Read Climbing Up to Glory Online
Authors: Wilbert L. Jenkins
Climbing Up to Glory (26 page)
Black institutions of higher education were psychologically and emotionally uplifting to a people only a few years removed from slavery. Support for these schools was crucial. Cain's account of the significance of the AME Church's purchase of Wilberforce University echoes the sentiments held by most blacks in regard to the importance of black colleges and universities. Cain asked the denomination to support Wilberforce because within its walls blacks would be permitted to study “every branch of useful knowledge.” Under the tutelage of a “faculty of distinguished colored gentlemen,” students would be shielded from the “Negrophobia” that was “rampant” at other institutions. Cain further argued that blacks who contributed to the cause of Wilberforce were helping to “regenerate and redeem their race.”
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Apparently, many blacks agreed with Cain. When the university experienced a financial crisis two years after its purchase by the AME Church, black soldiers of the Eighth U.S. Colored Infantry regiment representing at least ten different states contributed $241 to Wilberforce.
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It was not unusual for blacks to either double or quadruple their fund-raising efforts if their institutions were on the verge of bankruptcy, which unfortunately was often the case. In the fall of 1871, for example, the Fisk Jubilee Singers went on tour to raise money and new supporters for Fisk University, which was in dire financial straits. They toured the Northern part of the country and sang slave spirituals to appreciative audiences. They performed before President Grant in the White House before returning home. The group earned over $20,000 for their university, which enabled it to become financially solvent. Indeed, the tour of the North was so successful that the Jubilee Singers subsequently embarked on a European tour, which netted nearly $50,000. This money was used to build Jubilee Hall on a new and much larger campus.
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In establishing and maintaining secondary schools and institutions of higher education for blacks, the Northern benevolent societies, the Freedmen's Bureau, and, significantly, blacks themselves laid a solid foundation that has been used to break down the high rate of black illiteracy and to move the race forward. Notwithstanding the aid of whites, however, the bulk of the credit should be accorded to blacks, who struggled mightily throughout the latter nineteenth century against nearly insurmountable odds to guarantee access of education to blacks. By the dawn of the twentieth century, most of the white philanthropic assistance had ceased, and the Freedmen's Bureau was out of existence. Consequently, then, after initial help from sympathetic whites, the major burden of ensuring the survival of black schools fell on black communities. Although most blacks were living in poverty or near it, they worked feverishly to keep their schools open. That they did so against tremendous obstacles attests to their commitment to education as well as to their inner strength as a people. And, as the twentieth century was being ushered in, the results of their labor became apparent. In fourteen Southern states, for example, the black illiteracy rate dropped substantially from 1880 to 1900, representing nearly a 28 percent decrease. On the national level the black illiteracy rate plummeted from 70 percent in 1880 to about 30 percent in 1910.
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Given the fact that acute white racism and racial discrimination permeated American society in the latter nineteenth and twentieth centuries, had it not been for black schools a sizable number of African Americans certainly would not have been educated. These institutions of higher learning represent the bedrock of black progress and have produced a significant number of black professionals, ministers, politicians, and business leaders. Indeed, the list is too extensive to present here. The pioneers of black education sensed the urgency of creating schools, and society as a whole is better off because of their foresight and determination. Their triumph will be everlasting. That is the legacy left by our daring black brothers and sisters.
“OUR OWN HOUSES OF WORSHIP”
Black Churches during Reconstruction
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THROUGHOUT THE ANTEBELLUM period, slaves and free blacks attended the Southern white churches of the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and other Protestant sects. A few were also Catholics. In antebellum churches, black members generally were judged by the same standards as white members.
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Ruhama Baptist Church, for example, disciplined its black and white congregants for stealing, dancing, gambling, adultery, drunkenness, and other moral offenses by excluding them from services.
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Black marriages and morals were overseen by biracial churches as strictly as those of whites. A charge, for instance, was made in 1849 against Julia Nalen, a black, for leaving her husband and marrying again. After a thirty-day investigation of her conduct that most observers dubbed as fair, Julia was expelled from church. Baptists, whether black or white, were prohibited from dancing on church property. In 1838 a black woman named Minna Rice was accused of this offense. When she refused to stop her evil ways, she was excluded. The only discernible double standard was sexual: only black and white women were charged with fornication. Conversely, black or white men (or couples) were charged with “living disorderly,” an offense that required more than a single sexual encounter.
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Despite the fact that black and white church members were often disciplined in the same way in Southern antebellum biracial churches, they were usually separated by seating arrangements. Sometimes a partition isolated them, or blacks were seated either in the back of the church or in the gallery. These areas became known as “nigger pews,” and many blacks resented them. The separate seating arrangements were designed to send a strong message to blacks: while they were de facto members of the church, at best they still occupied a subordinate position in Southern white society. The voluminous slave narratives give several vivid examples. Polly Turner Cancer asserted: “We went to da white folks church; de black folks wud set on one side ov de partition an' de white folks 'ud set on de udder.”
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Arthur Colson recalled “a place in the back of the church reserved for the slaves,”
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and Mary Childs remembered going to a Methodist church with whites, where “we'd sit in the back, not upstairs.”
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Those blacks not subjected to separate seating arrangements attended services held at times different from those of the white members of their congregation. According to Ella Harris, “the slaves didn' have no church er dey own but us used Moster's white church cept us had our service in de evening and day 'un in de mornings.”
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Tillman Bradshaw maintained that “the white people attended church Sunday Morning and colored people in the afternoon.”
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And Martha Everett recalled that “when th' preacher got through preachin' ter th' white fokes they'd leave an' then he'd preach ter us.”
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Notwithstanding the fact that Southern biracial churches accepted blacks as members, allowed them to worship in the same buildings, and disciplined them the same as whites, black congregants were generally treated as subordinates. They rarely had any responsible voice in church matters. Thus, historians such as John Boles who argue that biracial Southern churches in the antebellum period represented a form of short-lived egalitarianism have missed the mark. In fact, one study of white Baptists and slavery in Alabama found no evidence of any white church having a black deacon, moderator, or correspondent, nor was a black ever a delegate to a denominational meeting or state convention. Although some white slaveowners showed concern for the spiritual welfare of their slaves, no efforts were made to install blacks in positions of equality in churches throughout the antebellum South.
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Moreover, in some Virginia churches a slave could be expelled for disobeying his or her master.
In the decades preceding the war (1820-1860), most Southern whites had reached the conclusion that blacks should be given religious instruction, albeit the right kind. Scripture was tailored to meet their objective. Slaves were told that if they obeyed master and mistress they would live in eternal happiness. According to Charlie Bell, his minister's text “would always be âobey yo' marster an' mistress that yo' days may be lingerin' upon God's green earth what he give you.' ”
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The preacher exhorted Andrew Jackson Gill and other slaves to “obey your missus an' marster. When you obey dem you obey God.”
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Julius Jones's preacher told his congregation, “when you serve your master, you is serving God.”
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The slaves had contempt especially for white ministers whom they regarded as hypocrites. James Sumler recalled that “the ministers used to tell us not to be disorderly on taking the sacrament. However, I thought he was disorderly for he kept slaves.” William Humbert, a fugitive slave from Charleston, noted: “I have seen a minister hand the sacrament to the deacons to give the slaves and before the slaves had time to get home, living a great distance from church, have seen one of the same deacons, acting as patrol.” Humbert further observed that the deacon flogged “one of the brother members within two hours of his administering the sacrament to him, because he met the slave without a passport, beyond the time allowed for him to go home.”
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In addition, Henry Butler recalled the reactions of most slaves on the Sullivan plantation, where he lived, to Sunday sermons given by a white preacher: “he was very inconsiderate in the treatment of his own slaves, therefore his brotherly talk was not taken seriously by most of the colored folks.” Further, he noted, a listener laughed at the minister's remarks during a discourse on kindness. In rebuke, the minister gave “twenty-five lashes to the unfortunate Negro.”
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Blacks also aimed their condemnation at the Southern white population as a whole in regard to religious hypocrisy. Folktales developed around the theme that since whites were hypocrites, they would never enter the kingdom of Heaven. For example, one anonymous black told some of his friends the story of his having dreamt about Heaven. Not surprisingly, not one single white person was there. Versions of this story continued to flourish for years with its clear message: Heaven would be peopled only by blacks who had led Christian lives.
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Although whites informed blacks that they should obey the Ten Commandments, they did not always obey them themselvesâmurder, theft, rape, and adultery were committed by whites while spousal fidelity and family values were ignored. Finally, while maintaining that it was sinful to drink alcohol and gamble, whites were observed by blacks committing these moral offenses at a higher rate than themselves.
Not surprisingly, slaves generally found the watered-down religious instruction they received from whites insufficient to meet their needs. Besides the superficial message of obedience to whites, blacks found the sermons bland, boring, unemotional, and uninspiring. Therefore, whenever possible, slaves would meet either in each other's cabins or at some secluded place in the woods where they could conduct their own religious services. The result was the development of the invisible slave church that historian Albert Raboteau has written so eloquently about. Former slaves described this institution in their interviews during the 1930s. Sylvia Floyd pointed out that “at times de darkies would go off to de woods to preach, shout an' sing praises.”
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Caroline Ates revealed that “lots o' times, durin' the week, we'd slip off by ourselves an' have prayer-meetin'.”
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According to Laura Ford, “We did all ob our real worshiping in de fiel's, out deir we could turn loose in our own way. We would sing, shout an' pray.”
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Precautions had to be taken to avoid detection. As Mary Gladdy explained, “A large iron pot was always placed against the cabin door to keep the sound of their voices from escaping.”
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The biggest threat to these secret services came from slaves patrollers who sought to catch blacks allegedly disobeying laws.
The usual penalty for detection was a severe whipping. To Jake Dawkins, the slave patrollers were “a bunch of de meanest oversees from all de plantations round. De patrollers would coth [caught] dem and give dem thirty nine lashes wid dey whips.”
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A careful slave would always carry a pass, especially if he was traveling from a plantation a few miles away. So as not to admit that they could not read, the patrollers sometimes would accept forged passes from slaves. If detected, the only sensible course for a slave was to run as fast and as hard as he could. The Reverend W. B. Allen's father told him about his experience at a prayer meeting that was broken up by slave patrollers. His father's quick thinking saved all the slaves there from brutal whippings. As the patrollers entered the house through its one door, Allen's father “stuck a big shovel in the fire place, drew out a peck or more of hot ashes and cinders and flung them broadcast into the faces of them patrollers.” As a result, “the room was soon filled with smoke and the smell of burning clothes and white flesh.” Every slave was able to escape during the confusion.
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Many others, however, were not so fortunate. Some were caught and nearly beaten to death. For example, Dora Brewer relates the story of a slave who was caught attending a prayer meeting by her master. The “marster” became furious and “beat her within an inch of her life.”
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That blacks risked so much to worship in the way they desired is a testament to the value they placed on religious autonomy.
Once slavery ended, blacks moved immediately to withdraw from Southern white congregations and establish their own churches. As noted earlier, they were unhappy with their prewar status in white churches and longed to break free of white supervision and control. Reconstruction afforded them this opportunity, and they took full advantage of it. Indeed, they withdrew in staggering numbers and at a rapid pace. On the eve of the war, 42,000 black Methodists worshipped in biracial churches in South Carolina; by the 1870s, only six hundred remained.
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Cleveland County, North Carolina, counted 200 black members of biracial Methodist churches in 1860, ten in 1867, and none five years later.
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Overall in North Carolina, from 1865 to 1866, 2,000 blacks deserted the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and during the six years between 1860 and 1866 the number of black communicants decreased by almost 7,000.
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Many of the blacks who left the Southern white Methodist churches were claimed by the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion), the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, or the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church. In South Carolina, for example, the AME membership grew to 44,000 by 1877 because of the efforts of Bishop Daniel Payne, Richard H. Cain, and other energetic ministers. As a result of the labors of the Reverend T. W. Stringer, the AME's chief emissary in Mississippi, the denomination in that state grew from virtually nothing in 1865 to thirty-five churches with 5,000 members by 1870.
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In North Carolina the AME Church counted fifty ministers and 7,267 members by 1869.
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Nationally, the AME Church had only 20,000 members in 1856, but twenty years later, in 1876, it had over 200,000. By 1880 the membership numbered 400,000, mostly concentrated in the South.
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Black membership in North Carolina among the AME Zion Church numbered 7,267 by the end of 1865, with fifty churches.
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Its national membership increased from close to 27,000 in 1860 to 200,000 in 1870. Moreover, black membership in the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina had grown to 36,000 by 1881.
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There are several reasons why the AME and AME Zion congregations were so successful in recruiting Southern blacks. Even during the antebellum period, particularly in Border states such as Maryland and Kentucky, there had existed churches representing these denominations. Thus, they had already planted the seeds of black Methodism. When emancipation came, they quickly moved to establish themselves as the rightful preserve of blacks and spelled out specifically why blacks should desert white churches and embrace them. For example, both groups held statewide conferences in North Carolina for this purpose. Only a few days after the war ended, the AME conveners explained why they were ready to separate from Southern white religious bodies and form their own churches: “[We were] compelled to listen to her ministers till the coming of the Federal Army, now we desiar to dispence with the services of men who fidelity to the government by us is doubted in order therefore that we may be able to worship God according to the dictates of our consciances.”
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A few months later, at the AME Zion conference, the religious brethren articulated their mission: “to organize the army of reserve to carry forth the hallowed crusade of mercy and grace.”
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Certainly, here was the strong message that these objectives could be carried forth only by either the AME or AME Zion Church.
Many black Methodists were undoubtedly attracted to both denominations for racial reasons. These black church organizations promised them the Christian fellowship and leadership that was not possible in white churches. Indeed, without white supervision and paternalism, blacks would be able to express themselves with emotion during services if they desired. In other words, they could let loose and be themselves. Moreover, the African Methodist churches often served as social service agencies for blacks. As a result, many freedmen benefited directly from the missionary, educational, and material assistance rendered by these churches during and after the Civil War. The Contraband Committee of Mother Bethel Church of Philadelphia and the Union Relief Association of Israel Bethel Church of Washington were outstanding among Freedmen's Aid societies. Nearly $167,000 was contributed by the AME Church between 1862 and 1868.
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In addition, as noted earlier, the AME Church had purchased Wilberforce University in 1863 and embarked upon the mission of educating black ministers, teachers, and leaders. Moreover, although the Methodist Episcopal Church North sometimes employed white clerics to administer to black members in the South, it was essentially an all-black church active in materially providing for freedmen. As a result, it, too, had enormous appeal.
Like the Methodists, black Baptists also saw the number of their members move upward. Data from Baptist associations underscore the extent of the racial separation that took place in North Carolina. In 1870 the Brown Creek Association, encompassing Union and Anson counties, reported 125 black members out of a total of 1,301; however, five years later, there were only twenty-eight black members. The Central Association, consisting of Wake and Franklin counties, reported 337 black communicants in 1866, but that number had dwindled to fifty-five by 1874. The Eastern Association, which covered an expansive area in the eastern section of the state, reported 1,461 black members in 1865 but none in 1870. Finally, although the Pee Dee Association reported 441 black members in 1867, only thirty-eight were counted in 1872.
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Nationally, black Baptist members increased from 150,000 in 1850 to 500,000 in 1870.
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Since Baptist congregations were autonomous, allowing members to control their religious affairs, the Baptists had the greatest appeal for the newly freed. The practice of baptism by immersion, reminiscent of some African religions, may also have attracted some adherents. By 1890, Baptists constituted 54 percent of those who attended all black churches in the South.
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Additionally, a sizable number of blacks left the Episcopal and Presbyterian sects in the aftermath of the Civil War and formed their own churches.
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The rapidity with which blacks exited from white churches illustrates the urgency felt by most freedmen and free men in disassociating themselves from the churches of the white slaveholders. Once the shackles of slavery were broken, most blacks were determined to enjoy autonomy in every aspect of life, including their religions faith.
Despite the fact that some white members encouraged blacks to remain in white churches after freedom, most made it clear to blacks that they were not welcome. Many white churches continued their paternalism. Blacks were forced to retain their seats in the gallery and were barred from participating in church governance. Sometimes those few blacks who refused to voluntarily withdraw from white churches were threatened with loss of life. For example, although freedmen were allowed to attend Liberty Sylvania Church in Fort Brown, Texas, most blacks, faced with hostility, withdrew by late 1865 with the exception of one former slave who continued to attend services. However, after a group of terrorists confronted him and warned him that he would be killed if he did not leave, he reluctantly pulled out.
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Consequently, then, the move by blacks to separate from white churches and form their own congregations was met with enthusiasm by most white churchgoers, who had never been comfortable with blacks as members. They expected the same separation from blacks in the religious realm as they did in other realms of life, although they wanted to exercise some control over the churches that blacks organized. The mass exit of blacks from white churches proved mutually beneficial to both groups.
In retrospect, even if whites had invoked more egalitarian policies in efforts to retain their black membership, it is doubtful whether the outcome would have been significantly different. Once freedom came, affiliation with the churches of their former masters was simply too much for most blacks to endure. Long before emancipation, blacks had struggled to achieve religious autonomy, even at the risk of their lives. Now that the opportunity was at hand, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. They would move in masses to withdraw from white churches and establish their own, in spite of the response of Southern whites.