Baptists

African-American Baptists are Christians who trace their common descent to Africa and share similar Biblical doctrines and congregational policies. They share these values with the broader American Baptist religious tradition. African-American Baptists represent the largest and most diverse group of the many African-American denominations in the United States. They are known for their emphasis on emotional preaching and worship, educational institutions, economic leadership in the community, and sociopolitical activism.

The origin of African-American Baptists must be understood in the context of the interracial religious experiences of colonial American history and the African roots of the spirituality of slaves. White Baptists were initially slow in their evangelistic efforts among African slaves, as language barriers and economic considerations prevented the rapid evangelization of transplanted Africans. However, by the second half of the eighteenth century, a few persistent Baptist evangelists eluded these barriers and converted growing numbers of slaves.

Antebellum Baptists

The movement began largely on plantations in the South, where the vast majority of African slaves resided, and it spread to urban areas. Generally, the conversion of slaves tended to follow the denominational lines of white masters. Hence, the numbers of African-American Baptists tended to grow along with the remarkable expansion of Baptists in the South between 1750 and 1850. On occasion, Baptist evangelists were invited by slaveholders belonging to local Baptist congregations to preach to their plantation slaves. On other occasions, slave owners would allow slaves to accompany them to church or hold devotional services in their own "big houses."

There were scattered instances of African Americans attending biracial churches during the late colonial period. As early as 1772, Robert Stevens and eighteen other African Americans were members of the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island. By 1772, the First Baptist Church of Boston was also receiving blacks into its congregation. Very likely, the Baptist churches of the South had some black members prior to the 1770s. As a result of interracial evangelizing between 1773 and 1775, David George organized the first black Baptist church in North America, at Silver Bluff, South Carolina, near Savannah, Georgia. This increasing tendency to receive slaves into the Baptist churches created the interracial Baptist church experience in colonial American society.

By the early national period, the presence of slaves exceeded the numbers of whites in a few churches in the South. However, whether they were the majority or minority presence in these churches, African-American Baptists were still limited in their membership privileges and responsibilities. Slavery and racism prevented the existence of authentic fellowship based on Christian principles within these early churches. These social pressures later resulted in the demise of racially mixed churches and the emergence of Baptist churches organized along racial lines.

Slave preachers were the first to verbalize the need for churches separate from the white Baptists. Some of them had been previously exposed to leadership roles, having served as religious leaders in Africa. They wanted a style

of Baptist life and witness that would permit the free expression of spirituality and the involvement of African-American preachers in pastoral leadership. The first movement toward separate black Baptist churches took place when African Americans stole off to the woods, canebrakes, and remote cabins to have preaching and prayer meetings of their own. These meetings were usually held early in the morning, when the patrols over the slaves would retire from night duty to sleep during the day. Hence, early morning prayer meetings were created out of necessity.

Among the early African-American Baptist preachers who pioneered the plantation missions and the movement toward separate churches were: "Uncle Jack," who went from plantation to plantation in Virginia in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, preaching to whites as well as African Americans; "Uncle Harry" Cowan, who labored extensively in North Carolina; and George Liele (1752–1825), who preached on the plantations of South Carolina and Georgia and actually paved the way for the planting of the first separate churches among African-American Christians. Liele's evangelistic ministry inspired the founding of the Silver Bluff Baptist Church in Aikens County, South Carolina, by David George (1742–1810) in the late 1700s and of the First Colored Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia, by Andrew Bryan (1737–1812) in the 1780s. There were other African-American preachers who labored on plantations for the evangelization of slaves and the subsequent separate Baptist church movement, but most of their names are now lost.

Within a decade after the founding of African-American Baptist churches in South Carolina and Georgia, slaves and free blacks in other parts of the country began similar movements away from white-dominated churches and toward the creation of their own churches. During the American Revolution, the African-American Baptists of Petersburg, Virginia, organized the Gilfield Baptist Church and the Harrison Street Baptist Church (both in Petersburg) and the first Baptist churches in both Williamsburg and Richmond, Virginia.

African-American Baptist churches were soon organized in the north. The Joy Street Baptist Church, originally called the African Meeting House, was constituted in Boston in 1805. The Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York City was organized in 1808, presumably by a group of traders who came to New York City from Ethiopia (then called Abyssinia). These were followed by the Concord Baptist Church of Brooklyn, New York (May 18, 1847); the First African Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (June 19, 1809); the First African Baptist Church in Trenton, New Jersey (1812); the Middlerun Baptist Church in Xenia, Ohio (1822); and the First Colored Peoples' Baptist Church of Baltimore (1836). This lists only some of the more important churches.

The roots of the Baptist cooperative movement go back to the antebellum period. In the early 1830s, organizational consciousness emerged among black Baptists in Ohio with the evolution of the associational movement. Baptists began to see the need for united Christian ministries among churches in near proximity. Hence, local churches began the formation of associations to advance such causes as education, home missions, and foreign missions. In 1834 they organized the Providence Baptist Association in Berlin Cross Roads, Ohio. This was followed by the founding of a politically oriented movement called the Union Anti-Slavery Baptist Association, also organized in Ohio in 1843. Slowly, the associational movement spread to other states. The organization of Baptist state conventions began in North Carolina with the founding of the General State Convention in 1866.

The cooperative efforts of African-American Baptists were prompted by a growing consciousness of an interest in doing missionary work in Africa. Lott Carey and other pioneer African-American missionaries inspired early church leaders to seek even greater cooperation among their separate churches. As early as 1840, black Baptists of New England and the Middle Atlantic states met in New York's Abyssinian Baptist Church to organize the American Baptist Missionary Convention, their first cooperative movement beyond state lines.

Civil War and the Era of Church Growth

The Civil War era and Reconstruction gave impetus to the organization of several cooperative movement bodies. The Baptists of the West and Southwest met in St. Louis in 1864 and organized the Northwestern and Southern Baptist Conventions. In 1866 these two regional conventions met in a special session in Richmond, Virginia, and organized the Consolidated American Baptist Convention, representing 100,000 black baptists and two hundred ministers. The new convention was an attempt to promote unity, discourage sectionalism, and create a national spirit of cooperation. The work of the Consolidated Convention was fostered by the formation of district auxiliary conventions, state conventions, and associations.

In 1873 the African-American Baptists of the West organized the General Association of the Western States and Territories, and in 1874 those in the East organized the New England Baptist Missionary Convention. These two bodies soon overshadowed the spirit of unity expressed in the Consolidated American Baptist Convention. A persistent spirit of independence and sectionalism on the part of both eastern and western Baptists caused the decline of the Consolidated Baptist Convention, resulting in its termination at its last meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1878. A vacuum in the cooperative missionary movement resulted.

In response, William W. Colley, a missionary to Africa appointed by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, returned to the United States with a determination to revive a cooperative spirit among African-American Baptists. He led the way for the organization of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention on November 24, 1880, in Montgomery, Alabama. This convention effectively revived an expanding interest in the evangelization of Africa.

The next steps toward separate denominational development came with the organization of the American National Baptist Convention (1893) and the Tripartite Union (1894). On September 28, 1895, these organizations merged to form the first real denomination among African-American Baptists, the National Baptist Convention (NBC) U.S.A. For the first time, the combined ministries of the churches throughout the nation were fostered by a separate national organization of African-American Baptists.

Primitive Baptists

A number of African-American baptists were opposed to the organization of missionary associations, in part because the Arminianism of the mid-nineteenth-century revivals was in conflict with traditional notions of predestination. The major outgrowth of the antimission movement was the rise of the African-American Primitive Baptists. Initially, Primitive Baptists inherited their antimission spirit from white Baptists. As early as 1820, the Saint Barley Primitive Baptist Church of Huntsville, Alabama (originally organized as the Huntsville African Baptist Church), evolved as one of the earliest separate Primitive Baptist churches. Subsequently, a number of churches joined with them. By 1907 these churches had gained sufficient strength to organize themselves into the National Primitive Baptist Convention. However, their rate of growth was far below that of the National Baptists. Still smaller in numbers and influence were the United American Freewill Baptists. Today, both the Primitive and Freewill Baptists still constitute a minority presence among African-American Baptists.

The question of missions also played a major role in a split at the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A. In 1897 a controversy erupted at the annual session of the convention, convening that year in Boston. The major issues in dispute were the financial administration of foreign mission programs and cooperation with white Baptists. The majority opinion favored the fiscal policy of the convention and the exclusive operation of the denomination independent of white Baptist influence.

However, a minority of delegates from Virginia, North Carolina, and several other Atlantic Coast states, as well as Washington, D.C., decided to organize a separate missionary society that, with white support, was designed exclusively to advance a foreign mission enterprise. They met at the Baptist Church, in Washington, D.C., and organized the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention. These leaders adopted a constitutional provision requiring at least 75 percent of all funds collected by the convention to be sent to foreign missions.

The great break within the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A. came during its formative years, in 1915. Efforts to maintain unity and harmony within the convention had previously posed vexing challenges to church officials. Unlike the crisis that led to the Lott Carey Convention movement, the crisis of 1915 was primarily a legal problem regarding the ownership and management of the National Baptist Publishing Board, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Signs of dissent within the leadership of the convention were apparent for almost a decade before the actual separation of 1915.

The crisis came to a head during the annual session in Chicago. It took the form of a legal struggle between two groups: the majority, who supported convention control of the publishing board, and those who favored the independence of the publishing board as a separate corporate entity. The court decided in favor of the majority, and unity between the factions could not be restored. The result was the organization of a new denomination. The majority faction incorporated as the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., Inc; the minority group met on September 9, 1915 at the Salem Baptist Church and organized the National Baptist Convention of America. It is now called the National Baptist Convention of America. Members of the publishing board played the key role in the development of the new denomination, which has policies similar to those of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.

Progressive National Baptist Convention

The Progressive National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., organized in 1961, grew out of a major crisis within the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., relating to the issues of tenure and civil rights strategies. Joseph H. Jackson, the president of the National Baptist Convention, was opposed to the civil rights agenda of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and related organizations. He was opposed by Gardner C. Taylor, pastor of Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., president of the SCLC.

The initial struggle erupted in 1961 when Taylor challenged Jackson's bid for re-election to the presidency on the grounds that Jackson had exceeded the tenure requirement. The challenge was marked by violence, controversy, and a legal battle. The "Taylor team" was determined to defeat Jackson and plan a new course for the convention. However, Jackson's popularity prevailed in the vote on the floor of the convention and was upheld in a civil court. The Taylor team did not accept this defeat, however, since they were determined to lead African-American Baptists in a new and progressive direction, especially in the area of civil rights.

On September 11, 1961, a national news release invited progressive-minded leaders to join forces with the Taylor team and organize a new denomination named the Progressive National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. The new denomination promoted the civil rights program of Martin Luther King, Jr. and launched a program of cooperation with the largely white American Baptist Churches, U.S.A. The new program was called the Fund of Renewal, designed to promote specialized mission projects. This program also engendered a new spirit of cooperation between African-American and white Baptists.

Black Baptist churches were one of the anchors of the civil rights movement, with Baptist ministers such as Vernon Johns, Benjamin Mays, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Martin Luther King Jr., David Abernathy, and Gardner Taylor in the forefront of the struggle for black equality. The contribution of black Baptists to the civil rights movement, and the inspiration that it has provided to both Americans and oppressed people elsewhere, is one of the greatest legacies of twentieth-century African-American Baptists.

The vast majority of African-American Baptists have been strong supporters of foreign missions. Early pioneers of the missionary enterprise, besides Lott Carey (1780–1829) and George Liele, were Prince Williams and W. W. Colley. These men set the stage for an aggressive missionary program in India, Africa, Central America, and the

West Indies. With the rise of foreign missions boards among the denominations, African-American Baptists developed a sophisticated approach to the evangelization of non-Christians. They developed schools, hospitals, clinics, and agricultural projects, and they established new churches in various parts of the world. The Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention pioneered the movement to utilize indigenous people in leadership positions in foreign missions, which facilitated the philosophy of self-help and independence among peoples in developing nations. Many of the leaders within these nations came out of the missionary agencies.

One of the important changes in the black Baptist church since the 1960s has been the changing status of women. Nannie Helen Burroughs (1883–1961), through her longtime leadership of the Women's Convention Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention, was a dominant figure in twentieth-century African-American Baptist life. Until the latter half of the twentieth century, however, women were not allowed to be preachers or to take active roles in church leadership. The Baptists were slow to ordain women for the ministry; black women were not ordained until the 1970s, and even then only in small numbers. Other leadership roles were also denied to women, such as that of deacon. The bias against promoting women to positions of prominence in the Baptist has changed, however, although too slowly for many.

Education

The ministry of education of African-American Baptists has been in the forefront of the cooperative programs of associations, state conventions, and national conventions. The Civil War marked the beginning of strong cooperative strides among local churches to advance the intellectual development of blacks. Many churches served as schools during the week and houses of worship on Sundays. Moreover, local associations organized schools in many of the rural areas and small towns of the South. With the rise of public education, most of the associational secondary schools were closed.

The development of higher education for African Americans, however, has been among the lasting contributions of African-American Baptists. The magnitude of the task prompted African-American Baptists to cooperate with whites in the development of schools of higher learning. This evolution may be classified into two groups: cooperative schools with whites, and independent African-American schools. There are a number of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that were founded with Baptist support. These colleges, most of which were created in the South in the postbellum years, had two main purposes. Some of these schools were seminaries and helped train young men for the ministry. An even more pressing task in the minds of many of the college founders was to create a cadre of teachers who could, in turn, educate freedmen in primary schools. However, due to funding problems, many of the Baptist HBCUs functioned as little more than secondary schools in their early decades.

Many Baptist HBCUs were founded by whites, one of the driving forces being the American Baptist Home Mission Society (ABHMS). Wayland Seminary, the first seminary for black Baptists, later incorporated into Virginia Union University, opened in Washington, D.C., in 1865. Another root of the Virginia Union University was the Richmond Theological Center, founded in Richmond, Virginia, also in 1865. Other HBCUs founded by white Baptists include Shaw University (originally Raleigh Institute, 1865) in Raleigh, North Carolina; Morehouse College (originally Augusta Institute, 1867) in Atlanta, Georgia; Spelman College (originally Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, 1881) in Atlanta; Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina (1870); Jackson State University (originally Natchez Seminary, 1877) in Jackson, Mississippi; and Florida Memorial College (originally Florida Baptist Institute, 1879) in Miami.

Many of these schools represent substantial efforts by white Baptists in the intellectual development of African Americans. They financed, administered, and staffed most of these schools, and only gradually did African-American Baptists assume responsibility for directing the schools. A number of schools were founded by African-American Baptists, but, because of problems with funding, they faced severe operating difficulties and had to close. The first independent African Baptist school of higher learning founded by black Baptists was Guadelupe College in Seguin, Texas. Others appeared in rapid succession: Houston College at Houston, Texas (1885); Walker Baptist Institute in Augusta, Georgia (1888); and Friendship Baptist College in Rock Hill, South Carolina (1891). Only Morris College in Sumter, South Carolina (1908) remains open in the early twenty-first century.

In the early twentieth century, Baltimore became a center of Baptist seminaries. The Colored Baptist Convention of Maryland organized Clayton-Williams Academy and Biblical Institute in 1901; the Maryland Baptist Missionary Convention organized Lee and Hayes University in 1914; the Independent Colored Baptist Convention organized Williams and Jones University in 1928; and the United Baptist Missionary Convention organized Maryland Baptist Center and School of Religion in 1942. These Baltimore schools were largely the result of convention rivalry and survived only a few years. In 1921 two other schools were organized: Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Topeka, Kansas, and Northern Baptist University in Rahway, Nw Jersey. Both schools provided educated leadership for blacks, and many of the graduates have helped to advance the social, political, economic, and religious progress of African Americans. The Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia, was formed in 1958 by a merger of a number of African-American seminaries, including the former Morehouse School of Religion.

Music and Liturgy

From the beginning of separate religious services, African-American Baptists utilized music in their worship. This music was an expression of the deep sentiment of the people as they reacted to the severe oppression of life in America. It grew out of the secular songs of plantation slavelabor gangs. As slaves were converted to Christianity, they incorporated their new religious beliefs into the songs of the plantations. The result was Negro spirituals. These songs played a major role in church life until the postbellum era, when Protestant hymns from the white religious experience began to become more important in church services. However, groups such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1871) sustained the spiritual tradition in the late nineteenth century. Their concert tours of Europe and America introduced spirituals to a new and highly receptive audience.

Gospel music has been one of the most important innovations in church services in the twentieth century. Thomas A. Dorsey, a pioneer gospel music composer, exponent, and instructor, was largely responsible for the introduction of gospel music in the worship of these churches. In 1932 the National Convention of Gospel Choirs was organized to promote the work of Dorsey in the churches. This organization encouraged the introduction of contests of choirs, quartets, and soloists in local churches. Two other major individuals contributed to the development of music in the religious experience of African Americans: James A. Cleveland, through his National Workshop Choir, and Glenn T. Settle, the originator of Wings Over Jordan, a nationally acclaimed chorus. Subsequently, most of the performing artists in the broader culture received training, inspiration, and exposure from serving in local church choirs and choruses. Currently, many African-American Baptist churches are influenced by recording artists on popular gospel music radio stations.

Similarly, drama has played a role in the development of African-American Baptist churches. African-American preaching itself emerged as a unique art form. The dramatic presentation of the sermon was characteristic of these churches; preachers literally acted out the contents of their messages to their congregations. Moreover, these churches served as the central stage for dramatic presentations of other performing artists in talent shows, plays, and pageants. The recitation of religious poetry became a component of the artistic expression of church programs.

Painting has been less influential in African-American Baptist churches, which have tended to accept white expressions of religious art. However, the Black Power and black theology movements altered the art works in the churches. In the late twentieth century, some churches, like New Shiloh Baptist Church of Baltimore, began developing Afrocentric murals of the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and scenes from African-American life and culture.

Because of the inherent autonomy of African-American Baptists, there remains much variety in size, political

involvement, and religious practice of independent congregations. Some of the larger urban churches—such as Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., Mount Olivet in Chicago, Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, and the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem—have long been centers of community activity and have served as political bases for their pastors. On the other hand, small rural Baptist churches, while their numbers have declined, remain the backbone of numerous communities.

Since the 1930s, and with even more emphasis since the 1960s, many black Baptist pastors have emphasized the social aspects of their ministry. They have stressed social outreach, particularly working with disaffected teenagers and prison populations and discouraging drug use. Baptist churches represent the largest denominational group among African Americans, and they continue to shape black cultural, political, and spiritual life in countless ways. In 1990 there were approximately twelve million African-American Baptists. Black Baptists will likely continue to endure and change in response to the myriad challenges of contemporary African-American life.

See also Abyssinian Baptist Church; Burroughs, Nannie Helen; Carey, Lott; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Liele, George; Missionary Movements; National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.; Primitive Baptists; Protestantism in the Americas; Theology, Black

Bibliography

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Goodwin, Everett C., ed. Baptists in the Balance: A Tension Between Freedom and Responsibility. Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1997.

Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. The Black Church in the African-American Experience. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1990.

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leroy fitts (1996)
Updated bibliography