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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Negro Community - 43. Institutions - 3. The Negro Church in the Negro Community
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Chapter 43. Institutions 937
Whites, in searching for rationalizations to justify the subordination of
the Negro, have seized upon the fact of religious emotionalism and ascribed
it to “animal nature” and even to “excessive sexuality.” Even Northerners
—or we could perhaps say, especially Northerners—have done this, since the
Negroes religion is so different from their own, and they are at a loss to
account for this behavior. Southerners, on the other hand, are accustomed
to seeing extreme emotionalism in many lower class white churches and
revival meetings.
Two things are important in attempting to explain this emotionalism. In
the first place, it has been exaggerated. A large minority of Negroes do not
attend church, and another large minority do not have emotionalism in
their church service. There are wide differences among the various Negro
denominations in degree of emotionalism manifested.^® Emotionalism is
uncommon in the upper and middle class Negro churches—which are quite
like white churches of the same class level in this respect—and it is uncom-
mon in the Catholic Church and other large, well-established urban
churches where there are more lower class Negroes than middle and upper
class Negroes. There is a definite trend for Negro youth to avoid the
emotional type of church, and the same is true of the social “climbers” of
all ages and occupations.^^ Emotionalism is most common in the rural
Southern Negro churches and in the “storefront”® churches of the cities.
These form the great bulk of the Negro churches, but since their congre-
gations are small, they do not include such a large proportion of the Negro
churchgoers. But even in the churches of the rural South, emotionalism is
declining. According to Mays and Nicholson, revival meetings in the rural
South are less successful than they used to bej the professional evangelist
is disappearing j
and the regular sermons attempt to be more thought-
provoking.^^
sermon and prayers j
a highly communal service with violent demonstrations such as shout-
ing and ^getting happy.’
“6. Marching of usher board of church, or of visiting usher boards, around seated con-
gregation up to chancel, where donation is made by each member of usher board. Repeated
several times, while both usher board and congregation sing.
“7. Intoning, or at times the singing, of sermon or prayer by minister. Use by minister
of sobbing technique, or of triumphant laugh in preachings walking into congregation or
elaborate physical dramatization of sermon by preacher.
‘‘8. Devotion of a large part of the service to the collection of money.
“To these may be added rituals of the Sanctified, Spiritualist, Holiness, and other esoteric
sects found among both Negroes and whites of the lower class positions, such as the practices
of ‘sacred dancing,’ rolling in a sawdust pit in state of ecstasy, tambourine playing, reading
of the future, healing of the sick, use of images of saints, foot-washing, use of drum and
of jazz music, etc.” (“The Negro Church and Associations in the Lower South,” unpublished
manuscript prepared for this study [1940], pp. 83-84.)
* The term “storefront” churches is commonly used to include churches in residences as
well as in stores.
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