We saw when considering the Black Metropolis that job and housing discrimination, while terribly damaging to the black migrants, forced them into a critical mass that fostered a spirit of community, and enabled cultural and political victories that would otherwise have been much more difficult to achieve. There was no “White Metropolis.” Class differences were more deeply felt among whites, and diminished the sense of unity that black migrants shared, and while the cultural and political impact of white southerners was by no means trivial (especially later in the period) it was watered down by the fact the it was much easier for whites to blend into the larger culture than it was for blacks. Whites didn’t have to stick together, so they didn’t.
These differences in community-building were reflected in the two groups’ church-building as well. As Gregory writes, religion was “something of a synecdoche for the larger story of the Southern Diaspora.” (p. 198). And this is true even though there were many similarities in the religious impacts of the southern migrants on the northern churches they joined or established: both white and black churches in the north reflected a new pluralism in worship as the number of sects and denominations multiplied, and this pluralism mostly represented a resurgence of evangelical beliefs.
It amounted to a “southernization” of the northern religious establishment.
The important differences were in the churches’ secular effects: black churches served as gateway institutions for the Phase I migrants, helping out with housing, jobs and social services. Later they became a powerful moral force for black political empowerment and a major factor in both the northern and southern civil rights movements. White churches, especially early in the period, were less politically engaged, and stood for social and political conservatism, especially after the 1925 Scopes Trial ended in a defeat for fundamentalism’s reputation.
After you’ve read about these similarities and differences in Gregory’s text, we’re going to hear them in excerpts from sermons by both white and black preachers. Leading off is Rev. C. L. Franklin the most widely known black preacher of his era: his Sunday night radio show was heard nationwide, and he toured the country with a musical revue, performing his best-loved sermons at stops along the way.Perhaps the best known of all C. L. Franklin’s sermons is “Dry Bones.” Gregory gives us a bit of background on it on p. 202, and we’ll hear the last ten minutes or so, when Franklin really gets going. The text is drawn from Ezekiel Chapter 37.
Gregory puts J. Frank Norris forward as Franklin’s white counterpart, and the contrast between them could not be clearer. Norris was an attacker, slashing away at sin (especially the sin of drunkenness) wherever he found it. He performed to an audience, while Franklin and the best black preachers collaborated with their congregations. Both were politically active: Norris’s unending crusade against “modernism” took him from his 1928 opposition to the “rum and Romanism” of Al Smith to the post-WWII anti-communism that presaged the rise of the religious right. Franklin, after a reluctant start, became a leader in the civil rights movement, and fought hard for equal rights and opportunity, not only in Detroit, but nationwide. We’ll hear a few minutes of Norris, more than enough to get a feel for the great contrast between his style and Franklin’s. The two political strains they represent developed, on the white side, into the working class populism of George Wallace and finally into the religious right. Meanwhile, the civil rights movement that culminated with the 1964 Civil Rights act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act owed much to religious leadership. The tensions between the two were centrally important to the American politics of the late 20th century.
Two more sermon excerpts show this political component more explicitly. The Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was not only pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, he was Harlem’s congressman for many years. We’ll see a piece of his famous “what’s in your hands” speech. Finally we’ll hear a bit of the young Dr. Billy Graham, filmed at his Los Angeles crusade in 1949. We’ll read more about Dr. Graham next week, in his role of restoring fundamentalism to national prominence.
I’m hoping we’ll have time to hear some of the music on the CD I handed out last week – make a request if you want me to play a particular song – or to see a video or two.
Our only outside reading this week is the Darden chapter. Darden is not the most exciting of prose stylists, but he has three remarkable women to tell about, and their stories shine through.
The video is a musical setting of a selection of photographs by Dorothea Lange. These aren’t the ones you’re used to seeing: her subjects here are southern blacks. She took these during the 1930s, throughout the south. No doubt many of those who posed here for Lange later ended up in the Black Metropolis. Looking at Bronzeville or Paradise valley next to these southern backgrounds gives us an idea of the changes these folks went through. The background music is Blind Willie Johnson and Willie B. Harris. See you on Wednesday!