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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 40. The Negro Church - 4. A Segregated Church
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8 70 An American Dilemma
North have a few Negro members, and that they rarely would turn away
Negro visitors who came to a service. But usually they cannot afford to let
the Negro membership grow too large. Baker observed that he “found
strange things in Boston”: some Episcopal churches had had increased
Negro attendance, and this created a serious problem. A prominent white
church leader explained the matter to him in the following words:
What shall we do with these Negroes! I for one would like to have them stay.
I believe it is in accordance with the doctrine of Christ, but the proportion is growing
so large that white people are drifting away from us. Strangers avoid us. Our organ-
ization is expensive to keep up and the Negroes are able to contribute very little in
proportion to their numbers. Think about it yourself: What shall we do? If we
allow the Negroes to attend freely it means that eventually all the white people will
leave and we shall have a Negro church whether we want it or not.^®
Similar situations and attitudes can be observed today everywhere in
Northern cities with a heavy Negro population.
If this moral problem of organized American Christianity has not become
more conspicuous and troublesome for white people’s conscience, the
explanation is that probably most Negroes—the caste situation being what
it is
—prefer to worship in Negro churches, even if they are against church
segregation in principle. In the South they have no other choice anyway,
and the question is not very practical. Even in the North Negroes usually
feel more comfortable by themselves. And Negro preachers have a vested
interest in segregated churches. It can be observed that Negro preachers
suspect many of the projects looking toward interracial cooperation in
church activities as attempts to deprive them of influence. They feel, often
with some justification, that interracial religious activity would mean hav-
ing white men as church leaders for Negroes but not Negroes as church
leaders for whites.^^ Negro preachers have resented it when white denom-
inations have sent white missionaries to convert Negroes.^^
We find also that the white-dominated churches, which have been trying
to keep their doors more open to Negroes and have sometimes made special
efforts to convert Negroes, have not been too successful. The Roman
Catholic Church belongs to this group. Although the Catholic Church can
claim a greater proportion of Northern Negroes today than fifteen years
ago, the proportion of all Northern Negroes with religious affiliations who
were members of Catholic churches is probably still below 5 per cent.^®
On the whole, the Roman Catholic Church prefers to have Negroes attend
all-Negro churches, on the basis of residential segregation and of attempts
to dissuade them from attending white churches.®
• Gillard estimates that in 1 940 about one-third of the Negro Catholics in the United
States were in mixed churches. (Cited in Th^ Negro Handbook^ p. 102.)
In the South, especially in southern Louisiana where the French and Creole traditions
are dominant, the Roman Catholic Church is the only one where Negfroes are allowed
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