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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 - 5. Its Weakness
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872 An American Dilemma
poses,® except for some outcast white who can occasionally be seen attending
Negro churches, the formal and restricted interracial work between minis-
ters which is sometimes arranged for** and the white man who attends a
Negro church for amusement or study. In the North there are more
interracial contacts’" but not enough to modify the basic fact of church sepa-
ration. What little there is probably tends to improve race relations, to
bring the Negro church closer to white norms of religious behavior, and
to get money from the whites for the Negro church.“^
5. Its Weakness
The Negro church is the oldest and—in membership—^by far the strong-
est of all Negro organizations. Like the lodges, burial societies, and the
great number of social clubs, the Negro church by its very existence in-
volves a certain power consolidation. Meetings of the church officials in a
denomination and church papers—read at least by most of the ministers
—
provide for an ideological cohesion, not only in religious matters but, to
an extent, also in the common race interests. It also has some significance
when, for instance, it is pointed out about Mr. Mordecai Johnson, the
‘ The Catholic Church in the region around New Orleans is an exception (see footnote
a few pages back). Also, in the South occasionally a white preacher will visit a Negro
Spiritualist Church to conduct a service (Davis, of, cit,^ p. 20.)
**
Once a year some Southern churches participate in “Interracial Sunday” sponsored by
the Commission on Race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America.
Negro singers appear in white churches, occasionally a leading Negro will make a
speech, and the white minister will devote his sermon to race relations. (Paul E. Baker,
Negro-White Adjustment [1934], pp. 226-228.)
’
The following five points of interracial contact in the North are taken, with slight
modifications, from Drake, of, clt.^ p. 221. Drake made his summary on the basis of inter-
views with Negro pastors and other church officials in Chicago. The description is fairly
representative for all large Northern cities:
1. There is occasionally an exchange of pulpits or choirs between Negro and white
ministers on “Interracial Sunday” and a few other ceremonial occasions. In 1940,
there were 45 exchanges in Chicago on Interracial Sunday. Only Negroes from large,
well-established churches participate, and the white ministers are usually from
small churches.
2. Young people’s groups have “interracial programs,” “good will activities,” and
so on. These are infrequent and informal except among the Congregationalists
and Catholics (the Catholic Youth Organizations are particularly significant).
3. "Where Negro churches belong to predominantly white denominations, there are
the usual conferences, and similar meetings (especially in Holiness, Congregational,
Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches)
.
4. Infrequent visits are made by white persons to Negro churches for special pro-
grams, money-raising events, or for political purposes.
5. Visits occur by both Negro and white persons to “unorthodox” or exotic churches.
It might be said that only the curious and the maladjusted go (especially Holiness,
Spiritualist and the smaller sects).
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