet
risen from the ashes of destruction. The Bishop Suffragan, Dr. Demby,
writes: “The history of the Church work among the Negroes of Arkansas
is very meagre; in fact, there is nothing really reliable ... outside
of certain families who were members before the Civil War, during
which old relations were broken up, due to the horrors of the war and
the new conditions.”
Bishop Pierce and his family had opened St. Philip’s, Little Rock,
about 1890. Under successive archdeacons in Bishop Brown’s day,
missions had been begun in Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, New Port, Hot
Springs, and Conway. Most of them were without any substantial
foundation, nor had they the equipment with which to establish
churches. However, ground had been broken when Bishop Winchester
came in 1911. He at once saw that the problem was unlike that in
other Dioceses to the eastward, where, very generally, a remnant
of the old, well-trained members of the white congregations were
the foundation of the missionary renaissance. So soon as the Canon
on Suffragans was passed by General Convention, he proposed its
application in Arkansas; and, in 1918, the Rev. Dr. Demby was elected
and consecrated. He at once entered upon his task as apostle to his
race. He had at first to overcome the natural feeling of insecurity
which intermittent ministry had engendered.
One of the chief obstacles to foundation work in this new era, has
been the uncertain income for support, resulting in long vacancies.
The natural consequence has been to create in Negroes, interested in
Holy Orders, the sort of skepticism which asks, “If I join you, what
next? Am I to be left shepherdless and isolated in a Church without
companionship?” The old policy of begging an income year by year
made this very generally inevitable. To overcome that handicap is no
easy task. There were many others. General Convention had issued a
challenge to the faith of the Church. Arkansas was first to accept it
in the name of the whole Church; and, in her material weakness, sent
forth the call of faith to Bishop Demby to lead his people in the
trans-Mississippi Province.
Two years ago, Bishop Demby sent forth a review of the field, and a
call to the Church to give him means to occupy it. Of Arkansas, he
wrote: “There are seventy-five counties in the State; in six of them,
there are more colored than white people; Crittendon, 71%; Phillips,
78%; Desha, 79%; Jefferson, 71%; St. Francis, 68%; Woodruff, 58%. In
only three of them has work been begun, though there are missions in
several of the counties of the interior. We have scarcely begun to
enter the great “Black Belt” which is ready and ripe for the harvest.
What we need is substantial help to do the work to which the Church
has called and consecrated us.”
The Bishop is facing the whole task as it relates to American life,
just as his brother Bishop, Delany, is facing it on the Atlantic
coast. “The Episcopal Church is facing the American race-problem
bravely and courageously ... and, in harmony with the program of
the Sociological Congress, is doing it rationally and in the spirit
of Christianity. There is no question as to its attitude against
peonage, lynching, riots, mob violence, and court injustices. The
Bishops and priests of the Church are one against all wrongs to the
Negroes or any other race unit.” He sees the call of the Church to
contribute, in the best and holiest way, to the harmony of American
life. He finds in this the surest ground of that reassurance of his
race without which efforts are futile.
Much more, there is, but this may suffice to exhibit the breadth
of vision with which our negro Bishops are viewing their great
task. They are both in the heart of the Negroes’ home, east and
west. As few men can, they know the problems and difficulties, the
achievements and hopes.
Turning now to the northern and western Dioceses, we find a
corresponding growth in the number of congregations, with far
greater proportionate increase in members, and in self-supporting
parishes. The building of new churches fairly well marks the progress
of the diffusion of population. Before 1880, the Negroes of the
North and West were few in number, and only about ten congregations
in the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut,
Rhode Island, Michigan, and California, had been formed. A gradual
transfusion then began, most of which could, for a time, be cared for
by the white and the existing negro parishes. From that date to 1890,
ten more congregations were formed. This is from Dr. Bragg’s _Manual
of Afro-American Church Work_, dated 1910. “Since 1900, the period of
greatest influx of population from the South, 45 congregations have
been formed in 29 Dioceses, North and West. The Church in the North
and West has been quite as much alive to the duties and privileges of
negro work as has the South, to which the many millions are native.”
The next development in the upper Diocese came in New Jersey, long
after the first establishments. About 1860, St. Philip’s, Newark
(the first in the Diocese and the last before the Civil War) was
founded. So the two Dioceses in that State were ready to meet the new
people who began to flow northward in the ’80s, when St. Augustine’s,
Camden, was founded in 1888, and St. Augustine’s, Asbury Park, five
years later. These became the vantage points from which the present
ten parishes have been formed. Sometimes the initiative came from
the white parish, as in the case of Epiphany, Orange, first opened by
the Rev. Alexander Mann when rector of Grace Church.
In 1865, St. Philip’s, Buffalo, was opened, and the western Diocese
had a home for its limited negro population. St. Thomas’, Chicago,
was founded in 1880, and is one of the largest parishes of the North
Central States. In 1883, St. Michael’s, Cairo, Illinois, was opened
by the parish church, and the Rev. J. B. Williams, just ordered
deacon, served as rector. The site was strategic, at the head of
the vast population of the Mississippi Valley. In 1885, came St.
Philip’s, Omaha, Nebraska; and St. Simon’s, Topeka, Kansas, which,
with St. Augustine’s, Kansas City, opened the near west for the
later migrations. The next year, St. Augustine’s, Boston, initiated
the separate congregations in Massachusetts for the colored members
of parishes which were becoming overcrowded. These were followed
by missions in Southern Ohio, Delaware, Minnesota, Ohio, and
Indianapolis, through the years to 1900. Thus the Negroes in their
increasingly widespread movements found Church homes in nearly all of
the centres to which they were being attracted.[14]
In the summer of 1921, _The Church Advocate_ published a statement
of comparative statistics of growth in the Provinces. The figures,
probably of 1920, from the entire Church, were, Clergy 155,
Congregations 283, Communicants 30,113. The congregations now number
289, and probably the increase of clergy and members corresponds.
Then follow these paragraphs: “In the year 1907, in the Southern
States included in the Province of Sewanee, there were reported 5,719
colored communicants. Fourteen years later, 1921, within the same
territory, there are reported 6,393 colored communicants, or a total
gain in fourteen years of 674. In 1907, the New England States, New
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, reported in the aggregate 4,413
colored communicants. In 1921, this same group of States report
11,601 communicants, an increase, in that period, of 7,188.”
These figures are probably very nearly accurate; and they suggest
an inquiry to which no simple yet complete answer can be given. Two
explanations stand out above others: first, that the reasons which
have retarded the growth of the Episcopal Church in the South are
the same for White and Black alike, i. e., its ultra-conservative
character, involving an unconsciously aristocratic spirit which
may often seem cold and forbidding. The second explanation may be
found in the economic pull toward the busier North, drawing the
most enterprising element of both races. From the ministry, through
business circles, to the industrial trades, our northern centres
have a large percentage of southern life. This is especially and
increasingly true of our negro life during the years since 1900. The
Episcopal Church is cultural to a marked degree; her Services not
only encourage but impart culture. Her negro members quickly become a
desirable class. Thus the experience of Mississippi during the past
twelve years may be somewhat exceptional, but it is still typical
of the whole South. Had we held our increase through confirmations
and through births in the Church, the number today would be more
than trebled. In the one war-year of greatest migration, the colored
congregations lost quite 50% of their numbers; these migrants are now
to be found very generally in the churches all the way from Chicago
to Boston.
It is sometimes very discouraging to our colored clergy to see a
fine, sturdy nucleus of a strong parish evaporate in a few weeks.
The loneliness of it is intense. All honor and profound respect for
the men who hold their posts on a progressive picket-line, standing
alone, sometimes, until recruits answer the call! They are at the
training-stations, sending on the trained to the larger centres,
North and South.
In the Government Report on Negro Migration, 1916-1917, Dr. James H.
Dillard gives a striking illustration furnished by the reports of the
Durham School, Philadelphia. “I thought that the new enrollment would
probably afford some information as to new arrivals. The Principal
had enrolled the new pupils on sheets containing fifty names, and had
been careful to enter opposite each name the place from which the
pupil had come. I took six sheets at random and found ... among the
new pupils between forty and fifty per cent from the South.”
* * * * *
The Church is one, and the one lesson of practical value from this
recital is that the Church be ever watchful and ready in pastoral
care of a flock wandering far from accustomed folds, and diligent
to conserve the fruit of a common sacred task. With this as the
over-mastering motive, the scouts on outpost duty will rejoice
equally with the mobilized army in close array, that all stand
steadfast to duty.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] For a full discussion of this matter, see the Report of a
Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina, 1859.
[4] See Appendix, Note 4.
[5] See Appendix, Note 5.
[6] See Appendix, Note 6.
[7] See Appendix, Note 7.
[8] See Appendix, Note 8.
[9] For Resolutions contained in this Report, see Appendix, Note 9.
[10] See Appendix, Note 10.
[11] See Appendix, Note 11.
[12] See Appendix, Note 12.
[13] See Appendix, Note 13.
[14] See Appendix, Note 14.