Black Churches in America
Photo Essay
Despite the large number of African slaves that began to arrive in America in the sixteenth century, the institution of slavery and the many differences between blacks and whites meant that few of the earliest African Americans belonged to Christian churches. This began to change over the course of the eighteenth century, as the religious enthusiasm of the First and Second Great Awakenings swept through the America, carrying with it an air of egalitarianism and the idea that both blacks and whites could achieve personal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Religious revivals, the infectious power of the conversion experience, and white churches' growing acceptance of a more relaxed style of worship that included clapping and shouting led a growing number of blacks to join Methodist, Baptist, and other congregations as the century drew to a close. However, even as black church membership began to grow, racial prejudice and the practice of segregation drove many African Americans to establish their own churches where they could worship free of discrimination.
Today religion plays an important role in the lives of millions of African Americans, black men and women serve in positions of leadership in an array of different denominations, and churches are a powerful force for unity and progress in the black community. Black churches have served as sources of leadership and uplift since the time of slavery, through the trials of Jim Crow and the struggle for civil rights, up to the present day. Whether helping to encourage education, to foster economic growth and urban renewal, or to fight for equal rights in a society that can be unfair and cruel, black churches remain a crucial part of the African American experience.
Featured Articles
The following articles have been selected to help guide readers who want to learn more about African American religion and about black churches in America. ((Access to the following articles is available only to subscribers.)
Subject Entries
- African American Religion
- African Methodist Episcopal Church
- African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
- African Religions: An Interpretation
- American Missionary Association
- Baptists
- Baptists and African Americans
- Baptism
- Black Church
- Black Church, The
- Black Catholic Women
- Black Catholic Women Religious
- Catholic Church and African Americans
- Catholic Church in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Christianity: Missionaries in Africa
- Church of God in Christ
- Methodist Church
- Methodist Episcopal Church
- Missionary Movements
- Pentecostalism
- Pentecostal Church in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Protestant Churches, Black, and Women
- Religion
- Religions, African and Afro-Caribbean, in the United States
- Religious Communities and Practices
- Religion and Slavery
- Religion and Women
- Representations of Afro-Diasporic Religions in Cinema
- Slave Religion
- Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
- Venezuelan Religion, African Elements in
- Vodou
- Women in the Black Baptist Church
Biographies
- Abernathy, Ralph
- Allen, Richard
- Boothe, Charles Octavius
- Brawley, Edward McKnight
- Brooks, Walter Henderson
- Brown, Morris
- Burgess, John Melville
- Cain, Richard Harvey
- DeBaptiste, Richard
- Fuller, Thomas Oscar
- Gregory, Wilton
- Harris, Barbara
- Hood, James Walker
- Jones, Absalom
- Kelly, Leontine
- Lee, Jarena
- Liele, George
- Marshall, Andrew Cox
- Mason, Charles Harrison
- Paul, Thomas
- Payne, Daniel Alexander
- Perry, Rufus Lewis
- Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.
- Quinn, William Paul
- Rudd, Daniel
- Spencer, Peter
- Tanner, Benjamin Tucker
- Taylor, Gardner Calvin
- Thompson, Joseph Pascal
- Tolton, Augustus
- Walls, William Jacob
- White, George
