Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 40. The Negro Church - 3. The Negro Church and the General American Pattern of Religious Activity
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chapter 40. The Negro Church 867
tion, and with no support from public funds, the Individual minister in
America is dependent on his church membership. The soliciting of contri-
butions thus becomes an important part of the life of an American church.
In the Negro church the collection of money becomes of pathetic impor-
tance, and a good portion of the time during an average church service is
taken up by it.
For the same reasons the American church becomes forcefully stimulated
to make itself as indispensable as possible to the people, and it undertakes
many functions of a social nature in order to ‘^sell” itself to the public.
The church in the segregated Negro ghetto tends to take on even more
functions of a nonreligious type than does the white church.
The church has been, and continues to be, the outstanding social institution in the
Negro community. It has a far wider function than to bring spiritual inspiration to
its communicants. Among rural Negroes the church is still the only institution which
provides an effective organization of the group, an approved and tolerated place for
social activities, a forum for expression on many issues, an outlet for emotional
repressions, and a plan for social living. It is a complex institution meeting a wide
variety of needs.^^
The Negro church was, from the beginning, the logical center for com-
munity life. It is thus much more than a place of worship.
It is a social center, it is a club, it is an arena for the exercise of one’s capabilities
and powers, a world in which one may achieve self-realization and preferment. Of
course, a church means something of the same sort to all groups; but with the Negro
all those attributes are magnilied because of the fact that they arc so curtailed for
him in the world at large. . . . Aside from any spiritual benefits derived, going to
church means being dressed in one’s best clothes, forgetting for the time about work,
having the chance to acquit oneself with credit bcfdte one’s fellows, and hjiving the
opportunity of meeting, talking and laughing with friends and of casting an apprais-
ing and approving eye upon the opposite sex. Going to church is an outlet for the
Negro’s religious emotions; but not the least reason why he is willing to support so
many churches is that they furnish so many agreeable activities and so much real
enjoyment. He is willing to support them because he has not yet, and will not have
until there is far greater economic and intellectual development and social organ-
ization, any other agencies that can fill their place.^®
The stronger dependence of the church and the minister on the active
church members involves, of course, a fundamental democratization of
organized religious life in America. American churches have had to come
on the average, and this was probably an over-statement. The other 41 churches had
regular edifices or halls and claimed 51,220 members, or 1,250 apiece on the average.
(See The Greater New York Federation of Churches, The Negro Churches in Manhattan
[1930], pp. 11 and 17.)
In Chicago, a more careful study of 266 storefront churches in 1938 showed that they
averaged only about 30 members apiece. (Drake, of, cit.y pp. 308-309.)
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
