Even before the emergence of the civil rights movement with black churches at its center, African American religion and progressive politics were assumed to be inextricably intertwined. In her revelatory book, Barbara Savage counters this assumption with the story of a highly diversified religious community whose debates over engagement in the struggle for racial equality were as vigorous as they were persistent. Rather than inevitable allies, black churches and political activists have been uneasy and contentious partners.
From the 1920s on, some of the best African American minds—W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Benjamin Mays, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Mary McLeod Bethune, Charles S. Johnson, and others—argued tirelessly about the churches’ responsibility in the quest for racial justice. Could they be a liberal force, or would they be a constraint on progress? There was no single, unified black church but rather many churches marked by enormous intellectual, theological, and political differences and independence. Yet, confronted by racial discrimination and poverty, churches were called upon again and again to come together as savior institutions for black communities.
The tension between faith and political activism in black churches testifies to the difficult and unpredictable project of coupling religion and politics in the twentieth century. By retrieving the people, the polemics, and the power of the spiritual that animated African American political life, Savage has dramatically demonstrated the challenge to all religious institutions seeking political change in our time.
Barbara Dianne Savage is Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction
The Reformation of the "Negro Church"
Illusions of Black Religion
In Pursuit of Pentecost
The Advent to Civil Rights
Southern Black Liberal Protestantism
A Religious Rebellion
Reconcilable Differences
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
What People are Saying About This
This passionate and incisive analysis of the relationship between twentieth-century black religion and politics reveals the paradoxes as well as the dynamism intrinsic to black church culture. It is a major accomplishment.
Wallace Best
This passionate and incisive analysis of the relationship between twentieth-century black religion and politics reveals the paradoxes as well as the dynamism intrinsic to black church culture. It is a major accomplishment. Wallace Best, author of Passionately Human, No Less Divine: Religion and Culture in Black Chicago
Kevin Boyle
With this brilliant explication of the relationship between African American religious and political life, Barbara Savage dramatically deepens our understanding of the twentieth-century freedom struggle. Hers is a moving and provocative exploration of faith, doubt, and profound commitment. Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
Today when black religious leadership and ideas have been thrust into the race for the American presidency, Barbara Savage helps to sift through the myriad and longstanding debates over black religion and politics. In this powerfully written and compelling book, Savage brings profound clarity to the institution that remains at the center of black spiritual and community life. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, author of Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church
Farah Jasmine Griffin
Savage challenges our thinking about a monolithic 'black church' and encourages us to engage with the full diversity and complexity of black religious institutions. A beautifully written, brilliant, and important book, it is both a profound work of history as well as a timely intervention into contemporary politics. Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Who Set You Flowin'? The African-American Migration Narrative
Robert A. Orsi
Your Spirits Walk Beside Us marks the beginning of a new history of African American religion, not as a sacred narrative, but as the exciting story of a powerful but ambivalent Christian legacy in African American life. Savage has brilliantly rethought a matter of broad and urgent contemporary significance -- the enduring dilemmas and ambiguities of the African American religious experience amid the demands of modern American political life. Robert A. Orsi, author of Thank You, Saint Jude: Women's Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes