The last Sunday of September, 1924, was a dramatic day in Harlem. The Salem Methodist Episcopal Church, a congregation of Negroes, took possession of the church building, parish house and parsonage of the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church, a body of white communicants. The white congregation had assembled in large numbers for the last service they were to hold in their accustomed place of worship. Just a few blocks away there was an unusual attendance of the Negro congregation at the building--two converted apartment houses with the partition walls removed--they had used for fourteen years, beginning with the days when the church was a mission. At a designated hour, the Negro congregation marched quietly and in an orderly manner out of their old structure and up Seventh Avenue toward the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal church house. The doors of the Metropolitan Church opened wide; the white pastor and his people arose to receive the Negro pastor and his people. There were Negro and white visitors from their common denomination to witness and participate in this historic event. The Negro pastor and the president of his board of trustees were welcomed to the pulpit by the white pastor and the president of his board. After appropriate songs and addresses, the keys of the church property were presented by the white trustees of the outgoing congregation to the Negro trustees of the incoming congregation. The benediction was pronounced amid expressions of joy and fellowship not unmixed with tears.
The taking over of church property by Negroes is a frequent occurrence in Harlem, as it is in the other rapidly growing Negro centers in the cities of the North. About eight years ago the Metropolitan Baptist Church bought from a white congregation an imposing stone building at Seventh Avenue and 125th Street and moved into it. Three years ago the Williams Institutional Church of the Colored Methodist Episcopal denomination purchased an excellent plant--once a flourishing Jewish synagogue--in 130th Street.
Such a transfer of white church property not infrequently accompanies a shifting of population. Within the past three years the Negro population of Harlem has pushed forward as the white population has moved westward across Eighth Avenue to St. Nicholas Park and up beyond 145th Street almost to the boundary of the Polo Grounds, and south of 125th Street, between Eighth and Lenox Avenues. During that time the fine building of a Swedish congregation west of Eighth Avenue has been taken over by a body of Negro Congregationalists, the Grace Congregational Church of Harlem. The imposing structure of a Lutheran Church at Edgecombe Avenue and 140th Street has been bought and occupied by the Calvary Independent Methodist Church. According to a recent announcement, the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, one of the oldest and largest Negro congregations in the city, after worshipping for many years in a church house in 53rd Street, has purchased for $450,000 the beautiful Adventist Temple, built of white Indiana limestone, at 120th Street.
Quite as interesting as these acquisitions of existing edifices has been the success of Negro congregations in erecting new church structures in the face of the high cost of land and building construction in Manhattan. About fifteen years ago St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church sold its property in the Pennsylvania Station zone for a large sum and used a part of the proceeds to erect, under the supervision of a Negro architect, an attractive and very serviceable brick church building and parish house on lots extending from 133rd to 134th Streets. The Abyssinian Baptist Church sold its property in 40th Street and built, on 138th Street, a church building and community house at a cost of about $325,000. In plan and program, like many of the churches named here it is a thing of beauty and an instrument of service. "Mother Zion" Church, of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion connection, found about twenty years ago that its constituency was becoming too far removed from its location in Bleecker Street. A fine structure therefore was erected in 86th Street where its leaders thought a Negro neighborhood would develop, but the subway opened up and carried Negroes farther north. About twelve years ago "Mother Zion" moved again and erected a building in 136th Street. To accommodate its growing institutional activities a new addition to the structure is now completed on a plot which runs through to 137th Street. In a triangle near 138th Street, St. Mark's Methodist Episcopal Church, now in the mid-town district, is erecting an institutional structure to cost a half million dollars.
In the purchase of buildings from white congregations and in the erection of new structures, the development in Negro church eguipment in New York is typical of what has happened on smaller scale in such cities as Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Saint Louis. Also in a few smaller cities churches have made commendable efforts to meet the growing demands of these people. In Saint Louis during the observance of Race Relations Sinday this winter delegations from white congregations that had sold their structures to Negro congregations returned for services on that day to their former churches to worship with the present occupants. St. John's Congregational Church in Springfield, Mass., Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church of Chicago, the Sharp Street Methodist Church of Baltimore, Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago, "the largest Protestant church in the world," with nearly 11,000 members, and the Second Baptist Church of Detroit are outstanding examples of a broad and vigorous institutional service.
THE Negro church is at once the most resourceful and the most characteristic organized force in the life of the Negroes of the Northern cities as it was in the Southern communities from which they come. Some of its main problems may be summarized in a four-fold statement:
We have spoken of typical solutions of the first of these; let us now consider the others.
So recently have men of all races come to dwell in cities that their churches often have the organization and equipmene typical of the small town and rural district. This is especially the case with the Negro church because only in the past sixty years have its constituents been moving with the population stream from the rural districts to urban centers. Only within the last twenty years have the numbers assumed large proportions in most of the communities that have grown up around the industrial plants of the Northern cities. As Negroes moved North they have brought their church with them. Individuals and group mainly of Baptists and Methodists, have transferred thei relationships from the littte churches of their Southern corn munities to the "watch-care" or to full membership o churches of the "same faith and order" in Northern com munities. In a few cases whole congregations from South ern communities have moved North together and brough their pastors with them. In other cases Negro churches i; Northern cities, which before the heavy migration of th last ten years had small struggling congregations, have increased their membership to large numbers and have become powerful in resources. Many of them have able ministers who, like the physicians, lawyers, editors, and bus ness men who followed in the wake of the wage-earner have come from the South to answer the Northern call.
Back in the Southern communities the little rural church conspicuous for its bell tower, rests among the trees besid the road. It is the natural meeting place of the people once or twice a month when the non-resident minister comes to preach, and when the weather does not make the roads unfit for travel. Often the people come as far as ten or fifteen miles. Frequently they bring baskets of food and remain all day. Between the enthusiastic and extended services and amid the social amenities of meal time, they exchange the gossip of the countryside, the wisdom and experience of the cropping season, and the prospects, hopes and fears of the future.
In the typical Southern town or small city one or two churches of each of the more popular denominations, particularly of Baptists and the four principal Methodist denominations, have a resident minister. The church building is better built than those of the churches in the open country and the services are held usually every Sunday with Sunday School for the children. The church enters considerably too, into the leisure time and recreational life of the people by an occasional sociable or picnic, stereopticon exhibition and, on rare occasions, a traveling moving picture show. Around the church revolve the interests of family life The churches in the larger cities such as Atlanta, Memphis, Louisville or Richmond, in architectural design, physical facilities, and personnel compare reasonably with other favorable phases of Negro life. In Norfolk one of the leading Baptist churches, under the guidance of a young college-trained man, has a community program including extension classes for boys and girls, day nursery, playground and other social features.
From these communities of the South--rural districts towns and cities--thousands of Negroes have moved to Northern cities. With the rapid increase of colored populations in the Northern cities, church facilities have not been adequate either in seating space for the assembly of worshippers, in arrangements for religious education, still in its infancy among white groups, or in sufficient personnel to give the service of social ministry to the thousands that come. For example, in 1920 the estimated seating capacity of Negro churches in Greater New York was about 24,000. In 1924 with the increase that has been made by taking over additional churches from white congregations and the erection of commodious buildings, the estimated seating capacity of twenty-seven Negro churches and sixteen missions in Harlem alone is about 21,000. There are thirteen churches with estimated seating capacity from 500 to 2,500 each; the others range from 200 to 400.
The thirst of the people for the cooling water brooks of religion is shown in the way they crowd the buildings that are available. Examples are many. The seats of the large auditorium of the Abyssinian Baptist Church are filled when the hour of service arrives and often standing room is at a premium. St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church with a service of high church type, is often crowded to the doors on Sunday morning. Mother Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church and Metropolitan Baptist Church often have larger numbers than they can comfortably seat. Frequently some of these churches have overflow services.
Besides the large self-supporting congregations with well-appointed buildings, there are nearly a score of "house-front" and "mission" churches. The "mission" churches are those that receive a part of their support from denominational missionary or extension societies which are stirred to action by the teeming unchurched masses of the district. These societies subsidize salaries of ministers, assist in the purchase of buildings or in other ways help to extend their denominational effort to evangelize and serve the people of this region. The "house-front" churches are started usually when some individual who has felt the call to the ministry has gathered about himself a little flock, or when several persons join together and ask a minister to lead them. The purchase of an equity in a private house is usually made. The double parlors on the first floor are used for church purposes while the upper floors serve as a residence for the minister or for other tenants.
THE organization, support and operation of Negro churches have become increasingly independent of white people. Negroes have thus had valuable experience and group training in standing upon their own legs and in going forward to achieve ends mapped out by themselves. The Negro churches are almost exclusively racial both in their membership and in their administration. Even congregations that belong to denominations made up of a majority of white communicants, such as the Protestant Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal and the Congregational Churches, are for all practical purposes autonomous, exercising great independence in government and being controlled only to a nominal extent by the general organization.
In no place, perhaps, is the independent, voluntary character of the Negro church better illustrated than in Harlem. One of the strongest Baptist churches in this area has been developed during the past fifteen years under the guidance of a minister of striking power, who once remarked that "a leader is a fellow who has some followers." In about ten years his preaching and work have enlarged a handful of members into a host. With money largely raised by themselves, they moved from a dingy brick basement to one of Harlem's best stone church edifices. St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church is widely known for its financial resources it purchased, more than ten years ago, a number of apartment houses in 135th Street. Three of these churches have parish houses, three others have institutional equipment, and two others that are soon to come into the district have announced their plans for developing vork along these lines.
With the growth of numbers there has been concentration of Negro communicants in distinctly Negro congregations, and the denominations made up altogether of members of the race have shown especially the vigor and power of numbers. In the independent Negro denominations there are more than 35,000 churches with over four million members enrolled and churhc property valued at over seventy million dollars. In the mixed religious bodies there are over 6,000 Negro churches, nearly three quater million Negro members enrolled and over seventeen millions in church property. *
There is a strong racial tie between Negro churches, both of the independent group and of mixed denominations. Recently churches of the several denominations of Harlem joined forces in a league, affiliated with the New York Church Federation and employed an executive secretary. Denominational differences are no problem with these churches as there are frequent visits of delegations from one congregation to another and frequent ministerial fellowship and exchange of pulpits.
The Negro ministry has been making gradual gains in intelligence and social vision. The facilities for training of Negro religious leaders, however, are not commensurate with the provision for training in other lines. A recent survey of theological education showed how inadequate are the curriculum and the personnel of institutions for theological training of Negro youth. In New York, of course, all avenues of religious and theological education are open to Negro leaders, but most of the ministers lived during their years of training in sections where such facilities were not open to them. Negroes trained in social work have been on the scene in small numbers the past twelve or fifteen years, but social plans and programs are yet uncertain and have not fully engaged the churches. The Negro churches of Harlem, however, are developing along these lines. Six churches have trained staff assistants for religious education and social service. The great demand is for trained helpers for ministers to foster programs in these churches which will meet the larger needs of worship, religious education and social service.
A WHITE visitor to the morning services of a popular Harlem church remarked, "These people are taking their religion with intense earnestness. A white congregation is usually so restrained in their services that they seem to measure the transaction they are carrying on with God." The spirit of the Negro people is shown in the fleeting hours of their amusement and play, in the furtive expression of their appreciation of things beautiful, and in outpourings of personality and emotion as they gather in their places of worship, and as they render the many personal services the one to the other in the routine of daily life. Free self-expression in these directions is often limited in America by economic and social discriminations. Emotional experience and the personal experience of service, however, find large objective opportunity through the Negro church. The churches of the Negro people are channels of their spiritual life blood. They are less restricted, probably, than any other group organization. Especially in the South, from which the majority of the Negroes in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other Northern cities have come in the last twenty years, the church is the most effective community agency for emotional, intellectual and other group expression. "The pillars of the church" are usually the leaders of the community. The social and cultural life of the group is largely influenced by these leaders; and the new environment puts this leadership to new tests.
RESIDENCE in northern cities brings to Negroes several advantages, such as greater freedom of movement, freedom of speech and assembly, that give play to increased group expression and intra-group intercourse. Lack of restrictions on street cars and railroad trains removes irritation of mind and body. The greater attraction of the paved and lighted streets, the parks, playgrounds and water fronts offer allurements to the young folk. Greater access to libraries, moving picture shows, theatres, dance halls, and other means of self-expression set up keen competition with the churches.
The throngs of the present generation have come up through public and private schools which although inadequate have given them a point of view based on modern knowledge. Negro illiteracy has been reduced from 90 to 22 per cent in sixty years. Thousands have been awakened in rural communities through such means as visiting lectures ant the war drives. They are no longer satisified with the older types of church service. These must therefore be pitched upon a plane of intelligence with an emotional appeal which holds its own in competition with those other channels of knowledge and emotional enthusiasm.
Nearly all the Harlem churches are led by men who sense this situation. Athletic and social clubs for young people are promoted. Musical and literary organizations which meet both on weekdays and Sundays attract large numbers. The Sunday afternoon Iyccum or forum is on the program of many churches. Week day religious instruction and vacation Bible schools have also been fostered. The regular religious services for the adult congregation in most instances are conducted with dignity and order, with intelligent sermons to meet the personal and group problems with which these people wrestle. These church forces have been the principal power against the evils of the district which are always present.
The Negro churches of Harlem are visible evidence of the struggle of an aspiring people to express the best of life within them. Either in structures purchased from white congregations or in those they themselves build, they are organizing and developing personnel and membership to conserve the spiritual and ethical values of the race. They are struggling, often against great odds, to provide an avenue of self-expression to a people that is seeking to serve and to walk humbly with God.